Television News: William Shatner Cast in CBS Pilot Based On Twitter Account

Television News

William Shatner Cast in CBS Pilot Based On Twitter Account

By our guest blogger, Alexandra Cervenak

William Shatner has been cast in a CBS pilot based on--what else?--a Twitter feed.  The network has tapped Shatner to play the titular father in a comedy inspired by the Twitter account "Sh*t My Dad Says," which was started last August by Justin Halpern and has since garnered upwards of a million followers.

After moving back home with his parents, 29-year-old Halpern began his account detailing the usually off color, but also usually hilarious, everyday musings of his 74-year-old father.  Recent Tweets have ranged in subject matter from Sprint’s roaming charges to exercise to Valentine’s Day to the eternal fight between science and Mother Nature--all of which would fit flawlessly into one of Shatner’s famous spoken word poetry jams.

Work on the comedy began last November when CBS committed to a script, but now that Shatner has been cast the series is moving full steam ahead with its pilot. The script was co-authored by Halpern himself, along with Patrick Schumacker, and will be produced by the team of David Kohan and Max Mutchnick (“Will & Grace”).

As a Twitter follower of "Sh*t My Dad Says" myself, I am slightly worried that the pilot is being made for CBS, home of such saccharine sitcoms as “Two and a Half Men.” If the pilot makes it to air its already been decided that the title will have to be changed, but then, that would be the case no matter what network it was on. But since Halpern is involved I hope the project maintains some of its salty charm, even if the nearly constant profanities from his original tweets will have to be toned down.

And since the stream of consciousness format of Twitter lends itself perfectly to Shatner’s shtick, I have faith he can keep his character from veering off into another watered down family sitcom cliché and preserve some of his Archie Bunker potential.

MADtv’s Nicole Sullivan and Ryan Devlin (“Cougar Town,” “Veronica Mars”) are also attached to the project, but no word yet when filming begins.

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