The TV Addict 

Good News: The first episode of Mindy Kaling’s (THE OFFICE) new web series HOUSE POOR is guaranteed to put a smile on your face. Bad News: There’s something terribly wrong with Network TV when Kaling’s three minute and eleven second video illicits more laughs than almost every comedy currently on TV. [See Video Above]

Good News: Wednesday’s episode of PUSHING DAISIES saw its ratings climb 16 percent to 6.6 million viewers. Bad News: Yet still managed to finish fourth in its timeslot up against Obama, Obama and yes, you guessed it, more Obama. [Source]

Good Great News: SCRUBS creator Bill Lawrence is teaming up with ex-FRIEND Courteney Cox for COUGAR TOWN. A new comedy set to air on ABC revolving around an attractive and newly single 40-year-old mother and her teenage son. Bad News: Ummm… Bill Lawrence and Courteney Cox teaming up for an ABC Comedy… the only bad news there is that it most likely won’t hit the airwaves until Spring 2009! [Source]

Apparently delivering stellar comedy for six seasons wasn’t enough of a challenge for SCRUBS creator Bill Lawrence — he just had to take on Broadway. In its sixth [and possibly final season] Bill Lawrence, with the help of the brilliant creators of Broadway’s AVENUE Q present SCRUBS: THE MUSICAL!. The episode, airing in five weeks, revolves around an actual medical case of a woman who had an aneurism that resulted in her seeing everything as a musical. While there is no doubt that the episode will be a hit, this TV Addict thinks the bigger question is how long until some enterprising producer decides to stage an actual version of SCRUBS: THE MUSICAL? After-all, in a recent interview with theTVaddict.com, Zach Braff [a self-proclaimed theatre nerd himself] said, “At some point in my career I’d like to sing ‘Corner of the Sky’ on Broadway.”

theTVaddict.com: With regards to the current state of television sitcoms, what has changed since your days with Michael J. Fox on SPIN CITY?

Bill Lawrence: First and foremost on that list is that network executives have no clue as to what they’re doing when it comes to comedy. When we started doing promos for SCRUBS, the network insisted that we add a studio audience laugh track. Back then, the belief was that classic studio sitcoms were the way to go.

Now the very same executives are more then happy to say that nobody likes multi-camera sitcoms — it’s a dead medium. Of course the reality is that it’s not that multi-camera sitcoms don’t work, it’s that people don’t like crap. There are so many options out there with TiVo and 150 channels. My goal is to just not make crap.

You would think that when you go pitch a show as a comedy writer, a network executive would say, we obviously have no idea how it works, we should do what you want. Yet for some reason what ends up on the air is yet another comedy with a fat husband and a thin hot wife.

Hollywood loves to panick and make grand statements. One thing I always look at is that more people then ever are watching TV. Less people are watching network TV, so network TV has to evolve. We have to adapt and make television shows more fiscally responsible.

There are two ways to survive now. You can be the one in a trillion show that grabs the public as a whole, an across the board hit like AMERICAN IDOL or GREY’S ANATOMY. But that’s like catching lightening in a bottle, and good luck staying at the top, because it becomes a battle.

Or your other way of surviving is to become a cult show. BUFFY was one of the first. Your fan base is so loyal that you might have to go that extra mile, do something online, interact with them, provide them with extra material. But if you can keep that loyal group hooked, surviving time-slot change after time-slot change, you can survive in perpetuity. SCRUBS is not a giant hit, but we’re in for six years. The decision to survive for a 7th year is kind of in our own lap.

Click here for yesterday’s feature on SCRUBS featuring star Zach Braff and Bill Lawrence

Check back tomorrow as Zach and Bill talk about how important music is on SCRUBS

The Laughs Are Back as MUST SEE TV returns

There was a time when Thursday night TV meant only one thing: NBC’s Must-See line-up, which featured such powerhouse hits as SEINFELD and THE COSBY SHOW. But somewhere along the line, things took a very unfunny turn as the classic sitcoms faded away and were replaced by dreck such as VERONICA’S CLOSET and THE SINGLE GUY. This Thursday, however, the network does its darndest to reclaim the night from such stiff competition as GREY’S ANATOMY and UGLY BETTY by presenting a two-hour comedy block filled with shows that are actually funny.

That’s right, for the first time in many years, NBC may once again claim (and truthfully, this time) that its Thursday night lineup — MY NAME IS EARL, THE OFFICE, SCRUBS and 30 ROCK — is Must-See TV.

And the only person happier about that than we are is SCRUB’s creator Bill Lawrence. “I love that we’re on Thursdays on NBC in the midst of the entire industry crapping on comedy,” he says. “We’re part of a night of four great comedies, and I think it’s cool to be there. Sure it’s our 150th time slot, but I’m psyched about it”.

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