Amy Poehler is on an unstoppable producing streak. After finding success with shows like Broad City and Difficult People, the Parks and Recreation star is bringing Carol Burnett back to the masses.
The comedy legend will star in a multi-cam comedy, produced by Poehler, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The show will revolve around a family that gets a chance to buy their dream house, but only if they let the current owner (Burnett) stay there until she dies. The still-untitled show, written and co-executive produced by Michael Saltzman, will air on ABC under a put-pilot commitment deal, THR says. Burnett actually gave Saltzman his start in the business, the writer tells Deadline, saying one of his first-ever meetings in the industry was with her: “She presented a check with no contract or conditions,” he says. “Her only instruction was to write anything—a play, a musical, a TV show, a movie, a poem. It didn’t matter. She just wanted to give someone she believed in their start.”
Poehler is a longtime Burnett fan with fawning stories of her own. Earlier this year, she and Tina Fey presented Burnett with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Screen Actors Guild Award, praising the comedian’s legendary career: “We watched Carol with our moms,” Poehler says. “Our moms taught us 90 percent of what we needed to know to be the kind of women we are today. And the other 10 percent is Carol.”
The upcoming Burnett sitcom is one of the most high-profile moves Poehler has made as executive producer, as well as one that will allow her to make a series for a new type of audience. Poehler took a chance on Broad City comedy upstarts Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer, producing an adaptation of their Web series for Comedy Central—which quickly connected with a millennial audience. The Poehler-produced Hulu series Difficult People, starring Billy Eichner and Julie Klausner, also skews young and is fraught with rapid-fire pop-culture references. But this upcoming Burnett show, with its network placing and kooky plot, hearkens back to a more traditional style of TV—adding another layer of depth to Poehler's producing portfolio.
