Fox is betting big on Ted’s Seth MacFarlane, Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild, offering the trio a six-episode straight to series order for their live-action comedy, Dads. The network on Tuesday handed out pilot orders to Andrew Gurland's House Rules, Bill Lawrence's I Suck at Girls adaptation, Jane Tranter's Friends & Family and an assistant comedy from two former Friends producers,
MacFarlane's Dads live-action entry comes on the heels of summer blockbuster Ted, which was co-written by the trio. Their multicamera effort centers on two successful guys in their 30s who have their lives turned upside down when their nightmare dads unexpectedly move in with them.
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The series is set up at 20th Television, where Oscar host MacFarlane is under a lucrative overall deal that has produced such animated efforts as Family Guy and American Dad. Sulkin and Wild have been involved with Family Guy since 2005. MacFarlane, Sulkin and Wild are all repped by WME.
House Rules hails from writers Gurland (The Last Exorcism Part II) and Justin Hurwitz (FX's The League) and revolves around a family of "Larry Davids" that has contempt for all things normal. They try their best to fit into their small Midwest town where everyone knows each other and politeness reigns.
The single-camera comedy is produced by 20th Television and Principato-Young. Gurland is repped by WME, Principato-Young and Stone Meyer; Hurwitz is with WME and Principato-Young.
For its part, To My Assistant is a single-camera comedy revolving around assistants who band together at a big New York law firm to help each other cope with the obnoxious, overbearing bosses who test their sanity on a daily basis.
Friends producers Sherry Bilsing (I Hate My Teenage Daughter, New Adventures of Old Christine) and Ellen Plummer (Veronica's Closet) will pen the Warner Bros. Television and Lin Pictures pilot and executive produce alongside Dan Lin and Jen Gwartz.
Cougar Town's Lawrence will executive produce an adaptation of S#*! My Dad Says author Justin Halpern's book I Suck at Girls. Halpern and his Dad Says cohort Patrick Schumacker will pen the script for the single-camera comedy from Warner Bros. Television and Doozer Productions. Jeff Ingold will exec produce.
I Suck at Girls is described as a story about a boy becoming a man, and a man becoming a father in a time before coming of age was something you could look up on Google.
Friends & Family, which is based on the hit BBC series Gavin & Stacey, centers on two very different lovers who meet and try to make a long distance relationship work. Friends and family prove to be both the best support and the worst nightmare.
The half-hour, single-camera comedy counts BBC Worldwide Productions’ Tranter and Julie Gardner as executive producers alongside Baby Cow Prods.’ James Corden, Ruth Jones and Henry Normal. I Just Want My Pants Back’s David Rosen is set to write and EP the project, which is set up at Sony Pictures Television.
The pilot orders join the untitled Dan Goor/Mike Schur comedy at the network.
