Newsgasm: Here comes Judge Lovitz

Industry

By Tabloid Baby | Thursday, October 12, 2006 | 7:34 am | 2 Comments

Lovitz.jpg

We’re still waiting for the ratings from last night’s debut of Tina Fey’s Saturday Night Live-inspired 30 Rock, but NBC is already bullish on getting more SNL vets ready for prime time.

Now it’s Jon Lovitz’s turn to head back to the big game. The gifted comedian, who’s spent the last year or so honing a weekly standup gig at the Laugh Factory on the Sunset Strip, is set to star in an unscripted series called Bad Judge.The takeoff on daytime syndicated court shows has Judge Lovitz presiding over and ruling on real cases . Variety says the tagline is: “The cases are real. The decision is final. The judge is nuts.”

The idea sounds a lot like Judge Buddy’s Comedy Court, an unscripted laughfest starring Buddy Hackett– and it sounds a little like Judge Joan with Joan Rivers– two projects that Judge Judy creator (and current Cristina’s Court executive producer) Peter Brennan was involved in few years back. But at least Lovitz is still alive–and, unlike Rivers, his face moves.

Among Bad Judge’s executive producers is Jamie Tarses, the model for Amanda Peet’s character on the SNL-inspired drama, Studio 60 on The Sunset Strip.

(Speaking of “Bad,” the Will Smith-Martin Lawrence blockbuster, Bad Boys, was originally written for Lovitz and Dana Carvey; SNL vet Bill Murray was set to play the lead in Bad Santa but dropped out because of Lost in Translation– and last week’s SNL… was bad.)

–Tabloid Baby

2 Comments

  1. 1
    mizta
    Posted October 12, 2006 at 11:43 am

    Well I have to say that I really liked 30 Rock. The numbers are already out and about 8 million people watched which I think is pretty good. It’s about the same as The Office.

  2. 2
    Sweet_Mullet
    Posted October 12, 2006 at 3:02 pm

    I am going to have to disagree with you mizta. I watched 30 Rock online last night and I didn’t think it was that funny at all. There were a couple of chuckle moments but I didn’t find myself laughing out loud at all. I think Alec Baldwin had most of the good lines. I may give it one more chance, but after that I am through with it.

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