What? A Sitcom About a Bachelor Who Raises a 9 Year-Old Girl? How Original!

We won’t even talk about the Child Welfare repercussions. (Wonder if the show will.)

Tad Quill

Tad Quill/David Walton’s Firefighter Comedy Lands At CBS With Put Pilot Commitment – by Nellie Andreeva

EXCLUSIVE: In a competitive situation, CBS has nabbed a single-camera comedy written by Tad Quill and starring David Walton. The project, from Sony Pictures TV and studio-based Happy Madison, centers on a bachelor firefighter (Walton) who has to make the ultimate sacrifice of taking care of someone other than himself when a 9-year-old girl enters his life. Quill is executive producing with Happy Maddison’s Doug Robinson, with Walton serving as producer. read article

The 1% Makes Itself Felt At Disney/Marvel

The Economic Wars continue even though BigMedia doesn’t want to phrase it that way. (You didn’t know TVWriter™ was so wonderfully radical, did you?)

Ike Pearlmutter, today’s villain, in a 25+ year old pic (cuz he doesn’t want anybody to be able to I.D. him? Suspicious, no?)

Disney And Marvel Do Damage Control After Media Scrutiny Of Big Boss Ike Perlmutter – by Nikki Finke

EXCLUSIVE… UPDATE: Sources now tell me that all three female executives in employments disputes with the Walt Disney Co have settled – including one today. This is many months after the women lost their jobs in a Department Of Consumer Products reorganization set in motion nearly a year ago by Marvel boss Ike Perlmutter who is Disney’s 2nd largest shareholder. Former DCP head of fashion and home products Pam Lifford, former chief financial officer Anne Gates, and former DCP HR  exec Susan Cole Hill were all represented by the same attorney with  the Pasadena law firm Hadsell, Stormer, Keeny, Richardson and Rennick which has sued Disney in other employee rights cases. According to my sources, the three women, who are all African Americans, referred to themselves as “The Help” – a reference to last summer’s hit DreamWorks movie distributed by Disney and set during the civil rights movement about black maids in Mississippi. read article

Another NBC Comedy Buy?

This comedy buying spree is getting funny. Probably funnier than NBC’s sitcom lineup for next season will ever be. Wonder where all that development $$ is coming from. Did they save it during the Jeff Zucker days?

NBC Buys Single-Camera Comedy From Jerry Bruckheimer Television – by Nellie Andreeva (Deadline.Com)

NBC has put in development The B-Side, a single-camera comedy from Jerry Bruckheimer Television and writer Sheri Elwood, creator of the Canadian comedy series Call Me Fitz. The project, which has received a script commitment, centers on a thirty-something woman in a divorce-triggered life meltdown who reunites with her best friends from high school. Elwood is writing the script and will executive produce with Jerry Bruckheimer and Jonathan Littman for Jerry Bruckheimer TV and Warner Bros. TV. KristieAnne Reed will co-executive produce. read article

Comedy is Hot in TV These Days so Say Hi to Funny Cops

But will they be as funny as the gang on BARNEY MILLER? Or as real? (Or doesn’t real count anymore?)

Cop Comedy from Michael Schur & Dan Goor Sparks Bidding – by Nellie Andreeva

There is a heatwave in Hollywood these days, and it’s not just the scorching temperatures outside. After a sluggish start of the buying season, comedies are getting red-hot with another bidding war. A pitch from the Parks & Recreationduo of co-creator/exec producer/showrunner Michael Schur and co-executive producer Dan Goor was just taken out to the four major broadcast networks, and all are pursuing it. The untitled project, which Schur and Goor will co-write together, is a single-camera comedy about a diverse group of detectives in a precinct at the very edge of New York City. Schur and Goor are executive producing for Universal Television. I hear the NBC-affiliated studio made a strategic decision to take the pitch out wide. It recently did the same with a Jason Katims/Sarah Watson medical drama, which landed at Fox after fielding interest from multiple networks. read article

Every Series Has a Writing/Producing Learning Curve: BOSS, For example

Farhad Safinia, creator/executive producer of BOSS, and some guy named Kelsey Grammer talk about what they’re learning. And as writers we find it…impressive:

‘Boss’ Season 2: Kelsey Grammer, Farhad Safinia on Exploring ‘Original Sin – by Lesley Goldberg read article