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EXCLUSIVE: Latenight queen Chelsea Handler is making a move in primetime with a comedy project based on her books, which, in a competitive situation, landed at NBC with a put pilot commitment. The project titled after one of Handler’s books, Are You There Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea, is described as an autobiographical multi-camera comedy based on Handler’s life in her twenties. It hails from Warner Bros. and Tom Werner’s studio-based Werner Entertainment. Dharma & Greg co-creator Dottie Zicklin and Julie Larson, both with UTA, will write the adaptation. They will executive produce the project with CAA-repped Handler, who won’t be starring, her producing partner at Borderline Amazing Prods. Tom Brunelle and Werner Entertainment’s Werner and Mike Clements. The comedy will be centered on a twentysomething woman named Chelsea who won’t have the same profession as comedian/author Handler but will carry a lot of the traits in her character as depicted in Handler’s 3 best-selling autobiographical books: My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands, Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea and Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang. The compilations of humorous essays about Handler’s everyday life, family, friends and romantic/sexual relationships will also be used as source material for stories in the TV project. Handler, who has hosted Chalsea Lately on NBC’s soon-to-be-corporate sibling E! since 2006, recently signed on to star in and produce After Lately, a half-hour semi-scripted comedy for the channel, which will follow the backstage goings at her latenight talk show. She also just landed a juicy role opposite Reese Witherspoon, Tom Hardy and Chris Pine in the McG-directed feature This Means War. This is Zicklin’s second project to sell in a competitive situation this season. She also sold a comedy spec to Fox.
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Given how crude (albeit entertaining) these books are, why are NBC even bothering? Much better suited for premium cable.
I agree with you that the books are very much for adults, but they are funny. Especially, “Is that you Vodka…” that book is great! Curious to see what NBC comes up with, hopefully, it will not be boring.
Chelsea is the funniest woman alive! Her talk show makes all the others seem irrelevant. Perhaps she can now save the world of network sitcoms!!!! Great move by NBC!!!!
I just don’t get it. What is the appeal of Chelsea Handler? She is not funny and mostly annoying. She’s had 16 different shows on E! — each of them more awful than the other.
i agree with derby, i don’t know why people think she’s funny. I guess if I dated a guy who ran E! I’d get a show too.
Who could she possibly have slept with to get this new project going? She must have spent hours leafing through the NBC-Uni phone book AND her pics from last year’s Comcast holiday party.
Seriously, I was done when I found out she was bedding Ted. Then when that story about her sending her sex tape to comedy club bookers on the back end of some standup footage (not standup sex but standup comedy) and then she broke up with Ted I figured it would be over for her.
Then again, Charlie’s still working.
I know humor is subjective, but if you don’t find Chelsea funny, you clearly have no grasp on the concept of sarcasm.
Chelsea Handler and the creators of Dharma & Greg. Sounds like a real winner!! How’s that for sarcasm?
I do get the concept of sarcasm and still find her unfunny. Her late night show is not funny at all and It’s sloppy. She never gets to the topics they want to discuss at the round table, her jokes are terrible, her timing is terrible. I’s still trying to figure out why people like her too. Maybe it’s cause she has a nice body
Her sex tape was a joke moron! It was a scripted tape made for an audition when she was in her twenties. All of her friends had seen it through the years. JOKE…
Chelsea Handler’s explanation for this tape’s existence is such nonsense. She claimed it was done as a joke to show at birthday parties. Yeah, right… It obviously wasn’t an audition. If you check out the stills on celebrity tabloid websites like Egotastic, then you’ll see the tape’s graphic nature.
Absolutely agree, her current talk show is AWFUL! As soon as she comes on it’s time to turn TV off & go to bed. (Or change the channel). Most of the show is not funny. When I have watched out of curiosity, I am left feeling what a waste of time. I think some people like her because she roots for the underdog! (Chuey) which is good she gave him a presence on her show. Actually, I think Chuey’s deadpan humor is far better than Chelseys celebrity bashing sarcasm which is BORRRRRING! HE should get HIS own show!!! When the clips are Chelsea AND Chuey they are sort of funny. And for most of Chelsea’s wardrobe she should get a new stylist! OMG!!!
I think she is absolutely hilarious and is the only night-late talk show host I watch. I have read all of her books and this sounds like a fantastic show since most of her essays are visual humor-based. I wish she was starring in it though (maybe she’ll have a small, cameo part?).
Her humor is certainly not for everyone, but she makes me laugh all the time.
Great Move by NBC. Hear that every network was bidding on this.
Yeah great move. A sexually promiscuous ambitious alcoholic coke addict in her twenties, grows up to be a sexually promiscuous alcoholic coke addict in her 40s who looks like she’s in her 50s, and blows people off to get work. Yeah – sounds like a winner to me. MTV & Jersey Shore look out, NBC has found your crass, crude, UNFUNNY, except in a train wreck vomitous kind of way,’ SECRET — and it’s name is Chelsea Handler.
Ugh. NBC is circling the drain.
