New Tina Fey Comedy Lands Series Commitment at Fox

Fox is going big for Tina Fey, Matt Hubbard and Robert Carlock.

Following a highly competitive multiple-network bidding war among the broadcast networks, Fox has landed the hot comedy from the 30 Rock trio with a straight-to-series order, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

The untitled multicamera comedy, which takes place at a women's college that has just opened its doors to men for the first time, had NBC, Fox and other networks interested in making the project their own.

Hubbard is set to pen the half-hour effort, with Fey, Carlock and 3 Arts' David Miner joining him as executive producers on the project from Universal Television, where Fey is under a four-year overall deal. Coming off of a lengthy run on 30 Rock, Fey has no plans to star.

The project marks the second for the former 30 Rock creator this development season. Fey reteamed with co-showrunner Carlock for an untitled comedy from 30 Rock writer-producer Colleen McGuinness, which sold this week to NBC. That project, also from Universal TV, is a workplace comedy in which a woman reconnects with her estranged father and finds a new home and family on Fire Island.

Both comedies hail from Fey's Little Stranger banner, where Eric Gurian heads development. Fey is repped by WME, 3 Arts and Ziffren Brittenham; Hubbard is with UTA and Hansen Jacobson; Carlock is repped by WME. 

The project is the first of the season to be granted a rare straight-to-series order, a commentary on the project’s demand. Last year, NBC landed the Michael J. Fox comedy from Sony Pictures Television by offering a 22-episode order out of the gate.

The Fey comedy also becomes the latest off-network sale for Universal Television at Fox, where it produces The Mindy Project and Andy Samberg's freshman comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

Via http://www.hollywoodreporter.com

War on "White" Christmas, Fox Shows its Racism & Stupidity. In Other Words Just Another Day Ending in "Y"

Megan Kelly is dreaming of a white Christmas.

The Fox News star has stepped into a holiday hornet’s nest by insisting on her show that both Jesus and Santa Claus were white — and that anybody who believes otherwise needs to get over it.

“For you kids watching at home,” Kelly said during her prime-time show on Wednesday, “Santa just is white. But this person is arguing that maybe we should also have a black Santa.”

Then Kelly, a Fox franchise player, dug herself in further by saying that Santa couldn’t be anything but Caucasian because he’s like Jesus.

“Just because it makes you feel uncomfortable doesn’t mean it has to change,” Kelly said. “You know, I mean, Jesus was a white man, too.”

Kelly was reacting to a Slate.com piece by Aisha Harris, who had made the case that maybe, as the U.S. becomes more diverse, it was time to “ditch Santa the old white man altogether, and embrace Penguin Claus.”

“People love penguins,” Harris wrote.

There was no immediate response from Kelly to the uproar, but a Fox News spokeswoman said she would address the controversy in the coming days.

While it is true that both Jesus and Santa Claus have been depicted by European painters as white for centuries, many scholars say the historical figures probably weren’t the kind of white that would have passed muster with a segregated 1950s golf club.

Jesus was a Jew born in Bethlehem, a Semitic town in what is now the West Bank.

And the New Testament does not describe his appearance.

The historical St. Nicholas is believed to have been a Greek bishop living in what’s now Turkey, two countries where fair-skinned blondes like Kelly aren’t as common as they are in, say, Sweden.

The jolly, red-cheeked figure we’ve come to know as Santa Claus appears to be a melding of the Father Christmas figure from England and the Dutch Sinterklaas.

Sinterklaas’ sidekick, however, is Zwarte Piet, or Black Pete, a figure some complain is a relic from Holland’s racist past that should be retired.

Via NYDaily