Fox TV continues to add content from black creatives to its upcoming slate, today ordering a new half-hour comedy from creators Ralph Farquhar (“Real Husbands of Hollywood,” “Moesha”) and Ty Hodges (“A Girl Like Grace”), titled “Famous,” which will debut Sunday, June 12 (9-9:30 PM ET/PT) on the network.
A 10-episode season of the new series will follow a young couple whose relationship is tested when one of them skyrockets to stardom virtually overnight.
Filmed in mock-documentary style at a “couples” therapy session, “Famous” features dating high school teachers Fred and Geneva, both of whom secretly aspire to work in Hollywood. He wants to be a screenwriter and she envisions stardom as a pop diva. One of those dreams miraculously comes true when Geneva lands a record deal after her first music video goes viral and logs millions of views. As she rises to stardom, he feels pushed to the sidelines. Can this couple survive or will they discover that being famous and in love makes for a complicated threesome?
Additional details, including casting, will be announced shortly.
“Famous” is produced by 20th Century Fox Television. Ralph Farquhar and Ty Hodges are co-creators and writers. Farquhar serves as executive producer and Hodges is a supervising producer.
Source: Shadow & Act
Ayesha Curry is heading to a TV near you.
According to reports, wife of Golden State Warriors star Steph Curry will get her own cooking show on Food Network, tentatively titled At Home with Ayesha.
The mom of two, who already has her own lifestyle blog, will be part of a new push to reach younger audiences through kids and celebrities. She also had a show called Cookin’ with the Currys through CSN Bay Area, so Ayesha is more than qualified for the big cooking leagues.
Although not many details have been released about the big announcement, such as the air date, who else is excited for potential Riley Curry cameos?
Source: Global Grind
Bad Boys 3 is just a little over a year away. But it doesn’t sound like any progress has been made on the long-anticipated sequel since Sony moved it out of the February 17, 2017 release window, bumping it into summer of next year. By all accounts, the movie should be heading into production soon. But perhaps there is another delay in the cards? Producer Jerry Bruckheimer gave a quick update on the movie this weekend while being honored at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. And it doesn’t sound too promising.
While most assumed that Bad Boys 3 would start production in the second half of 2016, Will Smith is set to start shooting Bright later this year. A cop thriller that revolves orcs and fairies, this fantasy adventure reunites Will Smith with his Suicide Squad director David Ayer. And it is said that Warner Bros. is eager to get Suicide Squad 2 into production fast. So we’re not even sure when Will Smith will be able to find the time to shoot Bad Boys 3.
In February, Will Smith’s schedule was open, and Bad Boys 3 seemed like his next obvious choice as an actor, but that has obviously changed. The movie is set to hit on June 2, 2017. And we haven’t heard that Sony is looking to push this any further out. Especially since they just set this date last month. But from the sounds of it, Bad Boys 3 could be delayed even longer.
During a radio interview with BBC Radio 1Xtra back in February, Will Smith confirmed that both he and Martin Lawrence will be back asMike Lowry and Marcus Burnett in Bad Boys 3. At the time, Will Smith seemed quite excited about returning for this action thriller. He had this to say about reuniting with his co-star.
The sequel had been in development for several years, but a report from last year claimed that Will Smith hadn’t signed on yet. And while he may produce the sequel, there was no guarantee that he would come back to star. It still isn’t known if both Will Smith and Martin Lawrencehave officially signed on, as the studio has never announced such a thing. But this long-awaited sequel is closer to happening than it has ever been in the past decade. It isn’t known if any other franchise stars such as Gabrielle Union, Theresa Randle and Joe Pantoliano will return.
Another big question mark for Bad Boys 3 is whether or not Michael Bay will be involved in any way. 1995’s Bad Boys marked the filmmaker’s directorial debut, and he came back eight years later to direct the follow-up Bad Boys II. Joe Carnahan is taking over as director, and it sounds like he hasn’t finished working on the script yet. Are you looking forward to Will Smith and Martin Lawrence returning for Bad Boys 3? Chime in with your thoughts below. Is this one long-anticipated sequel that we’ll really see next year? Or will it be delayed again?
Source: Movieweb
On this day in comedy on March 22, 1988 Frank’s Place aired its last episode on CBS
TV Guide ranked this comedy-drama as #3 on the list of shows that were “Cancelled Too Soon” and the public agreed. Premiering September 14, 1987, this brainchild of CBS executive, Gregg Maday based loosely on his childhood experiences, Frank’s Place starred Tim Reid as Frank Parrish, a well-off Brown University professor who inherits his family’s New Orleans restaurant. It’s his intent to sell it, but when Frank goes back to Louisiana to make the deal the resident chef puts a spell put on him. Next thing Frank knows, his life in Rhode Island has gone down the tubes and with few options, he returns to New Orleans, rolls up his sleeves and gets to work learning how to run a restaurant. He also picks up some life lessons from the locals on black heritage, culture and class system.
