Because he’s already lined up his return to stoner comedy elsewhere, Deadline reports that Kal Penn is reuniting with Harold & Kumar franchise scribes Hayden Schlossberg and Jon Hurwitz on a newsroom comedy series for ABC. The show, called Fair And Balanced, will see Penn play an aspiring NPR reporter who is lured over to the Dark Side, i.e., a Fox News-like channel. The comedy part will probably come into play when we see just how easily Penn’s character abandons his journalism ethics to crank out such thoughtful commentary as growing wistful for Hitler.
Penn, who will soon be testing contestants’ near-superhuman powers for Fox, is co-producing the series with longtime manager Dan Spilo. It remains to be seen whether Fair And Balanced will prove as winning a combination as Harold and Kumar, but it should provoke more outrage among right-wingers, who will undoubtedly grow apoplectic when they learn that an Indian-American who once worked for “Obummer” is being ask to portray one of their own.