Darren and Harley Morenstein, the creators of YouTube’s most infamous cooking show, Epic Meal Time, have landed a development deal with the CBC, Canada’s national public radio and television broadcaster, to bring an original series to the small screen.
The scripted show, entitled Elebrity, explores the notion of overnight digital stardom, and will follow the trajectory of Herschel Bock, an eternal slacker who attempts to navigate his newfound fame. Elebrity is a creation of the Morenstein brothers’ production company, NextTime Productions, which was founded in 2011.
Elebrity was selected by the CBC through a program entitled the Jumping Screens Comedy Workshop — a five-month training lab aimed to help three Canadian digital creative teams migrate their talents to other screens. The Workshop is a collaboration between the Canadian Film Centre (CFC), a charitable organization that invests in the next generation of Canadian content creators, and the CBC. Toronto-based production company Aircraft Pictures will co-develop Elebrity with NextTime Productions.
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“We are looking forward to developing great content,” said Darren Morenstein in a statement, “and, more importantly, the ability to do so in our home country with some amazing Canadian talent.”
Other Jumping Screens participants included the singer and comedian Mikey Bustos, as well as Matthew Clarke and David Milchard, who created the web series Convos With My 2-Year-Old.
This isn’t the first time that Epic Meal Time — which recently celebrated its five-year YouTube anniversary with an 84,000-calorie, lasagna-in-a-pig monstrosity — has ventured into traditional television. They signed a 16-episode deal with A+E’s FYI network in 2014 for a show entitled Epic Meal Empire.
