Comedy Central to air Swardson series

NEW YORK, Oct. 29 (UPI) -- Comedy Central announced Thursday it has ordered six episodes of a weekly U.S. sketch comedy series starring Nick Swardson and set to air in 2010.

The half-hour show is being executive produced by Swardson, Tom Gianas, Adam Sandler's Happy Madison Productions and Sony Pictures Television.

The venture was announced Thursday by Lauren Corrao, president of original programming and development at Comedy Central. The series is slated to begin production next month.

"We love Nick at Comedy Central and even more importantly, our audience loves Nick," Corrao said in a statement. "We've seen it in his movies, his stand-up, with his 'Reno 911!' character Terry, and in the work he's done developing Gay Robot. We can't wait to expand his creative voice into a sketch series."

"I'm very excited to be working with Comedy Central," Swardson said. "They are great people who understand me creatively. They also are very good looking ... a lot of 8 and 9s in the office, guys are probably in the 4s."