Monday, February 10, 2020
Audible Gets Comedy Series with Big Stars; Fox Gets Another Guessing Music Series
Audible Inc., the world's largest producer and provider of original spoken-word entertainment and audiobooks, announced a new scripted Audible Original comedy series, Escape from Virtual Island, written by John Lutz, best known for his work on Saturday Night Live, Late Night with Seth Meyers and 30 Rock and produced by Broadway Video Enterprises. Golden Globe-nominated actor Paul Rudd leads an all-star ensemble cast of comedic talent including Jack McBrayer, Paula Pell, Amber Ruffin, Scott Adsit, Jane Krakowski, Seth Meyers, Jason Sudeikis, Kenan Thompson, Olivia Wilde and Henry Winkler. The audio series will debut April 2, 2020 exclusively on Audible. Escape from Virtual Island is executive produced by Broadway Video’s Britta von Schoeler and produced by Austin Breslow. Will Rogers and Ian Stearns are executive producers for Audible.
Derek Ambrose (Rudd) runs an island resort in 2038 where the wealthy come to live out their wildest fantasies in virtual reality. With the help of his assistant Beasley (McBrayer), lead computer scientist Faith (Ruffin), and head of security Ramona (Pell), the island has been running smoothly since Derek inherited it from his mother. When a high-profile guest suddenly goes missing inside a computer simulation, Derek, Faith, Beasley, and Ramona form a search party to retrieve him. Bouncing between VR environments, the team soon realizes that the computer has become self-aware and is preventing them from escaping back to the real world. Absurd adventures, including virtual visits to a British Royal Navy ship, a Wild West saloon, and a Central Park rom-com, come to life for listeners through a captivating narrative and high-caliber sound design that evokes TV for your ears.
Following the success of Heads Will Roll starring Kate McKinnon and Emily Lynne, featuring Tim Gunn, Meryl Streep and Peter Dinklage, 64th Man, starring John Cena and Anna Chlumsky, and Ana Gasteyer and Maya Rudolph's Holiday Greetings from Sugar and Booze, Escape from Virtual Island is the fourth audio-only scripted original comedy series to come from the Audible and Broadway Video collaboration. The series joins a robust slate of Audible Originals, exclusive audio entertainment created by celebrated storytellers from the worlds of theater, journalism, comedy, literature and more. Audible Originals offer powerful performances created for listeners by award-winning actors, writers and comedians, spanning every genre and length.
Fox Entertainment has ordered the all-new music guessing game unscripted series I Can See Your Voice, hosted and executive-produced by comedian, actor and The Masked Singer panelist Ken Jeong. Based on the South Korean format from CJ ENM, the series will be produced by Fox Alternative Entertainment (FAE) and will premiere later this year on Fox.
Each week on the show, one contestant will have the chance to win a cash prize if he or she can tell the difference between the good and bad singers, without ever hearing them sing a note. Helping the contestant navigate through rounds of lip sync challenges, hilarious hidden clues and true-or-false evidence will be a panel of celebrity comedians/experts and a musical superstar. In the end, the singer whom the contestant picks will reveal if they are good or bad in a duet performance with the musical superstar, resulting in an amazing musical collaboration or a totally hilarious train wreck.
Sitcoms Airing Tonight / Sitcom Stars on Talk Shows
Thursday, November 21
Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage - "The 6:10 to Lubbock" (CBS, 10:00PM ET/PT) (Repeat)
Georgie and Mandy get fed up staying with her parents and reconsider their living situation after a fight with Mandy’s mom, Audrey.
Ghosts - "Man of Your Dreams" (CBS, 10:30PM ET/PT) (Repeat)
Sam learns that one of the ghosts’ powers is to enter the dreams of the livings and influence their decisions. Also, two of the ghosts think they’ve learned the secret to moving on.
Sitcom Stars on Talk Shows (Week of November 18)
Thursday, November 21
- Jim Gaffigan (The Jim Gaffigan Show/My Boys/The Ellen Show/Welcome to New York) - Catch Jim on Jimmy Kimmel Live! at 11:35pm on ABC.
- Rita Moreno (One Day at a Time/Happily Divorced/9 to 5) - Rita appears on Late Night with Seth Meyers at 12:36am on NBC.
- Justine Lupe (Nobody Wants This/Cristela), Jackie Tohn (Nobody Wants This/GLOW) and Timothy Simons (HouseBroken/Veep) - Justine, Jackie and Timothy are guests on After Midnight at 12:37am on CBS.
- Kristin Chenoweth (Trial & Error/Kristin) - Kristin appears on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen at 10pm on Bravo.
- Maura Tierney (NewsRadio/The Van Dyke Show) - Maura is in the studio to discuss the neww season of Law and Order on Live with Kelly and Mark, so check your listings.
- Paul Reiser (Mad About You/Red Oaks/Married/My Two Dads) - Paul is telling Drew about his huge return to comedy after thirty years with his standup special, Life, Death and Rice Pudding, and his new movie The Gutter on The Drew Barrymore Show, so check your local listings.
- John O'Hurley (Seinfeld/Over the Top/The Mullets) - John will be on PIX11 Morning News on WPIX in New York at 9:40am.
New on DVD and Blu-ray
09/10 - Rick and Morty - The Complete Seasons 1-7
09/10 - The Ropers - The Complete Series (VEI)
09/10 - Ted - Season One (Blu-ray) (DVD)
09/17 - The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet - Video Scrapbook
09/17 - Top Cat - The Complete Series (Blu-ray)
09/24 - Friends - The Complete Series (4K UHD)
09/24 - Young Sheldon - The Complete Seventh Season (DVD) / The Complete Series (DVD) (Blu-ray)
10/08 - Curb Your Enthusiasm - The Complete Twelfth Season / The Complete Series
10/22 - Veep - The Complete Series (Blu-ray)
11/05 - I Love Lucy - The Complete Series (Blu-ray)
11/12 - The King of Queens - The Complete Series (Blu-ray) (2024 Release)
11/19 - SpongeBob SquarePants - The Complete Fourteenth Season
11/26 - Looney Tunes Collector's Choice - Volume 4 (Blu-ray)
12/03 - Angel (1960-1961) - The Complete Series, Volume 1
12/17 - Seinfeld - The Complete Series (Blu-ray) (4K UHD)
02/04 - Bewitched - The Complete Series - 60th Anniversary Special Edition (Blu-ray)
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