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In 1997, Kelly Oxford, a stay-at-home mother of three in Canada, started a blog that was later joined by a Twitter feed. Her Internet creations, which showcase her short comedic observations and musings about mundane things, pop culture and current events, grew to become a cultural force and attracted the attention of Hollywood’s elite, including actress Jessica Alba. Now, Oxford is writing Mother of All Something, a comedy project for CBS based on her blog and Twitter feed, with Alba attached to executive produce. Will & Grace alumna Jhoni Marchinko is supervising the pilot and is also executive producing behind her 2-script deal at 20th Century Fox TV. Oxford will serve as supervising producer on the project, which is produced by CBS TV Studios. She is with WME, which also reps Alba and Marchinko. Here is how Oxford describes herself on her blog:
more likely to be wearing animals than protecting them
Previously described as: your boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend. Currently described as: your mom.
If I was a mood board you would see:
gold, ativan and a photo of David Sedaris drinking my breast milk.
CBS, which launched the first series based on a Twitter account this fall, $#*! My Dad Says, has two more Twitter feed-based comedies in the works for next season, Dear Girls Above Me and Shh … Don’t Tell Steve. Here are some recent tweets by Oxford:
- At night, my iPad becomes an expensive flashlight.
- I’ve been to two U2 concerts. Not really a fan, I just like to feel like I’m in a really long Coke commercial.
- God was so smart starting Adam and Eve off as adults and skipping the whole baby part.
- If a girl’s automatic reaction to another girl is hate, they’ll end up best friends.
- Something people in Walmart have? Colds. Something people in Walmart are missing? Ankles.
- Sarah Palin is going to Haiti? Haven’t these people been put through enough this year?
- Lindsay Lohan, I respect you for not owning a dog.
- Whenever I get depressed about society and how dumb we are, I try to remember that every one of us is here because someone wanted to orgasm.
- 3yrs for evading taxes? Make (Wesley) Snipes wax taxpayers cars instead. Like Biff had to wax the McFly’s car after he tried to rape Lorraine in it.
- When a guy gets dumped by a girl and says ‘She had issues’, I assume one issue was she didn’t like him.
TV Editor Nellie Andreeva - tip her here.
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If Howard Stern has an audience, why not?
On the glorified ham-radio universe that is Twitter, Kelly Oxford is actually one of the best. Her bite-sized thoughts are pretty readable when you’re walking down the hall from your office to the kitchen. She’s smart and funny, so no problem there.
And the fact she’s *writing* it is also something of note — it’s not like they’re just handing over a pretty thin premise to writers that would actually do the work of coming up with a vision.
So my inital repulsion at the headline, “CBS developing Twitter-based comedy produced by Jessica Alba” actually seem unwarranted. But Kelly Oxford is the thing that elevates everything horrible about those nine words. It may work, it may not, but I pretty sure it’s going to have a VOICE, and that’s a very good thing.
like to many before you you underestimate thy alba that is awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Please take a remedial English course so we can understand what the hell you’re talking about.
I don’t know who you are, or how you came to be…but, I love you.
What don’t you understand, Einstein? And who are speaking for when you say ‘we’?
*you*
“more likely to be wearing animals than protecting them”
Sounds like a charmer. Somebody tweet Mike Vick.
please kill me.
E-mail me the details. When, where, why, when?
Maybe they could bookend each episode with her standing in a comedy club reading these tweets into a microphone with some funky slap-bass in the background.
What’s the deal with airline peanuts?
Well Alba is not a good acress. Is not very bright and is not funny. So this seems right up her alley. Looking forward to missing this one. If shit my dad says is any indication of the rest of the twitter based “comedies” then the future of tv sitcoms looks dim.
Please. God. No.
Those tweets do Kelly Oxford no justice: She is quite hillarious and I really hope this show works out for her!
If those tweets are sufficient sitcom humor these days, everyone with a Facebook page should get their own show.
Clearly I’m one of the few people here who read the spec. pilot that Ms Oxford wrote.
