Showtime Greenlights Jim Carrey Comedy ‘Kidding’

Showtime has announced the pick-up of new half-hour comedy series called “Kidding,” starring Jim Carrey (“The Truman Show”) in his first series regular role in more than two decades and reuniting him with Oscar winner Michel Gondry (“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”), who will direct the project.

In “Kidding,” Carrey plays Jeff, aka Mr. Pickles, an icon of children’s television, a beacon of kindness and wisdom to America’s impressionable young minds and the parents who grew up with him – who also anchors a multimillion dollar branding empire. But when this beloved personality’s family – wife, two sons, sister and father – begins to implode, Jeff finds no fairy tale or fable or puppet will guide him through this crisis, which advances faster than his means to cope. The result: a kind man in a cruel world faces a slow leak of sanity as hilarious as it is heartbreaking.

Ten episodes of “Kidding” have been ordered.