You are viewing the archive: “Louie”

PGA Awards TV: ‘Homeland’, ‘Downton Abbey’ And ‘Louie’ Enter Series Fray

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Wednesday January 2, 2013 @ 5:01pm PSTTags: 30 Rock, Louie, Modern Family, PGA Awards
Nellie Andreeva

PGA Awards‘ weird eligibility window on the TV side made for another field with an outdated feel, like the comedy series nomination for HBO‘s Curb Your Enthusiasm, which has not aired originals for the past year and a half. The PGA Awards follow the Primetime Emmys calendar despite taking place six months later, honoring programs that aired between June 1, 2011-May 31, 2012.

With that in mind, there were only minimal surprises in the series nominations this year, most notably the omission of HBO’s freshman comedies Girls and Veep and last year’s best drama series winner Boardwalk Empire. Modern Family has a shot at a third consecutive PGA Award with another best comedy series nom alongside returning nominees 30 Rock and The Big Bang Theory as well as FX‘s Louie. This extends Louie‘s momentum. After largely flying under the radar for the first two seasons, the series’ third season earned a first Emmy award in September, its first SAG and Golden Globe nominations last month and now a first PGA nomination. Missing the cut this time are last year’s nominees Parks & Recreation and Glee, though Glee co-creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk landed a TV movie/miniseries nom for the first season of American Horror Story. READ MORE »

Comments (0)

Season 4 Of ‘Louie’ Pushed To Spring 2014

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Tuesday October 9, 2012 @ 11:56am PDTTags: FX, Louie, Louis C.K.
Nellie Andreeva

FX and Louis CK are pushing the pause button on the comedian’s acclaimed comedy series Louie. During a conference call today, FX president John Landgraf and Louis CK announced that, instead of next summer, the upcoming fourth season of the comedy series will premiere in Spring 2014 to give Louis CK more time for prep work. Read More »

Comments (11)

TCA: Louis C.K. On ‘Louie’, Emmy Noms, Stand-Up, And What He Likes To Watch

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Saturday July 28, 2012 @ 11:47am PDTTags: FX, Louie, Louis C.K., TCA

Ray Richmond contributes to Deadline’s TV coverage.

LouieWith seven Emmy nominations, Louis C.K. just broke the record for most noms for an individual in a single Emmy year — coming for both his … Read More »

Comments (18)

FX’s ‘Louie’ & Russell Brand Renewed, Network Orders ‘The Bridge’ Drama Pilot

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Saturday July 28, 2012 @ 8:45am PDTTags: FX, Louie, TCA, TCA Wrap-Up
Nellie Andreeva

At the top of its TCA executive session, FX‘s president John Landgraf announced that the network has renewed acclaimed comedy series Louie for a 13-episode fourth season. Additionally, it has ordered seven more episodes of Russell Brand‘s … Read More »

Comments (18)

EMMYS: ‘Louie’s Louis C.K.

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Sunday June 17, 2012 @ 4:55pm PDTTags: Awardsline, Emmys, Louie, Louis C.K.

Anthony D’Alessandro is managing editor/contributor to AwardsLine.

It would be an understatement to credit Louis C.K. as another stand-up who has redefined situation comedy like Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David. C.K. isn’t just making funny TV every week in Louie as a single New York City father. He’s revolutionizing it with an anthology of exceptional short films. Louie After pushing the boundaries of multi-camera comedy on HBO with Lucky Louie, C.K.’s latest show on FX serves as an evolution to the festival and Showtime short films he created throughout the ’90s: The black-and-white jazz mockumentary The Legend of Willie Brown, the Elia Kazan-esque Ice Cream and the Depression-era talkie sendup Hello There to name a few. These bellwethers laid out the themes that C.K. harps on in Louie: Man’s challenge to conform to socially acceptable roles (i.e. not asking 19-year-olds out on dates as C.K. did in the episode ‘Duckling’) and the absurdity of urban life gone awry (accidentally tossing a lunatic vagrant into oncoming traffic in ‘Bummer/Blueberries’). The TV Academy is already more than OK with C.K. having lauded Louie last year with Emmy noms for comedy writing and lead actor.