To be honest, I was shocked at how good it was (we all were).
The pilot story had no connection to Twitter at all. I guess if you are successful online before you sell something to Hollywood you’re a gimmick.
And that headline is BEGGING for good trolling. Excellent work.
what was your favorite joke in it?
“Good actors never use the script unless it’s amazing writing. All the good actors I’ve worked with, they all say whatever they want to say.”
The script is a moot point! 140 characters is Alba ever needs. This will be amazing.
It is going to be very funny to see her get into arguments with the writer and/ or showrunner.
Jessica: We don’t need a script.
Showrunner: But.
Jessica: It’s okay. Us actors can make it work. All the good ones do.
I work as an accountant with lots of other accountants and I would say at least half of them have funnier observations than this drivel. Why don’t they develop a show based on Chinese fortune cookies!
I eagerly await the show starring you and your coterie of accountants.
Doubtful. The last known accountant to say anything funny was probably Bob Newhart, and that was a couple of decades ago (approximately, since you have to distinguish between when he starts a sentence and when he finishes it).
CBS waited too long on this one, Oxford was hot a year ago but it’s 2011. As for Alba, oy, we can guess that the quality of the dialogue on this show will be not so good…
1) Unfunny. Check.
2) Offensive dead animal attempted humor? Check.
3) Comes off as a raving bitch? Check.
4) Comes off as an angry know-it-all? Check.
Yep, this show has everything the out-of-touch network execs look for.
1) No sense of humor? Check.
2) Stick firmly wedged up his ass? Check.
3) Comes off as a whiny, looking-for-an-excuse-to-bitch commenter? Check.
4) Comes off as too-cool-for-school and arrogant? Check.
Yep, your comment is utterly predictable and disappointing.
Ms. Oxford is a good, interesting, intelligent person. Don’t let first impressions put you off. I resisted her for quite some time, but I kept giving her chances (is there a less arrogant way to phrase that?) and I eventually warmed up to her. She seems to be a cool lady. Hopefully, CBS (and ignorant, prematurely judgmental audiences) won’t get in the way of what will likely be, at the very least, a decently written TV show.
Don’t write both her and her show off just because it’s not immediately identifiable as the next Arrested Development. As long as it isn’t half as big of a pile of shit as most of CBS’s other sitcoms, it will do well on the network. If it can do well on the network, then hopefully it will stay afloat long enough to find both its footing and its audience. Godspeed, Kelly Oxford.
“comes off as a raving bitch”?? I guess..if you hate women so much, that you think they shouldn’t
even have opinions…..
I have funnier friends. We all do. But they don’t put themselves out there. It’s not enough to be funny. Success is 60% talent, 20% exposure and 20% networking.
She deserves better than CBS.
“Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue. “
Surely you can’t be serious?
She’s a writer and a Mom of three who wrote a pilot and sold it?! She also blogs and has a twitter account and followers? Holy shit! Who does she think she is Queen of the world?
Seriously, who wants a family sitcom about a Mom that’s written by an actual housewife!? NOT ME.
Uh, I do. Moms who are also writers writing funny shit about moms? Who would know how to do that job better? Also, Kelly Oxford is a)hilarious and b)smart. I could go for some smart humor these days. Two and a Half Men just isn’t doing it for me anymore.
I find your insinuation that housewives are both boring and unintelligent, boring and unintelligent. Ms. Oxford is brillant, charming, beautiful and anything other then dull. Clearly by her humourous and oft insightful blog, she has more to offer the world then a clearly jealous and bitter naysayer does. I am looking forward to the pilot and her impending successes.
More pointless drivel for television. perfect that alba is producing.
Broadcast television is pointless drivel, check that, its football games and pointless drivel. This is a smart move, its high quality pointless drivel.
O.K., I’m not in the industry, but doesn’t Jessica Alba producing mean the profit for this series not only has to overcome it’s normal hurtles, but has to be a big hit out of the box since CBS will be seeing less profit than if the headliner wasn’t getting a piece of the action. So the odds are really stacked against this show.
