向来以创意取胜的美剧看上了微博。有强烈“传播欲”的微博博主们成为他们的目标。首部根据同名Twitter博文改编的剧集《俺老爸说了……》在CBS金秋播出以来，成为电视网中收视率最高的喜剧新剧。

　　去年8月3日，29岁的贾斯汀哈尔珀恩在Twitter上开通了账号，摘录其73岁老父亲的“经典语录”。一时间，语出惊人的老人家吸引了116万人的追随，成为类似于中国内地小月月、贾君鹏等的互联网神话。同名电视剧《俺老爸说了……》就是由此改编而来。首播过1200万的收视总人口，成为年度收视率最高的喜剧新剧，足足比同档竞争的《我为喜剧狂》多了一倍。30分钟情景充满了一波又一波的罐头笑声。整个剧的灵魂就在于这个“出口成章”的老爸。对于老戏骨威廉沙特纳的演绎，网友称赞其演技“精准狠”。
 
　　CBS还把目光对准了另两个著名Twitter博主：一个是《楼上的丫头》，这个博客的作者经常“引述”住在他家楼上的女孩言论，并加以独特的点评，让人啼笑皆非；第二个是《嘘……别告诉史蒂芬》，讲述一个受到不成熟室友“摧残”的可怜人，无奈之下在Twitter上诉苦吐槽。明年两部剧集将问世。但媒体对这种微博改编剧却未必接受，电视剧版《俺老爸说了……》被认为是不成熟作品，媒体评分只有可怜的28分 (总分为100分)。
 
'(Bleep) My Dad Says' tries to succeed as first Twitter-to-TV transfer
 
Justin Halpern knows that not everyone is supportive of a guy fortunate enough to turn a Twitter feed into a bestselling book and a prime-time network sitcom.
 
His good luck instantly breeds hostility, he says, "and it's kind of a justified feeling because it's just a Twitter page."
 
Hits on the Web haven't typically transferred well to TV (see "quarterlife"), but Halpern might be an exception.
 
His Twitter feed, "S--- My Dad Says," amassed a huge following (now more than 1.7 million followers) simply by quotes he relayed from his 74-year-old father, Sam Halpern, a classic curmudgeon with a penchant for expletives.
 
His similarly titled book debuted on The New York Times list of bestsellers. Then, the CBS sitcom starring William Shatner as Halpern's father premiered to 12.5 million viewers, more than twice that of "30 Rock," its much more acclaimed 8:30 p.m. ET Thursday competition.
 
Ratings for "(Bleep) My Dad Says" (the Twitter feed's title was changed for the CBS show) have since declined each week and reviews have been bad. But the show hopes it has cast off its novelty label and become one of the few Internet-to-TV success stories.
 
It hasn't been a smooth ride. The pilot, produced by Warner Bros., had to be reshot, and the part of the son was recast with Jonathan Sadowski. The changes may have improved things, but critics were still unimpressed. The New York Times, for one, called it "a bad idea from the moment it was announced" and "a wholly generic sitcom so divorced from its source material that you have to pinch yourself."
 
The show is oddly old-school in its reliance on sitcom tradition. But to a certain extent, the Twitter feed that started it all was classically sitcomish: There's no more familiar TV trope than the crabby father.
 
One of the ingredients that set Halpern's Twitter feed apart was its vulgarity. His father's musings and advice are harsh. One of few examples without an offensive word: "Pressure? Get married when you want. Your wedding's just one more day in my life I can't wear sweat pants."
 
Halpern ended up living with his parents in San Diego after he got a job with Maxim.com and his girlfriend unexpectedly dumped him. In the book, he fleshes out the details of his life and his relationship with his dad, whom he describes as "the least passive-aggressive human being on the planet."
 
He started the Twitter account as a lark at the suggestion of a friend.
 
"I had no idea what to expect," he says. "It was just funny to tell my friends, 'Look at all these people that follow what my dad says.'"
 
Halpern believes the book gave him some credence and "changed a lot of people's minds about how that jump can work," referring to the transfers from the Internet to television.
 
Executive producers David Kohan and Max Mutchnick, creators of "Will & Grace," were brought in to run the show. Halpern is a co-executive producer and writer.
 
The most notable change in the adaptation was sanitizing the vulgarity. The character based on Halpern, too, was turned from merely a bemused onlooker into a son craving love and sympathy from his father.
 
"On the Internet, when you present something that's really genuine and real, it always has a better shot than when you present something that looks premeditated and scripted," says Halpern. "On television, a lot of times it's a different kind of audience."
 
Shatner calls the curious origins of the show "a viral miracle."
 
"I went with the magic of the Twitter and the wonderful reputation of (Mutchnick) and (Kohan)," says Shatner. "It turned out that their reputation was well deserved and it seems magic has hit."
 
Post-premiere ratings have suggested trouble, though. The audience for the second episode dropped nearly 18 per cent to 10.44 million. The third episode was seen by 9.8 million. That's still a very large audience for modern network television, and if "(Bleep) My Dad Says" stayed there, it would be one of the hits of the fall.
 
Shatner describes the show (which recently shot its eighth episode) as trying to achieve a balance between honest relationships and the need for a laugh every 30 seconds.
 
"I feel that we can build an audience by sustaining and increasing the quality of our show," he says.
 
Halpern says they're "figuring out what the show is" and he believes the ratings will hold. The journey from Twitter to TV, he says, only works if it's an accident.
 
"It can work if you just make stuff that you enjoy and think is funny," Halpern says, "not for the purpose of, 'If I put together the perfect cocktail of marketable ideas I'll be able to make money.' I think that's when it never works."