{"id":535391,"date":"2026-07-20T16:19:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T16:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/535391\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T16:19:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T16:19:08","slug":"kevin-carroll-henry-winkler-more-join-the-earliest-show-tv-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/535391\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Carroll, Henry Winkler & More Join ‘The Earliest Show’ TV Show"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEXCLUSIVE: Amplify Pictures<\/a>\u2018 TV series revival of Ben Schwartz<\/a>\u2018s Funny or Die comedy The Earliest Show<\/a> has been officially greenlit, with the cast now rounded out.<\/p>\n

\n\tKevin Carroll<\/a> (Widow\u2019s Bay) and Ryan Gaul<\/a> (The Last O.G.) are joining Schwartz and Lauren Lapkus as series regulars, Henry Winkler<\/a> (Barry) and Brandon Scott Jones<\/a> taking recurring roles.<\/p>\n

\n\tAmplify Pictures, which initially commissioned scripts for a six-part TV series<\/a>, has been joined by another indie studio, Stay Tuned<\/a>, to officially greenlight the production, with the pair fully co-financing and jointly taking it to market. Irony Point<\/a> and Funny or Die are also attached.<\/p>\n

\n\tAmplify\u2019s model works by developing, financing, greenlighting and producing projects in-house, and then selling them to buyers \u2013 a strategy it has employed for the likes of HBO doc series 100 Foot Wave, Peabody-winning doc Come See Me in the Good Light and a suite of TV series. In effect, creators are able to keep more creative control and back-end for themselves.<\/p>\n

\n\tStay Tuned has set itself up in a similar manner, developing, financing and producing projects outside of the studio system that can be market-ready for sale. The company is led by screenwriter Kenny Neibart, exec producer Douglas Banker and former CAA agent Barry Kotler.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Earliest Show is based on the cult Funny or Die comedy, in which Schwartz and Lapkus played hosts of the U.S.\u2019s earliest live morning show, starting at 3 a.m. sharp from their tiny upstate New York town. No major plot details on the new show have been revealed, though it will follow the same basic set-up, with Schwartz writing and directing all episodes.<\/p>\n

\n\tAmplify CEO Joe Lewis called\u00a0The Earliest Show\u00a0\u201cexactly the kind of bold, inventive series that indie TV was made for \u2013 wildly original, occasionally unhinged and undeniably hilarious.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tExecutive producers include Amplify\u2019s Lewis, Rachel Eggebeen, Colin King Miller and Luke Esselen; Neibart, Banker and Kotler from Stay Tuned; Daniel Powell and Alex Bach from Irony Point, which is overseeing physical production; Schwartz; and Funny or Die\u2019s Ricardo Martinez, Ben Gigli and Jessica Renick.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFrom the new cast, Gaul is represented by Think Tank Management and attorney Ryan LeVine, while Jons is repped by CAA, Mosaic and Granderson des Rochers LLP.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: Amplify Pictures\u2018 TV series revival of Ben Schwartz\u2018s Funny or Die comedy The Earliest Show has been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535392,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[263977,168945,263978,156,62694,263979,263980,111,139,69,263981,263982,263983,437],"class_list":["post-535391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-amplify-pictures","tag-ben-schwartz","tag-brandon-scott-jones","tag-entertainment","tag-henry-winkler","tag-irony-point","tag-kevin-carroll","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-ryan-gaul","tag-stay-tuned","tag-the-earliest-show","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}