Trade Round-Up: WB And AOL Drag "Chico And The Man" Onto The Web
· Warner Brothers and AOL team up to create the web television outlet IN2TV, which will air library titles (read: Chico and the Man) for free on demand, though with four 15-second commercials per half hour. The webnet will also be able to offer interactive features with the programming, like the indispensable ability to win prizes if a viewer can correctly guess how many secret Christian references Kirk Cameron slipped into late season Growing Pains episodes. [Variety]
· ABC continues its predictable, yet oddly comforting, Sunday night ratings dominance. It's kind of nice to know that no matter what ludicrous plot twist surfaces on Desperate Housewives (this week: the gay-seeming pharmacist moves ever closer to becoming a serial killer), people will still tune in in massive numbers. [THR]
· More Aquaman news: The WB will give Aquaman the Smallville treatment, but it won't be a spinoff launched by the recent fish-boy cameo on that series. The new producers promise that the character won't "won't be talking to fish or riding a seahorse," which will basically reduce him to an above average swimmer who wears orange spandex to class. [Variety]
· Greg Coolidge, the man behind Cockblockers, is set to write the script for 5-0, a single-camera comedy about a short, 18 year-old cop. For NBC, exactly the hit-starved place we'd expect to greenlight Doogie Howser PD. [Variety]
· New Line will keep star Will Arnett busy in the rapidly approaching post-Arrested Development era, casting him as the lead in comedy Jeff the Demon. [Variety]