Tracy Morgan and Jordan Peele are doing a TV show together and we. can’t. wait.
Hepburn and Tracy. Poehler and Fey. Looks like we have another dynamic comedy duo coming to our screens: Tracy Morgan and Jordan Peele. FX announced this week at the Television Critics Association winter press tour that Tracy Morgan, who we know and love from SNL (Brian Fellow’s Safari Planet!) as well as playing his satirical alter-ego “Tracy Jordan” on 30 Rock, is set to both develop and star in a half-hour comedy pilot written by Jordan Peele (of Key & Peele fame) and Eastbound & Down’s John Carcieri. And we are pumped. Aren’t you? I mean, come on, one of the key players is the brains behind the infamous (and hysterical) Meegan, the other embodied one of the most quoted and beloved characters to grace pop culture. Whatever they work on together is going to be comedy fire!
In this new project, which should go in to production this summer, will see Morgan playing a career criminal who struggles to reintegrate into society after serving a 15-year prison sentence. As FX explains, “Now a man whose only expertise is making grilled cheese with an iron must navigate a modern world of political correctness, internet and self-driving cars.”
Peele and Carcieri will write the pilot and executive produce the show along with Two and a Half Men producer Eric Tannenbaum and former Key and Peele producer Joel Zadak. Even more comedy fire!
Should the show make it to air, it will mark Morgan’s return to our television screens since the 2014 car accident that left him severely injured and claimed the life of Morgan’s longtime friend, comedian James “Jimmy Mack” McNair. The severity of Morgan’s injuries forced him to endure a long and painful recuperation period. This past summer, Morgan began to slowly return to the public eye with an emotional appearance at the Primetime Emmy Awards telecast and a hosting gig on Saturday Night Live that made even the most hard-hearted among us blink back tears.
Perhaps in an effort to turn our frowns upside down, Morgan is currently headlining a national comedy tour he’s named “Picking Up the Pieces.” He also just finished filming the Lee Daniels-directed biopic Richard Pryor: Is It Something I Said?, in which Morgan plays comedian Redd Foxx. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter this past September, Morgan made it clear that he planned to return to comedy, insisting in between tears that it was “going to take more than 18 wheels… It’s going to take more than that to stop me from making you all laugh. I’m going to do that until I die.”
We are so grateful to hear that Morgan is rebuilding his life, and we want to offer him all the encouragement we can!
Peele, unsurprisingly, has been just as busy as his new comedy partner. After finishing his five-season run on the highly-praised sketch comedy show Key and Peele, he was part of the ensemble cast in the first season of FX’s Fargo, along with acting in recurring roles on Netflix’s Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp and CBS’ Life in Pieces.
It seems that Peele is just as excited as his and Morgan’s fans at this news. Peele took to Twitter to comment:
We are too excited about this one. This HAS to be picked up FX. Do it, do it, doooooooo it!
(Image via NBC)
