Amazon.com is continuing to develop its slate of original TV series, with a strong emphasis on comedy. The online retailer just announced six comedy pilots today, according to Deadline. Five of the shows are from TV industry veterans like Garry Trudeau, The Onion, and several Daily Show alums, while the sixth, Those Who Can’t, is from a group of newcomers. Amazon offered to look at submissions from anyone who wanted to pitch a show a few months ago, and Those Who Can’t is the first to be picked up from 2,000 series ideas they looked over. Once these six pilots are finished, they’ll be posted on Amazon Instant Video to view for free and the ones that are most popular with audiences will get picked up to series by Amazon. It’s like democracy for TV, which sounds much better than this oppressive Nielsen Rating dictatorship that runs actual TV.
Here’s the roster of Amazon’s six new comedy pilots, two of which were already announced last month:
Alpha HouseAlpha House was written by Academy Award nominee and Pulitzer-Prize winner Garry Trudeau (Doonesbury, Tanner ’88). Alpha House follows four senators who live together in a rented house in Washington DC.BrowsersWritten by 12-time Emmy-winning comedy writer David Javerbaum (The Daily Show) and to be directed by Don Scardino (30 Rock), Browsers is a musical comedy set in contemporary Manhattan that follows four young people as they start their first jobs at a news website.Dark MinionsWritten by Big Bang Theory co-stars Kevin Sussman and John Ross Bowie, Dark Minions is an animated workplace series about two slackers just trying to make a paycheck working an intergalactic warship. The pilot will be produced by Principato-Young (Reno 911).The Onion Presents: The NewsThe Onion Presents: The News is a smart, fast-paced scripted comedy set behind the scenes of The Onion News Network that shows just how far journalists will go to stay at the top of their game. The Onion Presents: The News is from The Onion’s Will Graham & Dan Mirk (The Onion News Network, The Onion Sportsdome).SupanaturalSupanatural is an animated comedy series about two outspoken divas who are humanity’s last line of defense against the supernatural, when they’re not working at the mall. The series, written by Lily Sparks, Price Peterson and Ryan Sandoval, will be produced by Underground, Jason Micallef (Butter) and Kristen Schaal (The Daily Show).Those Who Can’t Written by Andrew Orvedahl, Adam Cayton-Holland and Benjamin Roy (Grawlix), who were discovered through Amazon Studios online open door process, Those Who Can’t is a comedy about three juvenile, misfit teachers who are just as immature, if not more so, than the students they teach.