According to Deadline, CBS has given a pilot order to The Kicker, a multi-camera comedy from executive producers Tina Fey, Jack Burditt, and Robert Carlock. The trio also made Netflix’s successful Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, recently renewed for a third season even though its second has yet to air (it’s the Netflix way).
Written by Burditt—who has also been an executive producer and writer on The Mindy Project, 30 Rock, and The New Adventures Of Old Christine—The Kicker is about an “oddball athlete” who gets cut from his pro football team. With all the extra time on his hands, he starts to drive his family, friends, and complete strangers crazy. It’s a weird premise, but is it as strange as a peppy comedy about a woman who has just escaped an underground bunker where she was trapped by a deranged cult leader? Probably not. The Kicker marks a return to multi-camera comedy for Burditt, who got his start as a writer on Mad About You and Frasier and created ABC’s Last Man Standing.
Fey’s as-yet-untitled single-camera comedy written by Tracey Wigfield, another former 30 Rock writer, also has a pilot order at NBC, the network that was originally going to be home to Kimmy Schmidt before Netflix swooped in and picked it up. This time, NBC wants the credit. It’s the NBC way.