Amazon's first pilot pickups include "Alpha House" with John Goodman, "Betas," and three kids shows, the company announced Wednesday.
The company sought feedback from customers to help decide which of several shows should be given the greeenlight to produce a full series of episodes that will begin airing later this year and in 2014.
Among the chosen are "Alpha House," about four senators living together, which comes from "Doonesbury" creator Garry Trudeau, stars Goodman, and features a Bill Murray cameo. "Betas," meanwhile, is about four tech entrepeneurs.
The company also greenlit the childrens' shows "Annebots," about a kid scientist and her robots, "Creative Galaxy," about an alien artist, and "Tumbleaf," about a whimsical fox looking for adventure.
They will air exclusively on Prime Instant Video.
“We are thrilled at the enthusiastic customer response to our first original pilots,” said Roy Price, director of Amazon Studios. “We built Amazon Studios so that customers could help decide which stories would make the very best movies and TV shows. It’s exciting to see the process in motion, doing exactly what we set out to do. The success of this first set of pilots has given us the push to try this approach with even more shows-this is just the beginning.”
“We're thrilled to have emerged safely from this harrowing exercise in online democracy,” said "Alpha House" creator Garry Trudeau. "As the future of episodic TV packs up and moves to Seattle, we hope the audience will continue to have as much fun watching the show as we have making it.”
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