Shat(ner) My Dad Says...

Over the years, you've probably heard some variation of the so-called infinite monkey theorem, which basically holds that if you put X number of monkeys in front of typewriters for Y amount of time,one of them eventually will write Hamlet. Were it only so. According to a BBC News article, when researchers at the University of Plymouth in the UK actually tried such an experiment in 2003 by giving six macaques access to a computer keyboard for a month, the primates produced just five pages of text, consisting mostly of the letter "s" repeated over and over.

San Diego writer Justin Halpern has a better idea. He simply writes down the stream of outrageous, frequently off-color, and invariably funny daily utterances by his father Sam, a 74-year-old physician, and posts them on Twitter under the title "[Bleep] my dad says"--sans the "bleep." A sample:

Or how about this gem?

Dr. Sam's ribald observations, which have attracted 1.3 million followers on Twitter, already have spawned a New York Times bestseller, and now comes word from the Hollywood Reporter that they'll serve as the inspiration for a sitcom, $#*! My Dad Says, that CBS has just picked up for the Fall season. THR says that before redacting the title with punctuation marks, the network considered the alternate title Shat My Dad Says. That sounds a bit too British for us, though it would have helped hype the high-profile star that the producers have lined up to play Dr. Sam--dashing, hunky intergalactic action hero-turned-midlife character actor, spoken-word rock "singer," Priceline spokesperson William Shatner.

In a New York Times article, Justin Halpern described the show's premise as "the dichotomy of this older guy who says whatever he wants, and this younger guy who's tiptoeing through life," careful not to offend for fear of losing jobs or friends.

Fashioning a comic character out of verite dialogue gleaned from a Twitter feed is an unprecedented artistic challenge, but I can't think of anyone better qualified to pull off the lead role than Shatner, a veritable Jedi master of deft self-parody.

Also coming from CBS this fall: A remake of the travelogue-police procedural Hawaii Five-0, which introduced Jack Lord's aerodynamic pompadour and the phrase "Book 'em Danno!" to the baby boomer lexicon. (This time, though, the show isn't being created as a less-violent alternative to other cop dramas, as the original was.) I also noticed another familiar-sounding show from my 60s youth on the schedule, The Defenders, but it turns out to be a sitcom rather than a reprise of the classic courtroom drama created by the great Reginald Rose, which arguably invented the ripped-from-the-headlines formula of the Law & Order franchise.