Related: EMMYS: Comedy Series Overview

AWARDSLINE: How did the opportunity arise to do another half hour comedy series on cable?
LOUIS C.K.: After HBO I went on the road and just concentrated on stand-up where I filled up big theaters. [Soon after] I was asked [by network executives] if I wanted to have a show again. [FX president] John Landgraf easily had the most penetrating pitch. John offered me $200,000 which was 1% of what everyone else was offering. I said ‘I’ll do this if you give me the money and I make the show without you knowing what it’s about. I’ll do it in New York City and direct it myself without any involvement financially and creatively from FX. He said ‘For a pilot, that’s not a bad bet.’ Read More »

Comments (9)

Discord Between PGA And WGA TV Noms Highlights Eligibility Period Differences

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Wednesday December 7, 2011 @ 10:52am PSTTags: Breaking Bad, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Homeland, Louie, Mad Men, Modern Family, New Girl, PGA Awards, WGA Awards
Nellie Andreeva

‘Breaking Bad’, ‘Modern Family’, ‘Boardwalk Empire’ & ‘Homeland’ Lead WGA TV Noms
‘Modern Family’, ‘Big Bang’, ‘Parks & Rec’, ‘Game Of Thrones’, ‘Mad Men’ Among PGA Award Series Nominees

Seconds after the Producers Guild announced the TV series nominations for its 2012 awards, commenters started asking in disbelief: Where is Breaking Bad? Indeed, the acclaimed AMC drama was conspicuously missing from the PGA Award nominations. Underscoring what appeared like a baffling omission, the WGA announced its TV series nominations minutes later, and Breaking Bad led the pack with three nominations. But while their ceremonies are only a month apart in January-February, the PGA Awards and WGA Awards’ eligibility windows vary wildly, leading to the puzzling discrepancies. Read More »

Comments (4)

EMMYS: Comedy Series Writers Handicap

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Sunday September 18, 2011 @ 9:06am PDTTags: 2011 Primetime Emmy Awards, 30 Rock, David Crane, Episodes, Greg Daniels, Jeffrey Klarik, Jeffrey Richman, Louie, Louis C.K., Modern Family, Steven Levitan, The Office

Ray Richmond is contributing to Deadline’s 2011 Emmy coverage. Here’s his scorecard assessing the Outstanding Comedy Series Writer race.

Greg Daniels, The Office (NBC)
“Goodbye Michael”
Why He Was Nominated: Being nominated for Emmys is simply what Daniels does. He’s reeled in 19 Emmy nominations all told, including three in this category and three noms this year alone. He’s won here once before, in 2007 for the celebrated “Gay Witch Hunt” episode of The Office. And Daniels has five Emmy trophies to his credit all told, also including previous wins for King of the Hill, The Simpsons and Saturday Night Live.
Why He Has To Win: In earning a nomination for star Steve Carell’s final episode, Daniels becomes something of a prohibitive favorite to win for writing, particularly since he’s already taken one home here previously. The super-sized episode, “Goodbye, Michael,” was heavily hyped by NBC and exceptionally well-received by viewers and the industry. “Greg did a terrific job of walking the line between comedy and sentiment,” one producer told me, “which was quite a feat.”
Why He Can’t Possibly Win: Sentiment doesn’t always go over so big with the TV academy crowd, whether talking about shows or individuals. Voters could well also figure that giving an overdue Emmy to Carell for acting is plenty and need not adorn the farewell with coattails. Plus, there are a couple of other exceedingly worthy contenders here, like a particularly buzzed episode of Modern Family. Read More »

Comments (0)

EMMYS: Q&A With Louis C.K. Of ‘Louie’

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Friday August 26, 2011 @ 3:05pm PDTTags: 2011 Primetime Emmy Awards, FX, Louie, Louis C.K.

Comedian Louis C.K. finds himself an overnight sensation after 25 years in the biz. Now he’s earned four Emmy nominations for writing and acting on his critically praised FX comedy Louie as well as for writing and editing his stand-up special Louis C.K.: Hilarious for EPIX premium cable channel. But best of all, C.K. (a play on his last name Szekely) is widely hailed by his peers as the gold standard in stand-up. He spoke with Deadline TV Contributor Ray Richmond:

DEADLINE: How does it feel for Ricky Gervais to call you ‘The Funniest Stand-up Working In America’ or Chris Rock refer to you as ‘The Greatest Comic Mind Of The Last Quarter Century’?
LOUIS C.K.: It’s nice to hear, but also a little weird, you know? You can’t buy into any of it. Hearing it doesn’t make me better at anything and probably does the opposite. Plus, you know it’s all going to go away. No one is permanently chiseled onto anything. I’ve been doing this for 25 years and have been up and down a lot. You get hot for a while, then it turns right around. I remember doing the Young Comedians Special in Aspen in 1995 and that was the first time where I felt like I was on some kind of a roll. The lesson I took away was not to take any of it too seriously. Keep it in perspective.

