What's Alan Watching?

What's Alan Watching? was a 1989 CBS television series pilot.^[1]

What's Alan Watching?
Genre	Comedy
Created by	Bob Tischler
Directed by	Thomas Schlamme
Starring	Corin Nemec Eddie Murphy
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	1
Production
Producer	Eddie Murphy
Camera setup	Single-camera
Running time	60 minutes
Production companies	Eddie Murphy Television Paramount Television
Original release
Network	CBS
Release	February 27, 1989 (1989-02-27)

Overview

Produced by Eddie Murphy and his company, Eddie Murphy Television, What's Alan Watching? starred Corin Nemec as Alan, a 17-year-old couch potato who views life, and his family, as if they were on television. Libby (Barbara Barrie) and Leo (Peter Michael Goetz) are his parents, Gail (future sitcom star Fran Drescher) is his sister, Jeff (David Packer) is his brother and Alyssa (Cheryl Pollak) is his girlfriend. Murphy also had a cameo in the episode, playing a protester decrying James Brown's incarceration, as well as Brown himself.

The episode was directed by Thomas Schlamme and aired on CBS on February 27, 1989. The network passed on making it a regular series,^[1][2] but What's Alan Watching? did win the Television Critics Association's TCA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Movies, Miniseries and Specials.

In popular culture

TV critic Alan Sepinwall named his personal television blog "What's Alan Watching?" after the television program.^[3][4]