Like many, the line “Twitter-based family comedy produced by Jessica Alba” seems arresting.
Turns out, with “Mother of All Something”, CBS is on to the Next Big Thing.
Nellie’s phrase “Twitter-based family comedy” describes the next generation of sitcoms (or “twitcoms” as they’re called). CBS has jumped on the bandwagon with 5! by next year.
Think about it. Thousands of funny people have generated millions of funny one-liners on Twitter. So who needs comedy writers? Twitters got a million of them!
And for TV, the best part about Twitter-based comedy:
It’s cheap, funny, and pre-tested.
Twitter test-markets and sorts out the really funny people. If you’re funny, on Twitter, and have 500,000+ followers, that’s social proof enough that you’ve got the makings of a sitcom.
Sure, plenty of unfunny, talentless “celebrities” have millions of Twitter followers. Their numbers mean nothing.
Instead, the future of TV comedy are the hundreds of truly funny Kelly Oxfords on Twitter. The Twitter comedy talent pool dwarfs that of Hollywood. And every day, this next generation of sitcom writers write more funny stuff on their personal real-life Twitter sitcoms.
The “jokes”/Tweets are already written. Structure a simple story around a bunch of Tweets, get interesting people to act them out, and…
Viola! You’ve got yourself a ready-made sitcom.
No mess, no fuss, no huge production, no writer’s rooms.
Twitter-based TV comedy is the quantum leap in reality TV programming. Real people, real Tweets, real laughs.
I never heard of Kelly Oxford. Then again, her target demo consists of 18-35 year old women. Not surprisingly, that happens to be CBS’s new target demo, too, as it seeks to dissociate itself from its traditional “old person” demo.
With Jess Alba exec. producing, I expect “Mother of All Something” to be sharp, funny, and cool.
“Tweet it and they(the TV networks) will come!”
Thank you, Jessica’s Publicist!
“The “jokes”/Tweets are already written. Structure a simple story around a bunch of Tweets, get interesting people to act them out, and…
Viola! You’ve got yourself a ready-made sitcom.
No mess, no fuss, no huge production, no writer’s rooms.”
So you really think all it takes is a simple story about a bunch of Tweets to make a watchable and funny weekly show?
Good luck to you!
That was a very articulate comment (slash mini-article?), and I enjoyed reading it very much. That being said- I am scared for the future of television if this is the direction we are headed…
Love Kelly Oxford though, been following her for awhile and she just tweeted us now linking us with this article!
“Kept a secret for months: I sold a spec. pilot I wrote last Spring, not my Twitterfeed. http://tinyurl.com/323b2x6“
“SP Hudson”…Not Jess’s publicist. Her new Fokker flick comes out next week, and CBS just greenlighted a sitcom with her as exec prod. She’s generating plenty of good publicity on her own.
“Claddagh”…Twitter-based comedy makes you “scared for the future of television”? I’m scared about the past and current state of TV’s wasteland of comedies. How much worse can Twitter sitcoms be than, say, “How I Met Your Mother”, or “Two and a Half Men”?
“Michelle T”….You ask, “So you really think all it takes is a simple story about a bunch of Tweets to make a watchable and funny weekly show?” In a word, yes. However, not just any bunch of Tweets. But those collected from an established Twitter personality whose humorous slant on life has hundreds of thousands of followers/ audience members.
“Joe B” (below) said, “Seriously, what’s up with letting a woman(Alba) who seems to have little regard for writers and
writing …”
I knew that pic/red flag of Jessica Alba would bring out the hurt script writers. Boo hoo. Just imagine the staggering amounts of garbage scripts agents send actors to review. Look at the films Jess Alba has made. With few exceptions, exploitative crap written by the very same writers now appalled at her questioning the sanctity of written scripts.
While you folks type away your hate comments at Starbucks, Jess will exec. produce the new wave of Twitter-based TV sitcoms. In Kelly Oxford, she’s now attached to one of the brightest lights of the Twitterverse-who’s NOT a Hollywood script writer!
