Competing with multiple networks and streaming services, CBS has emerged victorious over a battle for a new multi-camera comedy project written by and starring CollegeHumor regular Jermaine Fowler, Deadline reports. As part of the deal, CBS premium sibling Showtime has also acquired the rights to a one-hour comedy special from Fowler under the working title Jermaine Fowler: Give ’Em Hell Kid, which has already been shot and blends stand-up material from Fowler with first-person interviews with people who know him well. The comedy special has been slated for a December 11 premiere.
The CBS sitcom project, which Fowler is set to write or co-write, is not the same sitcom project Fowler was working on at the beginning of this year about his ex-cop grandmother. But the new project for CBS is similarly inspired by his own life. Fowler’s parents had their first child when they were 16 and 17 and stayed together through the years to raise Fowler and his siblings. In the sitcom based on this scenario, Fowler will play a character loosely inspired his dad. Fowler will executive produce the project.
Fowler co-created, writes, and stars in Friends Of The People, a TruTV sketch comedy. He also has appeared on MTV’s Guy Code and Comedy Central’s Comedy Underground With Dave Attell. His grandma pilot went to pilot at ABC with Whoopi Goldberg playing the grandmother, but the network ended up passing on the project, freeing up Goldberg for more The View and Fowler to move on to his next sitcom project.