NBC Playground announces first two comedy pilot winners: “Imaginary Friend” and “Sunset PPL”

NBC announced its first winners of its “NBC Playground” development contest to seek out new comedic shows, producers and writers. Kassia Miller’s Imaginary Friend, and Sunset PPL, from Aaron Colom and Adriano Valentini, received pilot orders from the network.

“NBC is excited to bring these innovative new works from such fresh comedic talents to the television audience,” said NBC Entertainment President Jennifer Salke. “The first cycle was a tremendous success and the originality of the ideas and diversity of the new voices that were elicited through this initiative were truly inspiring. We could not have succeeded in finding such an incredible group of aspiring writers had we not had the help of an awesome Advisory Board — a real A-list group of comedy producers, writers and performers who were as eager as we were to find the next comedy superstars.”

Here’s a 15-minute look at Imaginary Friend, billed as “a comedy about an intelligent yet unmotivated woman who discovers an unexpected way of dealing with her disappointing life.” It stars Megan Neuringer!

And here’s Sunset PPL, about “a group of millennial friends struggle with their own made-up rules for personal and professional success.”

Five other entrants in the NBC Playground competition are up for your online votes from now through Sept. 3, to see which of them will earn a green-light as a digital webseries.

They are Wolfgirl (from Melissa Hunter), Stunted (from Jeff Galante), The Bar Mitzvah Club (from Daniel Poliner), Bobby & Iza (from Bobby Richards and Avery Lee), and Broker (from Tyler G. Hall). Go to NBC Playground to watch and vote on your favorites.

And NBC already hired finalist Jaleel Saleem on an actual show, Hot & Bothered. Here was his entry, workplace comedy “Bad Guys.”