TV Land prepares some new sitcoms

March 22, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

NEW YORK

When TV Land was launched in 1996, it was more than just another cable channel. It was a refuge where viewers could revisit old friends such as Beaver Cleaver, the Clampetts and Sheriff Andy Taylor. It was a portal into a video past, a carefully tended landscape of idealized TV.

TV Land hasn’t trampled on that landscape in the meantime. But, even so, the neighborhood has been spruced up through the years.

Consider “Hot in Cleveland,” a comedy series set for a June premiere. For the first time, TV Land is producing its own original sitcom. But “Hot” should fit right into the neighborhood. It’s funny, comfy and a true-blue reflection of the shows that surround it.

Filmed in the trusty multicamera style, it stars a bevy of grand dames of classic comedies: Valerie Bertinelli (“One Day at a Time”), Jane Leeves (“Frasier”), Wendie Malick (“Just Shoot Me”) and the incomparable Betty White (“The Golden Girls”).

The premise is evergreen: Fabulous friends make an abrupt life change, cutting their Los Angeles roots to relocate in, of all places, Cleveland. Then laughs ensue (at least judging from a sneak peek at the pilot that will kick off the series’ 10-episode season).

“All the other networks are looking to reinvent the comedy,” says Keith Cox, TV Land’s executive vice president of development and original programming. “‘How do you step away from the traditional? What’s the new thing?’ But we’re embracing the good old traditional comedy — it just needs to feel contemporary, be really funny and have really great actors.”

TV Land has another sitcom in gestation. “Retired at 35” hasn’t gotten an official go-ahead, but don’t bet against such an announcement soon, with a premiere sometime after October. Based on its pilot, “Retired” has its own easy feel, comfort factor and familiar faces (George Segal and Jessica Walter among them), and its own reservoir of laughs.

Meanwhile, TV Land has more scripts in development, with the goal of building a slate of original sitcoms in the seasons ahead.

“We’re already out there in a very big way looking for the next one,” says TV Land President Larry W. Jones, though he adds, “Our agenda isn’t just getting into original sitcoms.”