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From Chron.com

CBS gets serious about comedy (alyson hannigan mention)

By Mike McDaniel

Sunday 24 July 2005, by Webmaster

Network goes after the laughes with 2 new series

BEVERLY HILLS, CALIF. - The Elvis that was Everybody Loves Raymond has left the building, but all is not sad at CBS, which has Doogie, the Fonz, Rizzo and a vampire slayer’s best friend waiting in the wings. CBS Neil Patrick Harris, from left, Cobie Smulders, Josh Radnor, Alyson Hannigan and Jason Segel make up the cast of the CBS comedy How I Met Your Mother.

"Comedy was our first priority" for the 2005-2006 season, said Nina Tassler, president of CBS Entertainment. Toward that goal, the network will return The King of Queens to 7 p.m. Mondays and move television’s No. 1 comedy, Two and a Half Men, to the 8 p.m. Monday spot Raymond vacated.

To fill the so-called hammock positions, CBS will present two promising and nontraditional half-hours, How I Met Your Mother at 7:30 p.m. and Out of Practice at 8:30 p.m.

Produced by Late Show With David Letterman’s Carter Bays and Craig Thomas, How I Met Your Mother is about a father recalling his search for the woman who would become his wife. The conceit is that the show is set some 20 years into the future, so that the father is looking back at 2005.

Josh Radnor plays Ted, who becomes desperate to find someone after learning that his best friend, played by Jason Segel, has proposed to his longtime girlfriend, played by Alyson Hannigan (Buffy the Vampire Slayer). Helping Ted in his quest is Barney, a suit-and-tie-wearing egomaniac with a strip-club edge. He’s brought to life by Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie Howser, M.D.).

Hannigan and Harris provide the show its star power, with Harris getting most of the funny business in Episode 1. But Radnor is the show’s central character.

Though it appeared both Hannigan (American Pie, American Wedding) and Harris (Assassins, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle) were destined to become movie and/or theater stars, both say they’re thrilled to be in an ensemble TV comedy. The pressure to be "the star" is off, and the workload is comparatively light.

"I just want to be with funny people," Hannigan said. "I never wanted to be on ’The Alyson Hannigan Show.’ ... I wanted to be surrounded by people that bring my game up, and good writing."

"It’s fun (not to be the star)," Harris said. "It’s great to be able to sit here not so stressed-out by the newness of it all. It’s great to be back."

Out of Practice is about a family of physicians. Henry Winkler (Arrested Development, Happy Days) and Stockard Channing (The West Wing, Grease) play divorcing parents. In fact, he’s messing around with a much younger office assistant. Their adult children, all single, are portrayed by Christopher Gorham, Paula Marshall and Ty Burrell.

"Basically, this is a show about five adults living in New York - all intelligent, all very talented and all screwed up," Channing said. "It’s a contemporary phenomenon in our society whether we like it or not."

To star in this, Winkler had to forgo future appearances as Barry Zuckerkorn, the sexually ambiguous, ill-prepared lawyer on Arrested Development.

"I’m torn," admitted Winkler. "I will miss my friends at Arrested, but the people in this became an ensemble almost instantaneously. We are like sitting on the hood of a ’53 Chevy. It is so smooth when we rehearse together."

It is the first time the Fonz and Rizzo have performed together. And their veteran status - she’s 61, he’s 60 in October - along with the proven writing talents of Joe Keenan and Christopher Lloyd (Frasier), suggest that CBS is serious about bringing the funny this fall.