Ladies and gentlemen, the cast of the new Fox sitcom Do Not Disturb![Awkward silence from roomful of press.]• Sure enough, the questions start coming, the gamut of which revisit the so-so recent sitcom pasts of cast members Jerry O'Connell and Jesse Tyler Ferguson. "I know [Carpoolers] was not successful, but I had a wonderful experience," O'Connell says, defending his decision to latch onto another laffer. "Life is funny — that show ends, I get depressed, I don’t leave my house. But then [Do Not Disturb director] Jason Bateman and [series creator] Abraham [Higginbotham] see it and one thing leads to another. No regrets, man!"• J.O. is asked why he didn't opt for another drama. "I got bit with the comedy bug," he explains. "Crossing Jordan was in a morgue and everything was sad... totally depressing! I'd come home and be like, 'What's life all about?!' [Doing a sitcom] makes you a generally happier person."• Higginbotham is put on the spot about Jesse Tyler ...
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Oxygen has OK'd a reality show about rapper Coolio's attempts to raise six teens as a single parent. Coolio & the Gang will debut in the second quarter of '08.... Fox and McG (The O.C.) are developing Spaced, a comedy based (of course) on a British series from Shaun of the Dead creators Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright. In it, two singles pose as a couple so they can rent a flat. Er, apartment.... Andy Barker, P.I. creator Jonathan Groff's new laffer, Private Lives of Public People, started a bidding war between ABC and CBS. In the end, the Eye landed the pilot about upstanding citizens whose home lives are disastrous.... Arrested Development alum Abraham Higginbotham got a go-ahead from Fox for his untitled comedy pilot featuring Reno 911's Niecy Nash among the lowbrow staffers at a highfalutin NYC hotel. — Ben Katner
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