Want a ‘Hot Date?’ Check Out Pop TV’s New Comedy Sketch Show
You may know their work from the website CollegeHumor or from truTV’s “Adam Ruins Everything.” But tonight real-life married couple Emily Axford and Brian K. Murphy will share a larger stage as their new comedy sketch show, “Hot Date,” premieres at 8 ET/PT on Pop, a joint venture of CBS and Lionsgate.
The half-hour relationship comedy features the couple playing a multitude of characters embroiled in the drama– and more often, the comedy – of dating and relationships, about 20 each, ranging from fearless women to man-bunned men.
Set in Chicago, the ten-episode “Hot Date,” which sprung from popular short videos on CollegeHumor, is co-written by Axford and Murphy and executive produced by Will Arnett, who will appear later in the season.
A major storyline in tonight’s premiere spotlights the difficulty of the couple getting past the bouncer at a popular nightclub when one of them is not dressed appropriately. A subplot features 13-year-old twins learning about sex to the chagrin of their father, played by comedian Kevin Pollak.
“What’s so fun about this show is you get a sense of the characters in these worlds. They are falling in love and going down a certain path and as a viewer you feel that excitement,” Arnett said in a recent phone interview. “I’m a fan of Em and Murph and they’ve taken what they’ve done so well and expanded it into a 30-minute show. It’s not just sketches but more of a throughline narrative show where characters come back but keep moving forward.”
“It satisfying for us as writers because we had so many ideas about certain sketches we always wanted to do and now we can connect them with themes on episodes,” Axford said.
In addition to Arnett’s Electric Avenue Productions (“Gong Show,” “Flaked”), “Hot Date” is executive produced by Principato-Young Entertainment and Big Breakfast.
