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SPOILER ALERT! NBC’s ‘The Office’ Finale 
EXCLUSIVE: An empty nesters comedy from ‘Til Death creators Cathy Yuspa and Josh Goldsmith has landed at CBS. Titled Free, the multi-camera comedy centers on a married couple who explore their freedom and start to have fun and live their life when they drop their kids off at college. The husband-and-wife writing duo are writing-executive producing the project, which has received a script commitment. Sony Pictures TV, where Yuspa and Goldsmith are based with an overall deal, is producing. This is Yuspa and Goldsmith’s second project this development season. They are also writing My Life As an Experiment, a single-camera comedy for NBC based on the best-selling non-fiction book by A.J. Jacobs. The project, which they are executive producing with Jack Black, received a seven-figure penalty. Yuspa and Goldsmith have been in a similar situation before. Five years ago, they also set two projects, a multi-camera comedy involving empty nesters, ‘Til Death, and a single-camera comedy, Big Day. Both went to series at Fox and ABC, respectively. Free brings ICM-repped Yuspa and Goldsmith back at CBS where they worked on the long-running sitcom The King of Queens for 8 years, including serving as executive producers/showrunners. They also penned the half-hour pilot The Fish Talk for the network 2 seasons ago.
TV Editor Nellie Andreeva - tip her here.
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I applaud CBS for the courage to ignore the 18-49 demographic and continue to target older audiences.
Is anyone ever going to buy a multi-cam from someone who hasn’t done multi-cams before and therefore doesn’t know all the tired jokes that nearly killed sitcoms in the ’00s? It seems like everyone just wants to run to the same old multi-cam people, instead of trying to shake things up.
Some of the best multi-cams of the ’90s were by people with little multi-cam sitcom experience, like Larry David, or the Friends creators (who had done the single-cam “Dream On” first) or “NewsRadio.” But now it seems the networks want to order multis from the same small group of people even when – as with the Kohan/Mutchnick team for example – they clearly have no idea what they’re doing.
This isn’t ragging on Yuspa/Goldsmith who at least did good work when they were working on “King of Queens,” but if there’s one genre that needs new blood it’s the multi-cam. Networks should start coaxing (or forcing) some single-cam people to try their hand at seeing whether their jokes can make an audience laugh. That’s why “Seinfeld” was so good: Larry David had never done a multi-cam sitcom before, he didn’t know the rules, so he broke them and proved his kind of humor could make a real audience laugh.
In addition to Yuspa/Goldsmith, I think a hearty congrats is in order for their charming assistant. His phone demeanor and sense of style are second to none. Congrats, Alex!
Well put, Alex… I mean “Anonymous.”
Great to see two of the nicest and most professional people in this town continue to achieve much deserved success.
They truly are the King of Queens at selling super shlocky sit-coms.
Can’t imagine for the life of me how their NBC pilot got a seven figure penalty.
If possible, this sounds even worse. Maybe as an HBO show, where empty nesters go wild, but the CBS multi-cam version of that is…well, it’s Til Death. We already saw it and we already hated it.
Congrats to Yuspa, from one fellow Cardinal to another.
Great to see artists successful in the small box (“King of Queens”) and the Big Screen too (“What Women Want”)
Good luck in the future, guys.
Great first post, Alex! Your “phone demeanor” is surely what got their idea sold.
Like a terrible joke without a punchline, they just keep on rolling along, raking it in and driving a stake deeper and deeper into the sitcom’s heart.
First I want to offer my condolences that Fox toyed with your scheduling.I also thought the way you transioned between two actresses playing Eddy and Joy’s daughter.I’m really looking forward to future Goldsmith/Hispanic programs!