If you haven’t heard of the Twitter account “shitmydadsays,” you should check it out. Written by a guy named Justin Halpern, the site is supposedly just what the account name suggests – a running list of anecdotes from this guy’s grumpy old curmudgeon of a father. According to the bio on the account, Justin says, “I’m 29. I live with my 73-year-old dad. He is awesome. I just write down shit that he says[.]” Things might change around the Halpern household, though, unless Justin is in desperate need of new material for his TV deal. Yes, the Twitter account has turned into a TV deal for Halpern.

The deal for the show came from CBS, with Warner Bros. set to produce. Halpern is actually going to write the show, and will be working with Will & Grace creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick. I’m still so shocked I feel like I should rewrite the whole thing to see if it makes any more sense. The weirdest part is that the account doesn’t even have that many followers. Sure, it’s grown exponentially, but exposure on sites like TechCrunch will do that. But 700,000 followers = TV deal? CBS must really like the content.

Maybe that’s the part that isn’t so surprising, and actually turns out to be kind of reassuring. I think Halpern’s funny – damn funny, in fact – so it’s kinda cool to see a network pick up something with a little potential. Now, if we could just get them to stop cancelling shows like Arrested Development.

Source: TechCrunch

All I can think is, what took so long? Of course, the deal has been in discussion for some time now, and I’m glad to see it came through. I’m not a huge TV watcher, but when I do, I like it to be streaming high-quality video. That’s the obvious benefit for both viewer and network in this deal. And if that iPhone app goes through, even better. For my severely Lost-addicted friends, this is huge news (maybe we can finally get a beer on Wednesdays?).

So why hasn’t CBS converted? A spokesperson recently gave us a lot of word vomit concerning CBS rights management and profitability in multi-platform blah blah blah blah. Seriously, get with it. Hulu is now the third-most-watched video site on the net, just behind Google (including YouTube) and Myspace. I would really like to see the CBS online viewing numbers, particularly after Hulu’s launch. Now people can catch everything they want in one place. Why bother with a slow CBS server when Hulu can stream anything else almost instantly? Did I mention CBS videos look like trash? I feel a strongly worded letter coming on. Now if they just had a show I cared to watch. I like you, Jay Mohr, but your show isn’t funny.