Created by Hugh Wilson and executive produced by Wilson and Reid, Frank’s Place co-starred Daphne Maxwell Reid, Tony Burton, Virginia Capers, Charles Lampkin, Robert Harper and Lincoln Kilpatrick. The show was filmed on single camera format and used no laugh track (a rarity for televised comedies).
Frank’s Place was cancelled and aired its last episode on March 22, 1988. It got the last laugh, though. The short-lived series was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series and a Golden Globe for Best Television Series. It won an Emmys for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series (Hugh Wilson), Outstanding Sound Mixing and Outstanding Guest Performer (Beah Richards). It was also awarded the Humanitas Prize, The NAACP Image Award and the Viewers for Quality Television Award for Best Actor (Tim Reid) as well as the Television Critics Association Award for Outstanding Achievement in Comedy. Ha!
By Darryl “D’Militant” Littleton
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On this day in comedy on March 21, 1971 The Bill Cosby Show aired its series finale on NBC.
Premiering on September 14, 1969, The Bill Cosby Show was the first time an African-American starred in a self-titled sitcom. It was also the first time Cosby worked on TV alone. He’d made his breakthrough in the ground breaking action series, I Spy, co-starring alongside Robert Culp. The Bill Cosby Show was also unique because it did not employ the use of a laugh track. Cosby felt the home audience was smart enough to know where the jokes were and didn’t need the producers to give them blatant hints. Risky, for prior to this, it had been awhile since 1950s shows such as The Trouble with Father and The Beulah Show had tried the no frills formula.
The Bill Cosby Show shot for realism. The series focused on the life of Cosby’s character, Chet Kincaid, a high school PE instructor in Los Angeles, California. Chet’s a bachelor with an eye for the ladies, but who still manages to help people out who he’s not trying to date. The episodes dealt with broader lessons and not just quick solutions to challenges. Being in a high school allowed the writers to delve into universally relatable situations. Cosby would often find himself moderating disputes between teachers and students, students and students and of course teachers and teachers.
Cosby himself drew in little known veteran talents as well as legendary super-stars. During its two season run, The Bill Cosby Show featured the likes of Moms Mabley and Mantan Moreland (as Cosby’s aunt and uncle), Rex Ingram, Lillian Randolph (as Cosby’s mother), Henry Fonda, Don Knotts, Dick Van Dyke, DeWayne Jessie, John Marley, Elsa Lanchester, Cicely Tyson, Tom Bosley, Wally Cox, Antonio Fargas, Isabel Sanford, Mike Farrell and Lou Gossett.
The show’s theme song, “Hikky Burr” was written by Quincy Jones and Cosby and “sung” by the latter. Though no critical darling, viewers loved it, keeping the sitcom ranked high in the Nielsen ratings week after week.
By Darryl “D’Militant” Littleton
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On this day in comedy on March 20, 1987, Hollywood Shuffle was released by The Samuel Goldwyn Company.
Produced, directed, and co-written by Robert Townsend, this film is a satirical attack on Hollywood’s systematic stereotyping of blacks in the media. Townsend financed the indie with his own credit cards and used the storyline of a struggling black actor interspersed with vignettes to illustrate his point. There’s scenes of slavery, popular films, movie reviewers and more as Townsend’s character’s imagination lets us in on his conflict in being an underused and often degraded minority in the world of entertainment.
Hollywood Shuffle is about Bobby Taylor (Townsend) having to decide to take a cooning part in a black gang film. His grandmother is against it. His mother supports him, but she is also against cooning. His co-workers and boss couldn’t care less if he coons or not. They don’t think he’ll ever make it as an actor anyway and he needs to keep his mind on his job at Winky Dinky Dog. They’re wrong. He gets the coveted role and finds out he can’t do it. It’s too much cooning. So he takes his grandmother’s advice and gets a job working for the post office. He does a commercial for USPS.
This comedy classic was co-written by Keenan Ivory Wayans and co-produced by Dom Irrera, Hollywood Shuffle features Anne-Marie Johnson, John Witherspoon, Brad Sanders, Helen Martin, Eugene Robert Glazer and Paul Mooney.
The film was a critical and box office success. It won the 1987 Deauville Film Festival Grand Special Prize Critics Award and Coup de Coeur LTC Award for Robert Townsend and made $5,228,617 on a $100,000 budget.
BY Darryl “D’Militant” Littleton
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Several weeks ago we sat down with Deon Cole when he was in Boston to discuss his new special, the new Barbershop film and the recurring role on Black-ish. Word has now come down from Comedy Central that his new special will be broadcast and its titled Deon Cole: Cole Blooded Seminar.
The new special is Executive produced by Cole, Kirsten Ames and Pupcake Prodcutions’ Neal Marshall. JoAnn Grigioni is the Executive in Charge of Production for Comedy Central.