If you haven’t read her books I’ll save you the trouble. Chelsea gets drunk, Cheslea jams the dicks of strangers in various orifices, rinse repeat.
How edgy.
One smart thing they did? NOT casting her. I think even Handler realizes she’s not that great to look at. Her sexual exploits, alcoholic binges and rude behavior will go down (heh) a lot better with someone who’s actually pretty.
Is she dating the head of NBC now?
Way to go NBC! Sounds awesome! I love to watch shows based on the slutty, alcoholic pseudo-celebs. I am sure there are at least 12 other people who will tune in also.
Just like her sex tape, this will also get… no viewers.
You know – I like this deal. She’s hilarious
given the fact that she’s 42 years old, who will be playing the part of “20 something Chelsea Handler”?
she is 35
sorry. she just looks 42.
What is a multi camera comedy doing at NBC?
As soon as I read the first book I thought it would be a great idea for a TV series but not for NBC and certainly not a multi-camera comedy! What a terrible idea. This project should have landed on HBO, it’s the Sex and the City for a less girly, more subversive generation of women and HBO or Showtime would have been the right networks who would have given the project the kind of edgy tone it needs to have in order to succeed. One of the things that makes Chelsea’s persona so great in the books is 1-Her potty mouth, 2-Her drug/booze partying (her E stories are brilliant), and 3-All the hilarious sex, NBC could never tackle any of this in a million years.
Also, who in the world is still producing multi-camera series besides that awful CBS network? The format is so incredibly dated, this is gonna fail miserably which is quite a shame since Chelsea and her books are so ridiculously funny, they deserved better.
On the other hand, I hope Chunk is a character!
Um, the single-camera format is older than the multi-camera format. I realize the multi-cam format requires a certain sophistication on the part of viewers – who have to accept that the sets don’t look “realistic” – but there’s nothing dated about performing comedy in front of an audience instead of using the canned, bland single-camera style.
(Okay, not all single-camera comedies are canned and bland, but that makes no more or less sense than saying that multi-cam is “dated” but single-cam, an older and creakier TV format, isn’t.)
Seriously, guy choose another handle. I don’t want people to think I’m crapping on Chelsea. I can’t stand when people do this.
I love Chelsea Handler. I’ve read 2 of her books. (Chelsea Chelsea, Bang Bang was the best!) But I won’t tune in to this show. I’m avoiding NBC till everyone responsibile for what happened to Conan is gone. I’m actually a bigger Chelsea fan than I am a Conan fan, but what happened was so ugly that I won’t watch this or anything else on Channel 6, my NBC station.
Wait… What? Most of her essays are based on visual humour? Her *writing* is full of *visual* gags? How does that work?
It’s called imagery, a technique authors sometimes use to evoke reactions from the five senses which, as you’ve pointed out, cannot interact directly with printed words on a page in more than a limited capacity.
So…. basically, it’s a show about how she slept her way up to get a show?
OMG, you people have no idea what you are talking about!!! Chelsea Lately is her 1st show on E! She was on Girls Behaving Badly years before that, which was on Oxygen. She’s 34, not 42!!!
Christ, you guys are bitter! Chelsea may have boned her boss but she’s certainly not the only member of that club nor is she the founding member (paging Julie Chen.) Her personality might not be for everybody but this chick has paid her dues (and not on her back.) She’s been clawing her way up for years and has created her own opportunities and success through talent and wit. You women just love to shit on each other, especially on attractive, assertive women who aren’t afraid to make waves.
You were actually making a decent point there until you called Chelsea “attractive”. Seriously?
By your own admission, Chelsea Handler is obviously a hypocrite for ragging on other women for sleeping around when she’s doing it herself. Therefore, she needs to shut up and stop being so high and mighty.
There is a show at HBO called StarFucker that is just like this
The good news is she won’t be starring in them. However, I’d watch if they cast some hot blondes in their 20s
I’ve read for a few years that she’s 35.
And she’ll be 35 for the next 10 years.
yeah right. and rachel zoe is 38
I am very happy they adapted her books, Chelsea Handler is one funny lady! Chelsea Lately is the best late night show out there. I am so happy for her.
I certainly do not understand the appeal of Chelsea Lately. Do we need really need another pathetic female lead on TV? Chelsea Hander and the insecure behavior of her 20′s gives women a bad name. Develop a project with a strong, confident woman that does not need to resort to slutty (yes, in her case slutty!) behavior, jealousy of others, and hatred of oneself.
After she bombed at the MTV Awards, I was hoping she would disappear.
Ugh, can’t we move on from women calling other women slutty? It’s 2010 for fuck’s sake. If a woman in her 20s who’s single and childless wants to go out and have protected sex with strangers, whom exactly is she hurting? Also, your strong, confident woman with no character flaws already has her own channel. It’s called Lifetime, and no one’s watching.
So happy to hear! Multicamera’s need to return to NBC. Handler project would be an excellent game-changer on NBC’s Thursday night. Self starter.