Showtime and Jim Carrey are expanding their relationship. The premium cable network has just ordered 10 episodes of original comedy series Kidding which will star Carrey. The series is expected to debut in 2018.
Carrey will star as Jeff (aka Mr. Pickles), an icon of children's TV, a beacon of kindness and wisdom to America's impressionable young minds and the parents who grew up with him - who also anchors a multimillion-dollar branding empire. But when his family (his wife, two sons, sister and father) begins to implode, Jeff finds no fairy tale or fable or puppet will guide him through this crisis, which advances faster than his means to cope. The result: a kind man in a cruel world faces a slow leak of sanity as hilarious as it is heartbreaking.
Dave Holstein (I'm Dying Up Here) created the series, with Oscar winner Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) set to direct. They will executive produce with Carrey, Jason Bateman, Jim Garavente, Raffi Adlan and Michael Aguilar. Aggregate Films produces for Showtime.
"No one inhabits a character like Jim Carrey, and this role - which is like watching Humpty Dumpty after the fall - is going to leave television audiences wondering how they went so long without him," said David Nevins, CEO, Showtime. "With his Eternal Sunshine partner Michel Gondry on board to direct, we are on our way to a magnetic, volcanic and emotional viewing experience."
