Jason Sudeikis to revive football coach character from NBC Sports ads for Apple TV+ show
Aux Features TV
It’s always a great idea when a character invented for a TV commercial makes the transition into, you know, real media, but it doesn’t happen nearly often enough (it’s been over a year since we all enjoyed the hijinks of Uncle Drew!). Luckily, Apple TV+ is so hungry for that sweet content that it’s getting in on the “TV character but now it’s a regular character” business with Ted Lasso, a comedy series based on a series of NBC Sports ads that Jason Sudeikis made in 2013. The basic premise of the videos was that Sudeikis’ Ted Lasso was an American football coach who gets a job managing an English football club (the former being the one where you carry the ball with your hands and the latter being the one where you kick the ball with your foot). Naturally, he’s bad at it, and the humor comes from Ted Lasso’s complete inability to recognize the differences between American football and everywhere-else football.
The TV show version will presumably follow the same premise, and Sudeikis will be making it with Scrubs’ Bill Lawrence. Also, it has a straight-to-series order, so hopefully Sudeikis can wring a whole season of hilarity out of a guy with a mustache who can’t tell the difference between the bad football with the concussions and the bad football with the rampant corruption (actually, they’re both probably corrupt and you can probably get a concussion doing both, so maybe they’re on to something here).
27 Comments
It’s always a great idea when a character invented for a TV commercial makes the transition into, you know, real mediaJust ask the Geico cavemen.
Never understood the Caveman getting a show when the Geico Gecko was the real star. Off topic, I don’t think I have ever met some one who actually has Geico insurance
Never understood the Caveman getting a show when the Geico Gecko was the real star.Practical makeup and recyled Friends scripts were cheaper than CGI, I imagine.
Well, we haven’t met in person (probably), but now we’ve internet met. So you can sort of say you’ve met someone with Geico!
Apple TV+ just greenlit my gritty reboot of the LifeAlert lady.
This will all be part of a huge shared universe with Eagle Man and The General
I had Geico for my motorcycle. They can’t be beat for that.
I’ve seen one of the Johnny English films (2nd one I think) and it was fairly decent. Although my expectations were very low.
Awesome bit of trivia about Cavemen, Fred Savage directed one of the unaired episodes.
Bill Lawrence may not be enough to make this good, but the possibility is still there.
It’s way to early to call a winner to the streaming wars but I would put money on Apple TV+ being one of the first service out.
May I interest you in this 1:1 scale model of Everest fashioned from dollar bills and this book of matches?
Netflix dies first.
No way. They are far to established. I honestly don’t even consider them part of the streaming war that is starting because for most people it’s Netflix + one other service. All these streaming services are fighting to be everyone’s other streaming service.
Netflix has too much debt and no path to profitability. And this is literally all they have. Apple and Disney can afford to take lossess because they make tons of money from their other properties. Netflix can’t.Saying Netflix is established is starting to sound a lot like how it used to sound in 2002 when people insisted Blockbuster is established.
What This Guy Fawkes said. Apple and Disney have more money than most small countries. Streaming is one part of their balance sheet, and one they can afford to burn money on to buy market share for the next few (or several) years. Netflix is a standalone, and will drown in debt.Horses and Buggies were “well established” once too.
But Apple TV+ has all the shows that sound kind of okay but not worth going out of your way for! It’s the Amazon Prime Video of streaming!
I have high hopes for my new series, ‘Chicken Tonight’. It’s an anthology show; each episode follows a different family that feels like chicken tonight. We explore who these people are, what had led them to crave cooked poultry on that night, and how their lives change once they get it.The one thing missing at this stage is a catchy theme song.
That’s exactly the premise for HBO’s Room 104.
If Apple stumbles, they buy Hulu. But, I don’t think they stumble. I think people who compare them to Netflix and Disney+ are not really understanding what they are doing. This is boutique TV with star power and production values that Netflix can only dream about (Jason Sudeikis notwithstanding, obvs.).Just like everyone wants to have the blue bubbles as opposed to the green bubbles, people are going to want to be able to discuss these show Monday morning. It is aspirational TV. If you dismiss their content, you will be looked upon no differently than your green-bubbled brethren.I’m not saying it’s right, but it’s what they’re doing.
It won’t stumble. Have you met Apple fanboys? They’ll swear Apple invented streaming entertainment.
Apple stumbles plenty. HomePod, for example. Or their half (quarter?)-hearted attempt to foist USB-C upon us. iPhone C, acquisition of Beats, car/no car, battery-gate, etc. It happens all the time, but they’re usually onto the next thing so fast that we quickly forget, despite Gizmodo hammering any whiff of failure.But, nothing will compare to the failure of AppleTV (which there won’t be, because it won’t fail).
Hulu belongs to Disney and I don’t think they’d sell. They don’t need money nor the competition.
Don’t forget that Jim Varney’s “Ernest” started in commercials.
https://imgflip.com/i/3dd30s
I liked Jason Sudeikis and was the one guy who enjoyed Son of Zorn, and will in no way get Apple TV+ to watch this.That said, if his made-from-pure-joy character from What’s Up With That? ever gets a series…
I liked the Ted Lasso ads but I’m not going to get a streaming service for them