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Thursday, Dec 20, 2012 9:20 PM UTC

Amazon greenlights six original comedies

The e-commerce giant forays into production with talent from The Onion and "The Daily Show"

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Topics: Comedy, The Daily Show, The Onion, amazon, amazon studios,

Amazon greenlights six original comedies (Credit: Wikimedia/David Shankbone)

After starting production arm Amazon Studios two years ago, Amazon.com will finally begin its foray into producing original content. The company will be bringing six original comedy pilots to Amazon Instant Video.

Most of the pilots will be produced or written by top names: Doonesbury’s Gary Trudeau brings an episode of “Alpha House,” about four U.S. Senators who are roommates in D.C.; “The Daily Show” writer David Javerbaum delivers a musical comedy called “Browsers”; Kristen Schaal and Jason Micallef will produce “Supanatural”; “The Big Bang Theory’s” Kevin Sussman and John Ross Bowie bring an animated series about slacker co-workers in “Dark Minions”; The Onion will bring back a form of its satirical news show. The sixth pilot features a comedy entry “discovered through Amazon Studios’ online open door process” called “Those Who Can’t”, penned by Denver-based comedy troupe Grawlix).

Amazon will release the shows via Amazon Instant Video and decide which ones to produce based on user feedback. Amazon Studios director Roy Price said of the move, “Since launching our original series development effort, we have received more than 2,000 series ideas from creators around the world with all different backgrounds, and we are extremely excited to begin production on our very first set of pilots. The six comedy pilots will begin production shortly, and once they are complete, we plan to post the pilots on Amazon Instant Video for feedback. We want Amazon customers to help us decide which original series we should produce.”

The six comedy pilots are part of 14 original projects from Amazon Studios, which include children’s programming as well.

h/t THR

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Prachi Gupta is an Assistant News Editor for Salon, focusing on pop culture. Follow her on Twitter at @prachigu or email her at pgupta@salon.com. More Prachi Gupta.

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