Standup comics all over TBS

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on March 13th, 2007

TBS is frantically trying to corner the comedy market, greenlighting series either starring or exec-produced by comedians. They’ve announced new shows that will involve, in one way or another, Bob Newhart, Jamie Foxx, Bill Engvall or Larry Miller.

Miller is executive-producing and starring in Uncommon Sense, a half-hour scripted comedy about a newspaper columnist in suburbia with a wife and two kids. The show, from Sony Pictures Television and currently in development, is co-written and executive-produced by Miller and Eileen Conn (Just Shoot Me).

Engvall’s sitcom will debut this summer and Jim Gaffigan‘s My Boys has been renewed.

TBS/TNT suit Michael Wright says:

Our original programming strategy is to entertain the fans of Friends, Sex and the City and Everybody Loves Raymond, viewers who are looking for humor based on smartly drawn, relatable characters and good storytelling full of clever, contemporary humor.

Apparently, Mr. Wright isn’t buying all that nonsense about the sitcom being dead. (As the Female Half says, “The sitcom is dead for just about as long as the Evil Twin is dead on your favorite soap opera.”)

Word on the street in Los Angeles is that the most buzz during Pilot Season is being generated by the signing of Talent From Broadway! Good idea! That Christian Chenowith series is in its sixth or seventh season by now, isn’t it? Has raiding Broadway ever EVER resulted in anything other than ratings pewter?

Meanwhile, TBS is hiring 40-year-old plus comedians and building sitcoms around them. Let’s see who, quite literally, has the last laugh.

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