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In a very competitive situation, NBC has landed Joe & Joe & Jane, a multi-camera comedy from writers-executive producers Joe Port and Joe Wiseman, with a pilot production commitment. I hear the 20th Century Fox TV-produced project also has a series penalty behind it to rank as one of the biggest comedy sales this season.
Loosely based on the relationship between Port, Wiseman and Wiseman’s wife, Joe & Joe & Jane centers on a conflict-avoidant children’s book author caught in an ongoing tug of war between two needy, flawed people: his wife and his co-author/ best friend. It’s not about a couple, it’s about a trouple.
Last season, another Port/Wiseman comedy with semi-autobiographical roots, spec Rebounding, which was inspired by Port’s real-life experiences, was picked up to pilot by Fox with Steve Levitan executive producing, Jason Winer directing and Will Forte starring. The year before, the duo also had a strong pilot contender at Fox with Family Album, which like Rebounding, was single-camera. Last season, Port and Wiseman, who are under an overall deal at 20th TV, served as executive produced the studio’s Fox comedy New Girl.
This marks Port Wiseman’s return to multi-camera comedy and to NBC. The UTA-repped duo met while they were both assistants on the 1999 UPN animated comedy Dilbert and went on to work on such series as NBC’s multi-camera Just Shoot Me and single-camera The Office and have fielded a number of pilots, including NBC’s multi-camera The IT Crowd.
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Fools gold
A trouple?!? Oh My God that is so funny and so clever! They are so brilliant and so hilarious! That is laugh out loud funny! A trouple! Three people in one dysfunctional mixed-up relationship! You can’t make anything funnier than that! You could try but you would be wasting your time. Nobody has ever done anything with a trouple before. They should call the show “Trouple Trouble” how’s that for a perfect title? “Trouple Trouble” is the bomb viewers will be captivated by the funny situations these three wacky people get into. It’s not about a couple it’s about a trouple!
When was the last new multi cam show that was actually worth watching?
I don’t know thease guys, but I’m impressed with their pilots every year. The fact that they don’t have a show on the air yet is one of the many things that’s wrong with network TV right now. It looks like that’s about to be remedied.
So it’s just like “Partners,” but they’re both straight? That screams comedy. This will be another disaster for NBC’s comedy department, just like all the others they’ve had this year…
NBC has a comedy department?
Were you born after 2000 or something? Yes, NBC has a comedy department. Where else do 30 Rock, The Office, Parks and Rec, and Community come out of… CBS’s procedural department? Oh yeah, don’t forget about Seinfeld, Friends, Frasier, Will&Grace, Cheers etc. Those shows have all ended their runs so obviously they don’t exist anymore…
In other words it’s just like Partners 1995.
easily the handsomest two joes in comedy
I agree with the above commenter that this is a strange show to get such heat in the network environment. It does sound exactly like “Partners,” the show on CBS that is failing. I don’t understand why all these exec’s would be so excited for this show. It’s not like P&W have ever had a successful show on the air before, or even any show on the air before…
I do have one sneaking suspicion, though. I’ve been a writer for a while in this town, and I know that these devel exec’s are completely consumed with themselves and how fabulous their lives are. Joe Wiseman is married to Jane Wiseman, formerly an NBC devel exec, now working at the Chernin Co. The networks exec’s are excited because it means somehow THEY’LL be on television, through this show, and they are sure that America will love that.
I don’t think America will, but the proof is in the pudding…
i think sometimes it’s more about the people executing the concept than the concept itself. i mean, what’s the concept in new girl? “a chick moves in with three dudes”? doesn’t sound that incredible, but liz merriwether and her writing staff and all the actors are great, so the show is too.
these networks are looking at their current crappy sitcoms and wishing they picked up port & wiseman’s show last year. their pilots are hilarious, they’re consistently great on other people’s shows. frankly it feels like they’re due a big hit.
i agree about partners though — that show sucks dick.
This whole “loosely based on their own lives” thing has got to stop…America is NOT sympathetic to the personal dynamics/struggles of longtime network comedy writers no matter how much the vocation is dressed up or disguised for a show.
Oh no you could not be more wrong we are fascinated with the lives of elite rich people who work in TV with egos the size of Texas. We will watch this show and make it the #1 show because that is what they want us to do. We are easy to manipulate we love everything. There should be more shows loosely based on the lives of the creators and the executives in charge. We watched that there presidential debate in record numbers 67 million of us watched but more of us will watch Joe & Joe & Jane that is a fact you can’t dispute.
Here’s The Truth — Writing bitter comments and unreadable spec scripts does not make you “a writer in this town.” BOOM!!! Man down! Clean up on isle two. Someone just dropped some truth.
I’m also a working writer and, while I think the Joes are decent comedy writers, they will never create a hit series because their series ideas just aren’t interesting to anyone outside of execlandia.
If this makes it on the air, it’s 3 and out for sure.
How is pointing out the idiotic nature of this show denying the truth? They might be talented but this premise is ludicrous. Their other pilots had much better concepts than this one. The truth is that this particular show is pathetic. They couldn’t think of something clever or unique or original so they pitched a variation on their own shallow lives.
Average writers at best. Jane is a great exec who gets these ideas sold on their behalf.
Maybe you should actually READ this script before making ridiculous and judgmental comments about how bad and unoriginal this is. So quick to judge!! Be happy that two fellow writers are getting a pilot made!! If you have actually ever seen any of the pilots that they have done, you would know how ridiculously talented these writers are. Hopefully this will get them on the air. Only a matter of time, I think.
A show’s premise means little. Friends” wasn’t original it was just a bunch of friends hanging out. It’s all about the characters and execution.
So true. But what can you do, when people are paid to hate, they gotta do what they gotta do.
I know a great story… It an aesops fable and the moral of the story is ….. SOUR GRAPES!