fall tv 2013

Michael Ian Black Is Developing a Family Sitcom for ABC With Ben Stiller

Photo: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for The Webby Awards

If you’re a member of Gen X, this news will make you feel a tad … old: Ben Stiller and Michael Ian Black, two icons of nineties sketch comedy, are now collaborating on a family sitcom. Vulture hears that ABC is developing You’re Not Doing It Right, a single-camera half-hour comedy based on Black’s recently-out-in-paperback memoir of the same name. Black will write and star in the potential series; he’ll also exec produce with Stiller, Debbie Liebling, and Stuart Confeld via the latter trio’s ABC Studios–based Red Hour Television production company. According to people familiar with the project, it will be set in Connecticut and focus on “what happens when you wake up, look around, and don’t recognize the life you are living as your own.†While it’s way too early in development season to start making specific predictions about where shows might end up, it’s very easy to imagine You’re Not Doing It Right as part of ABC’s Wednesday comedy block, perhaps adjacent to Modern Family. Carol Vessey and Phil Stubbs in the same hour of prime time? Party at the Stuckeybowl!

Michael Ian Black Is Developing a Sitcom for ABC