Groupon the sitcom... what?
A new TV show about two guys working at the daily deals Web site is set to air on CBS next season, and it's confusingly named "Friend Me."
Hold the canned laughter, it's true -- Groupon is the focus of a new sitcom.
CBS has just ordered the sitcom for next season, and it's about two friends who moved to Los Angeles to work at Groupon, according to Vanity Fair. (Disclosure: CBS owns CNET.)
"Friend Me" is the name of the TV show, which is sure to kick up some controversy with social-networking giant Facebook. Just a couple of months ago Facebook revised its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities saying that account holders cannot use the word "Book" because it will be trademarked along with the words "Face," "FB," "Wall," "Facepile," and "Friendfeed."
According to Vanity Fair, the show will star Christopher Mintz-Plasse, from "Superbad," and Nicholas Braun, from "Red State." Here is the description of the sitcom that Vanity Fair published:
Twentysomething best friends, Evan and Rob, [who] move from their hometown of Bloomington, Ind., to Los Angeles to begin their exciting new lives working at Groupon. Evan is having trouble breaking his old slothful habits and rather than go out after work to explore L.A. and meet new people, prefers to play online poker with his buddies back home. Rob has different plans and is determined to drag Evan, kicking and screaming, along with him.
Groupon told Forbes in January that it didn't have any involvement in the pilot for "Friend Me." However, it's not clear if that will change now that the sitcom is becoming a series. It's also not known exactly when the show is expected to debut.
This isn't the first time CBS has tried to turn tech life into a sitcom. From September 2010 to February 2011, the network ran and then canceled an 18-episode show called "S*** My Dad Says" based on a Twitter feed created by Justin Halpern of quotes from his father Sam.