NBC has ordered a pilot for a sitcom about a dysfunctional first family in the White House. The show, “1600 Penn,” will be exec-produced by, among others, former Obama speechwriter Jon Lovett.
Lovett left Washington in September for Dottyville on the Pacific to write for television because, he told The Post’s Jason Horowitz, “I would like to be able to write in my own voice.”
More from Lisa de Moraes
Pulitzer Prize winner, Peabody recipient, Medal of Freedom honoree -- Lisa de Moraes is none of these, but she is an authority on the bad direction, over-acting, and muddled plot lines being played out in the TV industry's executive suites.
(Marvin Joseph/THE WASHINGTON POST) - Jon Lovett left D.C. in September for Hollywood, because “I would like to be able to write in my own voice.”
It’s important to note that ordering a pilot does not mean we will ever see an actual series called “1600 Penn” from 20th Century Fox on the NBC lineup.
But the new-ish head of NBC programming, Jennifer Salke, was until the summer an exec VP at that same 20th Century Fox TV. There, she developed new series (including comedies “Glee” and “Modern Family”), so it’s a near cert she’ll champion in a big way “1600 Penn” getting on NBC’s schedule.
NBC had great ratings success years ago with a certain White House drama called “The West Wing,” which starred Martin Sheen as POTUS. Over its run, “West Wing” writers included congressional staffer (now cable-show host) Lawrence O’Donnell, and former Clinton White House (and Al Gore) speechwriter Eli Attie.
ABC had less success with its White House drama “Commander in Chief,” in which Geena Davis landed the POTUS role, noted trade publication Variety, which broke the “1600 Penn” news.
But it’s unclear whether America embraces the idea of laughing at the first family. Years ago, Comedy Central’s “That’s My Bush,” about the Bush clan, expired in its infancy. Likewise the defunct UPN network’s “The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer” — which imagined a black butler as the real brains behind the dysfunctional Lincoln White House.
NBC’s choice is not the only Washington political comedy in the works. HBO has announced it will launch “Veep” in ’12, with Julia Louis-Dreyfus playing a senator who becomes VPOTUS and learns that the job is nothing as she expected — and hilarity ensues. That one was created by Armando Iannucci, the Scottish satirist who penned the Oscar-nominated “In the Loop.” He’s also exec-producing, as is New York mag’s Frank Rich.
During his Washington life, Lovett wrote many of Obama’s speeches about financial reform, seeded laugh lines into Rahm Emanuel’s commencement speeches and wrote jokes for Obama’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner remarks, Horowitz noted in his profile of the now-Hollywood-based TV scribe.
Fairy-tale ratings
An average of 13 million people Sunday caught the unveiling of ABC’s new fairy-tale fantasy, “Once Upon a Time,” even though the show aired in the teeth of World Series Game 4 on Fox — as well as that wacky prime-time football game in which the New Orleans Saints defeated the winless Indianapolis Colts, 62-7, in the most lopsided game in the six-year history of NBC’s “Sunday Night Football.”
“Once” now has the fifth-biggest audience of any new-series roll-out this TV season.
Which, of course, means it did better than shows that TV-industry navel-lint pickers predicted would be the Next Big Thing:
Simon Cowell’s Fox singing competition, “The X Factor,” opened with 12.5 million on a Wednesday in September and clocked 12.5 million the next night, too. Meanwhile, “Terra Nova” — Fox’s $20 million, two-hour time-traveling dino-drama — attracted an average of 9.2 million viewers the day it launched.
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