Nothing heals a broken heart like time, love and tenderness, and nothing heals a network’s comedic woes like a sitcom starring pop rock singer/songwriter Michael Bolton. (Don’t quote me on that last part.) ABC execs are trying to get the former chart-topper a bigger acting resume, as they have tapped Bolton to head up his own sitcom, which is currently in development. Hold on, my guilty pleasure alarm is sounding and I need to turn it off.
The multi-camera comedy project is called Housesitters, and it sadly doesn’t have a whole lot of details surrounding it at this point beyond a comparison, as it’s being called “a modern day Three’s Company meets 2 Broke Girls,” according to Deadline. So, does that mean that Bolton will be posing as a gay man while two attractive females – one from a rich family and one from a poor family – work in a restaurant run by the Ropers? Hopefully not, as that sounds terrible.
This actually isn’t the first time that ABC and Bolton got together to work on a series. Back in 2012, they put together the concept for Michael Bolton’s Daughter is Destroying My Life, but it didn’t even get to become a produced pilot. (Hard to top that name, though.) He’s appeared on Two and a Half Men and Glee – as well as the brilliant Office Space with Michael Bolton short – mostly based on his work in the Jack Sparrow digital short from Saturday Night Live and Lonely Island, which offered up a surprisingly funny side to the Grammy winner. Check the NSFW clip out below.
Housesitters, which hasn’t received a pilot order or anything just yet, is being put together by TV vet Ricky Blitt, who will serve as the writer and executive producer. Blitt has been a writer and producer for Family Guy in the past, and he created the shortlived series The Winner and Romantically Challenged. Remember the Johnny Knoxville movie The Ringer? He wrote that, too. He’ll be working with Gail Berman’s The Jackal Group, which recently put into development that haunted furniture show with Gossip Girl’s Josh Scwartz. Berman has worked with Blitt in the past on the pilots Becoming Glen and Why Blitt.
Now, of course, the question is whether or not Bolton will lend his musical talents to Housesitters, in the style of Galavant, or if he’ll rely solely on his timing and audience control. Stay tuned.
