Having already cast Kal Penn in Battle Creek, his upcoming detective show for CBS, series creators Vince Gilligan (Breaking Bad) and David Shore (House) are adding several more key elements: Shore’s House collaborator Bryan Singer to direct the pilot, a partner for Penn’s police detective, and silly names for its lead characters.
Damon Herriman, best known as Dewey Crowe on FX’s Justified, will play that partner. He seems to be the good cop to Penn’s bad, as he’s described as a “nice guy and office on the Battle Creek Police Department,” and the show has been described as the story of two detectives with clashing personalities.
For reasons known only to Gilligan and Shore, Herriman’s investigator will be named Detective Niblet, while Penn’s lawman is Detective Funkhauser. (Rejected names include Zingelbert Bembledack, Biggus Dickus, Adele Dazeem, Hugh Jass, Chareth Cutestory, and Benedict Cumberbatch.)
Perhaps the two detectives got to be hardened crimefighters after being toughened up with years of playground insults. Or maybe Gilligan himself got teased as a child and wants to pay it forward. In any case, stay tuned to CBS this fall, when crime has a new enemy: the team of Funkhauser and Niblet! Or stay tuned for the announcement that Gilligan and Shore just came up with these names to see how many people they could fool.