FX picks up a pilot from Zach Galifianakis and Louis C.K., another from Charlie Kaufman, Michael Cera, and John Hawkes

By Sean O'Neal  |  January 14, 2014 | 6:11pm
Aux Features TV

That recent deal granting Louis C.K. the right to bring pretty much any funny person through the FX door and give them a show has yielded its first pilot order. The network announced today that it’s picked up an original comedy from Zach Galifianakis, who will star in a new show co-written and executive produced by C.K.—though those are all the details on hand. What format the show will take, what it will be about, and where it will fit into the busy schedules of both men are all details that have yet to be announced or possibly even figured out, as the mere announcement of a new FX show from Louis C.K. and Zach Galifianakis is understandably enough to stir interest on its own. We can probably rule out aerobics instruction and a show about the crew of a high-tech military helicopter—because they already did that, and it was called Airwolf—but otherwise, it’s all still just an intriguing mystery.

Much easier to follow are the details of Charlie Kaufman’s next project, in one of the few times that statement has been true. FX also announced today that Michael Cera and John Hawkes have both been recruited to star in the Kaufman-scripted pilot How & Why that it ordered to pilot in March, marking the writer’s first return to half-hour comedy since the short-lived Ned & Stacey. Hawkes is set to play the lead role of Goodman Hesselman, host of the How & Why educational show-within-the-show, who loses his passion for explaining how complicated things work, yields his show-within-the-show to a younger host, then moves to a smaller town, where he tries to create a similar, yet significantly less popular, parallel-show-to-the-show-within-the-show.

According to Deadline, Hawkes’ character then also “encounters the supernatural world,” which is, indeed, its own show-surrounding-the-parallel-show-to-the-show-within-the-show. Cera will play Hawkes’ boss at his new studio, in his first regular series role since Arrested Development (unless you count his Children’s Hospital voiceover cameos). You will play the viewer watching the show-surrounding-the-parallel-show-to-the-show-within-the-show, which is really just an interlude to the show you star in that is your very life.

 
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