Leave it to Beaver Leaves TV Land in December; ABC Family Pilot Phys Ed Begins Production

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Leave it to Beaver Leaves TV Land in December; ABC Family Pilot Phys Ed Begins Production

TV Land will be losing the rights to the sitcom Leave it to Beaver after its November 30 airing. The classic sitcom airs weekday mornings from 9-10am on TV Land but starting Dec. 3, the sitcom's contract is not renewed and it will be off the schedule. The series will be replaced by The Dick Van Dyke Show in the hour, as it moves from 10-11am. I Love Lucy also moves up, going from 11am-12pm to 10am-11am. The series that gains in this schedule change is The Andy Griffith Show, as the series now gets a two-hour block from 11am-1pm instead of just airing 12-1pm. As for Leave it to Beaver, not to worry as it will still be on television on Antenna TV.

Elsewhere on TV Land, they will have movie premieres for Mission Impossible (Sunday, Dec. 2 at 6pm) and Starsky & Hutch (Monday, Dec. 17 at 10:30am) in December, and we mentioned last week about their annual Thanksgiving Laugh More-a-thon (Nov. 22-25), which includes Leave it to Beaver. Also, season four of Hot in Cleveland will premiere on TV Land on Wednesday, November 28 at 10:00pm and the second half of season two of Happily Divorced will begin at 10:30pm on the same night. Stay with us in the coming weeks for the TV Land Merry-thon schedule airing on Christmas Day that will consist of classics like The Andy Griffith Show, M*A*S*H, The Cosby Show, Roseanne, Gunsmoke, Bonanza and modern classics like Everybody Loves Raymond and The King of Queens.

ABC Family begins production this week in Los Angeles on the multi-camera comedy series pilot Phys Ed, starring Ryan Sypek (Wildfire), Kate Lang Johnson (Persons Unknown), Sunkrish Bala (I Just Want My Pants Back, Notes from the Underbelly), Samm Levine (Freaks and Geeks), and Chelsea Harris (Just Jordan). We mentioned the casting news last month, but now production has begun on the pilot.
Phys Ed is a half-hour multi-camera comedy about a high school's star jock, Ed (Sypek), who returns to teach at his former alma mater only to find that, even though he's changed, nothing else really has. Ed's new colleagues include Janie (Johnson), a Government/Civics teacher at the school who was ignored by Ed in high school and now finds herself cautiously drawn to his affections; nerdy and needy chemistry teacher Matt (Levine), who quickly befriends Ed and provides him with the latest faculty gossip; popular English teacher Alan (Bala), who likes being the alpha male at school and feels an overpowering need to put Ed in his place, just as if they were still both in high school; and Wendy (Harris), a hot history teacher and cheerleading coach who is rumored to be having an affair with Alan.

The pilot is written and executive-produced by David H. Steinberg (American Pie 2) and directed by Ted Wass (Melissa & Joey). It is produced by Prodco, Inc. Ryan Sypek is an ABC Family alum, having starred in the network's first original scripted series Wildfire. As we mentioned before, should Phys Ed get picked-up to series, we will let you know...but for now this is just a pilot order.

Thanksgiving comes a week early on ABC Comedy Wednesday! A four-course meal of Thanksgiving comedy starts tonight beginning at 8/7c!