See our interview with Cole below where he talks about the special;
With years under its belt of running programs featuring everyone from Bill Maher to Dave Chapelle, Comedy Central has long had a distinctive voice. But it never got to make itself heard in a dynamic way each year when TV networks make an annual pitch to Madison Avenue.
That will all change this evening, when the Viacom-owned outlet puts on the first standalone upfront presentation in the nearly quarter-century since Time Warner’s Comedy Channel and Viacom’s HA! merged to form the network as it is known today. In a show that is expected to feature many of its most popular stars, like Amy Schumer, Trevor Noah and Larry Wilmore, Comedy Central intends to make the case that it attracts the younger consumers advertisers say they crave and that its executives are working diligently to move with those viewers as they place more emphasis on mobile devices and streaming video.
“We are everywhere viewers are. We have more content on more screens than other competitors,” said Michele Ganeless, the network’s president, in an interview. “And we are still the best place to get younger guys.”
This week Comedy Central has unveiled a broad slate of short-form programs devised for Snapchat; extended a series order for a lusty program featuring comedienne Nikki Glaser; and renewed popular shows like “Tosh.0” and “Drunk History.” Now it is announcing pick-ups of two new series featuring popular comic Kevin Hart; a comedy-competition series that has comics go head to head in a “roast battle”; and a broad series of specials. The network intends to develop a series of what it calls “comedy documentaries” that will tap comedians, writers, producers and directors to tell specific stories of personal relevance. Each effort will have a distinctive look and sensibility.
The network faces one of the more singular challenges in the TV business. It has launched a series of buzzy programs like Chris Hardwick’s “@midnight” and minted new stars, most notably Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson of “Broad City.” At the same time, the audience to which it caters is growing increasingly comfortable with new ways of consuming video that aren’t always readily monetized. Quarter to date as of March 20, the network’s primetime viewership among audiences between 18 and 49 is down more than 10%, according to research by Todd Juenger, a media-industry analyst at Bernstein Research. And TV-ad sales have fallen in 2014 and 2015, according to data from market-research firm SNL Kagan.
Executives say the network has made significant strides in new arenas. TV ratings for its flagship “Daily Show,” where Trevor Noah has replaced Jon Stewart, have flagged, but Ganeless noted each episode of the show is streamed in full 650,000 times via the network’s mobile app, Hulu and other venues. “We are trying to grow an audience on all screens all of the time, and we are successful in many ways,” said Ganeless.
The network is pleased with the show under Noah, said Ganeless and Kent Alterman, president of original programming at the network, and believe he is gaining new viewers through nontraditional means – viewers who happen to be younger on average than the audience for Stewart. What’s more, said Alterman, Noah is capturing attention overseas, and cultivating audience in 170 different countries.
While Comedy Central continues to develop series with new talent, said Alterman, it is also cultivating special programs from popular comics interested in producing. Amy Poehler is a producer of “Broad City,” and the network has secured production deals for projects from projects from Amy Schumer, Chris Hardwick, Channing Tatum, Olivia Wilde, Jack Black, Eva Longoria, Ed Helms, Melissa McCarthy and Ben Falcone, along with Abominable Pictures, Above Average, Funny Or Die, Gloria Sanchez Productions, and Serious Business, among others. “They’ve been coming to us because of the credibility we’ve built up,” Alterman said.
Comedy Central’s new programs include the following:
“Kevin Hart Presents: Hart of the City,” an eight-episode series that follows Kevin Hart as he explores local comedy scenes in cities such as Philadelphia. Atlanta, Houston, Birmingham and Sacramento. The show is produced by Hart’s Hartbeat Productions , and is exec produced by Hart, Dave Becky of 3 Arts Entertainment, Leland “Pookey” Wigington and Michele Armour, Jonas Larsen and JoAnn Grigioni are the executives in charge for Comedy Central.
“Untitled Kevin Hart Stand-Up Series” features six half-hour episodes of stand-up in which Kevin Hart will spotlight one up-and-coming comedian each episode. Produced by Hartbeat Productions and executive produced by Hart, Dave Becky of 3 Arts Entertainment and Leland “Pookey” Wigington. Jonas Larsen and JoAnn Grigioni are the executives in charge of production for Comedy Central.
“Jeff Ross Presents Roast Battle” is a new competition comedy special in which comedians go head-to-head, led by Ross and referee/comedian, Brian Moses. Two comics in each round face off, roast each other and a winner is declared by a celebrity panel of judges. The show is exec produced by Ross, Joel Gallen, Amy Zvi, Willie Mercer, Moses and Rell Battle. Jonas Larsen, Christian McLaughlin, Jordan Ellner and Ryan Moran are the executives in charge of production for Comedy Central. Ross will also have a special, “Jeff Ross Roasts the Police.”
Comedy Central will air new stand-up specials from Kurt Braunohler, Deon Cole, Pete Davidson, Joe DeRosa, Trevor Moore, Big Jay Oakerson, Dan Soder and the Goddamn Comedy Jam.
Source: Variety