‘FAMILY Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane is putting the finishing touches on “The Winner,” a new comedy that could become his first non-animated network show.
“When I first read the script, I thought it was one of the funniest things I’ve ever read,” MacFarlane told The Post yesterday.
This is the second attempt to get a version of the show on TV. In 2002, creator Ricky Blitt – who worked with MacFarlane as a writer on “Family Guy” – saw the show produced for the first time and passed over by several networks.
That first version had a different cast, and was filmed with a single camera – the technique used in comedies such as “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “Arrested Development.”
“I said, if at some point, if
I’m ever in a position to get this thing produced or be involved, I want to be,” MacFarlane said. “Fortunately for me, the single-camera version wasn’t a good fit.”
“The Winner” stars “Daily Show” correspondent Rob Corddry as a successful 40-year-old who looks back on his life to when he was a 32-year-old “virgin at life,” still living with his parents.
The pilot is in the final stages of production and is up for consideration to appear on Fox’s fall lineup.
Blitt says the show could be considered something of a cross between “The Wonder Years” and “The 40-Year-Old Virgin.”
“You get the mock poignancy that we’re treating 1994 like the 1950s,” Blitt said in a phone interview. “The same way that Kennedy was assassinated and [on ‘The Wonder Years’] Kevin Arnold would look around in wide-eyed wonder, Rob’s character Glen can look in wide-eyed-wonder at Ellen DeGeneres coming out of the closet or O.J. Simpson’s slow Bronco chase.”