FOX Picks Up Mall Cop Comedy

Fox is ready to take a big steaming blart all over your living room couch

Flipping the cushions won’t cover that mess up / Seth Freilich

Trade News | January 21, 2009 | Comments (23)

Dustin loved Paul Blart: Mall Cop, which is no surprise really, because he’s got a strange affection for all things mall-related (just mention Cinnabon or Hot Topic around him and he’s giddy as a school girl on prom night). So he’s surely ecstatic that Fox has picked up a “comedy” pilot about a mall cop. “Walorsky” is about a former cop who’s now been relegated to a Buffalo mall. And it’s a safe bet that he’s fat. And kinda inept. And gung ho. And hi-lar-ious!

And if that’s not good enough for you, Fox has also picked up “The Station,” another “comedy” from Ben Stiller. The show is about a South American CIA office, and hilarity ensues when the office takes on the chore of putting a new dictator in power. …Actually, at least that’s an original and interesting idea. With Stiller involved, however, even if just in a title-only capacity, his stink will likely taint the show’s potential. But I still have more faith in it than “Buffalo Mall Cop, Fat and Loaded,” you know?

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Comments

Oh sweet Jeebus, take away this shit.

Posted by: Snath at January 21, 2009 11:32 AM

so they are taking the premise of a not-funny film and turning into a not-funny tv series that will likely be cancelled after about 3 episodes. What's the point ?

Posted by: Alex the not so odd at January 21, 2009 11:36 AM

Dustin Rowles: card carrying commie, AL-Quaeda sympathizer, degenerate...mall girl!?!?!?

HA! I KNEW it!

Posted by: BarbadoSlim at January 21, 2009 11:50 AM

Wasn't Stiller's original sketch comedy show many years ago supposed to have been pretty great (never saw it, just going on reports). Maybe he can recapture that magic?

Probably not, but a guy can dream right?

Posted by: ed newman at January 21, 2009 11:55 AM

Dustin's alias is Robin Sparkles.

And I've admitted this before, but I don't necessarily associate Ben Stiller with crap. I kind of like him. Not in a Meet the Fockers/Night at the Museum kind of way, but in a Tropic Thunder/Something About Mary/Keeping the Faith shut UP)/Dodgeball/Tenenbaums sort of way.

Posted by: Julie at January 21, 2009 11:57 AM

Julie, I didn't think people talked about that movie. I remember watching it early in the morning and just getting caught up. You are not alone.

Posted by: Optimus Rhyme at January 21, 2009 12:00 PM

I can't help it Optimus. It's charming :(

Posted by: Julie at January 21, 2009 12:01 PM

Is Keeping the Faith the one with Ed Norton? I would die for that man, yet I've never seen that movie. Hrrmmmmz.

Posted by: Snath at January 21, 2009 12:04 PM

You know, this whole "Mall Cop" idea HAD to be stolen from Bob and Tom---Sid Gurney as Mall Cop! They did that years ago!!!!

Posted by: dammitjanet at January 21, 2009 12:04 PM

Yes Snath...he directed it too, and plays a priest. I...don't know. I've always just really liked that movie. Maybe the Catholic girl in me loves the idea of a hot priest, because mine were not so much with the genetic bliss.

Posted by: Julie at January 21, 2009 12:11 PM

Considering the number of truly unspeakable teevee shows that have been successful for years, why would anyone think "Fat, Stupid Mall Cop in Buffalo" would get cancelled? I predict it'll last at least seven years and go into a neverending run in syndication that will unjustly make its idiot star and creators unspeakably rich and allow them to live out their long-held dream of ass-fucking previously unattainable women on beds of cash.

Posted by: Tracer Bullet at January 21, 2009 12:13 PM

Wait until the book comes out!

Posted by: admin at January 21, 2009 12:23 PM

I have sort of the opposite theory: take anything remotely funny and put it in a mall and it blows.

Reno 911. Every time they were in a mall, it got less funny.

The mall scenes in Valley Girl are the least enjoyable in the movie.

There are tons of other examples. I don't have anything against malls, I just don't know what they do to comedic situations--they suck the funny right out of it.

Schools, on the other hand, usually add to the funny.

Anywho. ::whistles::

Posted by: Anastasia Beaverhausen at January 21, 2009 12:46 PM

I always thought the episode of Reno that had Garcia and Williams guarding Liberace's piano in the mall was funny. Maybe less funny than others, so your statement is still true. I just thought it was good.

Posted by: Snath at January 21, 2009 12:50 PM

The Ben Stiller show had a fantastic cast. Andy Dick, Janeane Garafalo, Bob Odenkirk, Dana Gould etc. and Judd Apatow was one of the creators. So, it's hard to tell if the show was great because of or in spite of Stiller.

Posted by: MrCreosote at January 21, 2009 12:58 PM

Ben Stiller started showing his...ah..penchant..for displaying his "physique" on that show. He tries to make it seem as if he's parodying...but he really ain't.

Posted by: BarbadoSlim at January 21, 2009 1:08 PM

Ya know, the Mall Cop show could be funny if it does NOT take place in the Mall. It could take place after work, in the Mall Cop's tiny one bedroom apartment, with his wife, Alice, and Mall Cop could say, "Too the moon!" alot. I know that used to get a lot of laughs. Oh nevermind. It's all been done before.

Posted by: BWeaves at January 21, 2009 1:32 PM

Hi-LARD-ious

Posted by: Vladimir at January 21, 2009 1:59 PM

ms. beaverhausen, what about mallrats? i love me some mallrats. it's why i'm on team doherty 4 lyfe.

also, tori spelling is an asshole, but that's another story for another time.

actually, that's the whole story.

tori spelling is an asshole.

Posted by: stopthemadness at January 21, 2009 1:59 PM

AB, Not true! The best and certainly funniest part of the original "Living Dead" trilogy was the zombies wandering around Monroeville Mall to Muzak just like mindless shoppers, trying to shamble up the down escalator etc. Hilarious.

Posted by: bucdaddy at January 21, 2009 6:30 PM

I never saw Mall Rats or the Living Dead trilogy. I saw the original Night of the Living Dead, but I don't believe it had a mall in it. We did make fun of the dialogue in that one, that was fun.

Posted by: Anastasia Beaverhausen at January 21, 2009 6:37 PM

Ben Stiller makes movies or ANYTHING unfunny like Robin Williams...comedy kryptonite I tell you. It's okay if he acts because he's actually a decent actor but when he does comedies I hate him so much I want to explode. There I said it.

Posted by: ph at January 21, 2009 7:38 PM

AB, "Dawn of the Dead" is the mall one, where a handful of humans holds up I think in a JC Penney. Some people took it as a clever play on consumer culture. It's quite good, IIRC. It was filmed in the middle of the night in Monroeville Mall, in a suburb east of Pittsburgh. They have a zombie walk there every year to sort of commemorate it now, draws a lot of peop ... um, zombies, I hear.

Posted by: bucdaddy at January 21, 2009 8:17 PM

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