While Danny McBride fans may still be commiserating over the loss of Eastbound & Down, HBO is doing their best to fill our hearts with even more of the crude, obnoxious humor we’ve come to love. Teaming back up with the folks who brought you Kenny Powers, the station has bought 18 episodes of Vice Principals – the next comedy from the minds of McBride and his equally hilarious counterpart, Jody Hill. It’s reported that McBride will star and executive produce along with Hill, David Gordon Green and Stephanie Laing. Yup, the usual suspects.
As of now, we only know the most generic details, as no release date or season count has been announced yet. Eastbound & Down didn’t run that many episodes a season, so there’s no saying how far those 18 episodes will stretch – but two seasons seems to be a pretty decent estimate. Currently, all we know is that Danny McBride will play a vice principal in a high school setting, interacting with adolescents in their most rambunctious stages. I’m sure that the actor will be abused by students, undermined by bosses and heckled by peers – and those scenarios all sound pretty fantastic.
HBO Programming President Michael Lombardo was extremely happy to bring back Team Powers, issuing the following statement:
“Danny McBride and Jody Hill have created a smart, rowdy and unpredictable style of comedy that we can’t get enough of. The idea of them setting their minds on high school was irresistible.”
This wasn’t a completely knee-jerk reaction, as Vice Principals was teased last July by HBO. McBride and Hill have been hashing out the idea for about a year now, and it looks like the network was happy enough with early iterations of the project – enough to make a hefty 18 episode investment, at least. There’s no telling how much longer the series might run though, as it was a creative choice to end Eastbound & Down – not HBO’s.
As a fan of McBride’s humor, I’m happy to see HBO make a long-term commitment to the unique comedian. Eastbound & Down brought a whole new brand of comedy to the network, so you can bet that I’ll be looking forward to Vice Principals whenever a premiere date is announced. Although, I’m not quite sure that high school is ready for Danny McBride.
