NBC developing comedies about the White House and the hilarious differences between Muslims and Jews
Along with developing shows predicated on the idea that viewers want sitcoms based around Snoop Dogg and Dane Cook, NBC is also going high concept with two other just-purchased shows. The network has just ordered a pilot for 1600 Penn to be scripted by Jon Lovett, a former Obama speechwriter who will put his experience in misdirection to work in a single-camera comedy about “a dysfunctional family that just happens to live at the most famous address in America.” So it’s like a politically minded Arrested Development—or Modern Family maybe, whose Jason Winer will direct—meets Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s That’s My Bush, and to continue the tangential connection to South Park, Book Of Mormon star Josh Gad is attached as co-creator and executive producer. Gad and Winer reportedly came up with the concept while “bouncing around series ideas,” probably because, like so many of us, they didn’t want to admit how many times they’ve seen that Sinbad movie, First Kid. (Hey, Sinbad is dressed appropriately for that black-tie affair—he’s black and he’s wearing a tie! Classic.)
While potentially weakening the nation with its suggestion that our politicians are human beings with both faults and feelings, NBC is also hoping to at last unite warring Muslims and Jews with a sitcom that explores how, oy, they’re both totally crazy. Omid Djalili is attached to reprise the lead role in an adaptation of the 2009 British comedy The Infidel, which stars Djalili as a Muslim man who discovers that he was actually adopted from Jewish parents. He then embarks upon a farcical, soul-searching identity crisis that will here be doled out weekly, given nuance and sensitivity by Bruce Almighty and Click writer Mark O’Keefe, and air on the same network that previously explored cultural divides with Outsourced. So with this, ABC’s Will and Jada Pinkett Smith-produced comedy about Dominican-Americans, and CBS’ healing of Mexican-American relations through Rob Schneider, we ought to have the whole world peace thing sewed up by this time next year.