NBC commits to White House sitcom from ex-Obama speechwriter
A former speechwriter for the real president of the United States, Barack Obama, is now writing for a fictional president central to a sitcom pilot called “1600 Penn,” which NBC committed to developing this week.
The show will focus on the comedic pitfalls of a dysfunctional family at the White House, but writer Jon Lovett has not revealed where he will get inspiration for his cast of characters.
Since leaving the administration in early summer to pursue a career in Hollywood, Lovett teamed up with ABC’s “Modern Family” director Jason Winer and Broadway hit “Book of Mormon” star Josh Gad to produce the show centered around a dysfunctional family. Late in the summer, they settled on the idea of having that family live in the White House.
Lovett is best known in Washington for helping write Obama’s address at the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner, a stand-up routine that brutally roasted so-called birthers and would-be Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. The YouTube clip of the routine has racked up more than 9 million views since the end of April.
But, during Obama’s long-fought race to be the Democratic presidential candidate in 2008, Lovett was writing campaign speeches for Hillary Rodham Clinton.
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