It all started with a visit to Siegfried and Roy's famed Vegas act. Two years, more than 200 animators and an estimated $13 million later, Dreamworks exec Jeffrey Katzenberg's brainchild, Father of the Pride, is finally hitting the air (Tuesday, 9 pm/ET). The new NBC sitcom is a huge risk for the network, but Katzenberg promises viewers — well, adults, anyway — won't be disappointed. "We created this for an 18- to 49-year-old," he says. "It's not about checking to make sure you don't leave the 6-, 7- and 8-year-olds behind. This is purely an adult show." With lots of sex, drugs and a little Matt Lauer, he ain't kidding.
TV Guide Online: So your idea for the series came at a Siegfried and Roy show?Katzenberg: I thought, "I wonder what it's like for those lions. What must life be like from their point of view? [They're] living in Las Vegas, trying to raise a family and earn
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The strange saga of Siegfried and Roy continues. Last year, Roy survived his vicious mauling by Montecore, one of the white tigers in their Las Vegas stage show. Now, the duo are co-producing NBC's Father of the Pride along with Dreamworks honcho Jeffrey Katzenberg, the exec behind Shrek. It's a CGI-animated sitcom (debuting Aug. 31) about white lions (not tigers) who perform in Siegfried and Roy's Vegas act. Pride's many celeb voices include John Goodman, Curb Your Enthusiasm's Cheryl Hines and Orlando Jones, who explains here how he got involved in this unusual comic undertaking.
TV Guide Online: How far along are you in the project?Orlando Jones: We recorded 13 [episodes].
TVGO: Which character are you?Jones: I play a gopher named Snack who is named that because his best friend is a lion. I think [the lions] like to remind him that, at any time, [he] could be lunc
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