Pretty savvy career move on Jess’s part, I’d say.
Not bad for a woman routinely and unfairly demeaned on this and other Hollywood industry forums as untalented, stupid, and humorless.
Not bad at all.
Twitter is annoying. People who tweet are generally annoying.
I understand that the younger “new media savvy” actors do it to try and build some kind of fan base, but all I’ll say is none of the greats have a damn Twitter. I fully believe that to sustain a longterm career, you need to maintain some kind of mystique – some detachment/unattainability from and to the general public – and Twitter simply exposes how wildly uninteresting these people are.
So yeah, all in all, perfect for Alba.
Twitter is currently trying to re-invent itself because it has no relevance in the real world. Yet, Hollywood is going to pick over the carcass and try to make soup with the bones. No ownder the Networks are dying.
I’m not sure who you consider “the greats,” but I think Steve Martin is pretty great, and he has a twitter account. I know there are others, but I don’t feel like reviewing my account.
Agree 100%!!! Twitter is for people who either have no jobs, no life or are attention whores like the no talent Kardashian clan and Tila Tequila!
“People who tweet are generally annoying.”
Really? How about, “People are generally annoying”? People who talk scornfully about the Internet, Internet users, and sites like Twitter or Facebook usually just don’t know how to use it properly. The Internet gives us easy access to many, many people. If our day-to-day, in-person lives gave us the degree of access to the immense cross section of humanity that something like Twitter gives us, it would be as overwhelming and frustrating as the Internet can be. It has nothing to do with the medium. Humanity, as a whole, sucks. People are irresponsible, immature dicks. My advice to you? Make better choices about whom you expose yourself to online.
“[N]one of the greats have a damn Twitter.”
Well, what’s your definition of “greats”? Steve Martin has one. Most of the cast of Mystery Science Theater has embraced it. Conan O’Brien and Craig Ferguson, the last remaining kings of late-night have accounts. The cast of Community. LeVar Burton. The current generation’s comedic greats, i.e. Patton Oswalt, Maria Bamford, Stephen Colbert, Paul F. Tompkins, John Hodgman, et al. John Cleese. Weird Al Yankovic. Stephen Fry. And I won’t even mention the many, many non-famous Twitter users who are far funnier and probably more talented than 80% of the people currently on TV and in the movies.
Basically, if you don’t like it, you’re probably either doing it wrong or you’re just not the kind of person that the medium and its best users are intended for. Twitter’s not necessarily for everyone, but that doesn’t invalidate its existence, nor does it render its users talentless. Don’t be so cynical and cranky, or else you’ll find yourself chasing kids off your lawn. You don’t always have to rage against things that are popular and new — instead, try to find a way to make it work for you.
“Twitter gives us access to a large cross-section of humanity”?
Twitter gives us access to self-indulgent hipsters who say “amazing” way too much and post pictures of the “yummy organic flaxseed muffin” they’re about to eat.
Please.
Said like it is!I love it!Thanks for that.
Alba is amazing? Alba is a moron is more like it. This sounds like nothing, way to go cbs! Just because you’re pretty and a horrible acterss doesn’t mean you can produce TV shows
So you’re a writer and Jessica Alba decides your project is worthy of her wrangling her considerable star power (huh?) and scoring a meeting at CBS to discuss it.
Then your remember what Alba said a few weeks ago about writing …
http://www.deadline.com/2010/11/scripter-john-august-bitchslaps-jessica-alba/
… and so I ask the writer in question, who no doubt is cruising this page to check reaction, what made you say yes to this woman. Yeah yeah, I know there was some press yesterday about her eating her words, blah blah blah. Seriously, what’s up with letting a woman who seems to have little regard for writers and writing make some coin off your writing?
Makes sense, considering Alba can only read 140 characters before getting a headache.
I know people who’ve worked closely with Jessica and the rumors are true, she is pretty stupid. but cute.