DEADLINE: But you just took in more Emmy nominations than any other performer this year.
C.K.: Well yeah, the Emmy thing, that’s just crazy. I was honestly expecting nothing. Actually that’s not entirely true. I thought maybe I’d get something for writing the special. But the nominations for the FX series, I had no idea these voters were even aware of it. Yet now that it’s out there, I see it as an opportunity. And I’m doing all I can to try to win. It’s hugely important to me.

DEADLINE: Why?
C.K.: Because winning hopefully helps to give the show a deeper foothold, and I start making some money for FX. I want to put cash in Rupert Murdoch’s coffers that are otherwise laying dormant. Emmys would give FX a payoff for having given me this gift of a show. I want the establishment to tell John Landgraf that he did the right thing, and that he should let me keep doing it. That’s what the Emmy is for me. I personally don’t need it. I’ve already won. It would also reward all of the amazing crew people who work so hard making Louie what it is and maybe give the crew job security and Landgraf even more credibility. I just want to bring any benefit to that guy that I can. So basically, I see the Emmys as a slot machine that pays off in reverse. Read More »

Comments 37

TCA: FX Renews ‘Wilfred’, ‘Louie’ & ‘Sunny’, Inks $50 Million Deal With ‘Sunny’ Creators

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Saturday August 6, 2011 @ 9:09am PDTTags: FX, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Louie, Wilfred
Nellie Andreeva

FX has renewed three comedy series. Elijah Wood starrer Wilfred, which has become the highest-rated first-season comedy on the network with a cumulative 5 million viewers a week, has been picked up a second season of 13 episodes. Louie, which just landed an Emmy nomination for star Louis CK and has averaged 3 million viewers a week, has been renewed for a third season of 13 episodes. Meanwhile, veteran It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia has been renewed for two more seasons — Seasons 8 and 9 — to become the longest-running live-action comedy on basic cable. The network also has an option for a 10th season, FX president John Landgraf said, adding that the show seems to have gotten a second wind in Season 7. Additionally, FX Prods. has signed a three-year exclusive deal with RCG, the production company of Sunny masterminds Rob McElhenney, Charlie Day and Glenn Howerton. I hear the deal is worth $40 million-$50 million for all services. “With Sunny, FX and FX Prods. and RCG reinvented the production model for television comedies,” Landgraf said. “In embracing a low‑cost production model and taking less money upfront, Rob, Glenn, and Charlie were afforded more creative freedom, a true financial partnership, and less pressure on ratings so there was time to let the show find an audience. Sunny not only became a hit, but the cornerstone of FX’s successful comedy brand, establishing a production model that has become favored by many in the creative community and has led to Archer, Louie, The League and Wilfred.” In addition to Sunny, RCG is involved in the new CBS comedy series How To Be a Gentleman, created by and starring Sunny player David Hornsby, and has two comedy projects in the works: Fox’s Living Loaded and FX’s animated Townies. Read More »

Comments (18)

‘Wilfred’ Most-Watched Comedy Series Premiere Ever For FX

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Friday June 24, 2011 @ 4:30pm PDTTags: Cable Ratings, FX, Louie, Wilfred

FX’s new comedy series Wilfred got off to a great start last night. At 10 PM, the comedy starring Elijah Wood drew 2.6 million total viewers to become the network’s most-watched comedy series premiere ever. It also posted 1.6 million … Read More »

Comments 24

FX Sets Its Summer Schedule Lineup

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Wednesday April 20, 2011 @ 11:44am PDTTags: FX, Louie, Rescue Me, Schedule, Wilfred

FX’s summer lineup has been set, with the new original comedy Wilfred, starring Elijah Wood and Jason Gann, debuting on Thursday, June 23 at 10 PM. A pair of returning series also have dates: Season 2 of Louie will return on … Read More »

Comments (7)

TCA: FX Renews ‘Louie’, Picks Up Pilot From ‘Reno 911!’ Team & More From Net’s Session

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Tuesday August 3, 2010 @ 9:16am PDTTags: Cable TV, FX, FX Programming, John Landgraf, Louie, Robert Ben Garant, TCA, Thomas Lennon
Nellie Andreeva

UPDATED: At the opening of FX’s executive session, president John Landgraf announced a 13-episode second season pickup of Louis C.K.’s new comedy series Louie five weeks into the show’s freshman run. Additionally, FX has greenlighted Alabama, a comedy pilot co-created and starring Reno 911! masterminds Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon. The … Read More »

Comments (11)