Article originally posted on Deadline.
Fox’s ramp-up in animation continues with a series order to Housebroken (fka Therapy Dog). The half-hour project, originally picked up by the network with a script plus presentation commitment, stars Lisa Kudrow, Clea Duvall and Nat Faxon and hails from writer-producer-actress Sharon Horgan (Catastrophe, Divorce), who also provides a voice, actress DuVall (Veep, American Horror Story), writer-producers Jennifer Crittenden & Gabrielle Allan (Veep, Divorce) and Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment (A Million Little Things, Divorce).
Housebroken will be a co-production between Kapital, Merman and Fox Entertainment. It marks Kapital’s first animated series, With the pickup, Kapital is going 5 for 5 in pilots financed by the indie company going to series (including straight-to-series orders). It joins CBS’ 9JKL and Fam , ABC’s A Million Little Things and CBS All Access’ Tell Me a Story.
Fox’s recently acquired animation house Bento Box (Bob’s Burgers) also will co-produce Housebroken and will do the animation.
Fox’s current push in animation includes several new animated series. The first, Bless the Harts, debuted this fall and already has been renewed for a second season. Coming up are Duncanville and The Great North, to be joined by Housebroken.
Written by DuVall, Crittenden and Allan, Housebroken is an irreverent comedy that explores human dysfunction and neurosis through a group of neighborhood animals who live in the suburbs. It stars Kudrow, Duvall and Faxon, and features the voices of Horgan, Will Forte, Tony Hale, Jason Mantzoukas, Sam Richardson, Bresha Webb and Greta Lee.
The idea for the show originated from DuVall who recurred on Veep since Season 5. In a conversation on the set of the HBO comedy, she shared with Crittenden and Allan, who had served as co-executive producers since Season 6, that she felt she and her cat would get along much better if they understood each other better. That led to the premise for a therapy dog animated comedy, which DuVall, Crittenden and Allan — both dog owners — took to longtime collaborators Horgan and Kaplan.
Crittenden and Allan have a relationship with Horgan and Kaplan — the two previously had served as executive producers/showrunners on Horgan and Kaplan’s ABC comedy pilot Bad Mom, starring Jenna Elfman, and also worked on the duo’s HBO series Divorce, starring Sarah Jessica Parker. Both projects were created by Horgan.
In addition to Housebroken, Horgan’s current collaborations with Kapital include Delilah, a comedy pilot at HBO Max, and a project with a script-to-series commitment at Amazon to star Horgan and Billy Magnussoen. Horgan just closed an exclusive first-look deal at Apple and Merman also has a deal at Sky.
Housebroken was Kapital’s second animated presentation. The first, Botcop, also was at Fox.
At Fox, Kapital Entertainment also has a put pilot commitment with a big penalty to Football Book Club, a multi-camera comedy from Robert Horn and Scott Ellis; a script commitment plus penalty for drama Stateside, from Tony Camerino and Andrew Lenchewski; and a script commitment for Sanchez, Ohio (working title), a multi-camera/hybrid comedy written by Isaac Gonzalez & Chris Case and directed by Victor Gonzalez; and for People Person, a single-camera comedy from Matt Tarses. Additionally, the company has a script-plus-penalty development deal with Fox that includes one additional backup script for Pivoting, a single-camera comedy from writer Liz Astrof.