From Twitter Feed to Hit Sitcom
In 2009, Justin Halpern was just a writer who had moved back in with his father after a bad breakup. In 2010, Halpern was a best-selling author who turned a Twitter feed into a hit CBS sitcom. Sh*t My Dad Says, a feed he started in August 2009, details the witty one-liners spouted by Halpern's 74-year-old father; it now has more than 1.8 million followers. As with several other hit Twitter accounts, a book deal soon followed, and then CBS struck a deal to create a sitcom based on Halpern's father. The show stars William Shatner as the dad in question and has been cleaning up in the ratings. That was enough to prompt two more Twitter-based sitcoms — one based on Shh, Don't Tell Steve, which details the antics of the account holder's roommate, and the other based on Charlie McDowell's feed, which sends messages to his upstairs neighbors.