Chuck Lorre sells CBS on the comedic premise of single mothers

By Sean O'Neal | December 11, 2012 | 11:16pm

Aux Features TV

Though he has seen his greatest success of late mining humor from being a nerd (The Big Bang Theory), being fat (Mike And Molly), and having a penis (Two And A Half Men), Chuck Lorre got his start in the exciting start-up industry of single mother jokes—jokes that hit their mid-'90s boom with his work on Grace Under Fire and Cybill, and were instrumental in loosening social attitudes toward laughing at divorced moms, rather than drowning them in burlap sacks. Now Lorre is ready to return to those roots with a new multi-camera sitcom for CBS—one that's already being called "a top prospect for the network’s fall 2013 schedule" for reasons self-evident in its title, which is simply, indelibly Mom. ("I think a lot of moms will see themselves in this!" a CBS executive no doubt exclaimed to Lorre, their heads dizzy with all the Mom-branded sweatshirt, coffee mug, and, uh, child-holder-thing opportunities it could create.)

Of course, the pithy, perfectly succinct title is merely a smokescreen for Mom's narrative complexity, which concerns a "newly sober" single mom who's just trying to get her life together—in Napa Valley, where all the wine ironically is. After explaining this comedic twist to the network, while also reminding them that he already basically made this show—with Grace Under Fire's "newly sober single mom trying to pull her life together" premise meeting the wine-drinking, California socialite tartness of Cybill—CBS was thus reassured that Lorre isn't trying to pull off anything creative here, leaving them confident that Mom will also be a huge success.