Five new shows are coming to Amazon.
Comedy "Alpha House," "Betas" and three children's series -- Annebots," "Creative Galaxy" and "Tumbleaf" -- will all become full series on Amazon's Prime Instant Video later this year and in early 2014.
The Amazon shows were posted with several other comedy pilots for public viewing and Amazon said it would decide which pilots would become the company's first foray into original programming based on viewer feedback and streams.
"We are thrilled at the enthusiastic customer response to our first original pilots," Roy Price, director of Amazon Studios, said in a statement. "We built Amazon Studios so that customers could help decide which stories would make the very best movies and TV shows. It’s exciting to see the process in motion, doing exactly what we set out to do. The success of this first set of pilots has given us the push to try this approach with even more shows -- this is just the beginning."
"Alpha House" and "Betas" beat out other pilots such as "Zombieland," "Browsers" and "Those Who Can't."
"Alpha House," a political dramedy starring John Goodman, hails from "Doonesbury's" Garry Trudeau. "We're thrilled to have emerged safely from this harrowing exercise in online democracy," Trudeau said in a statement. "All of us at 'Alpha House' thank both Amazon and its wise and wonderful customer base for such a happy outcome. As the future of episodic TV packs up and moves to Seattle, we hope the audience will continue to have as much fun watching the show as we have making it."
"Betas," created by Evan Endicott and Josh Stoddard, follows for tech entrepreneurs. "After many sleepless nights scrutinizing the number of stars we were getting online, we’re excited that both Amazon and the Amazon customers have given us a vote of confidence to move forward with a full season of 'Betas,'" Michael London, "Betas" executive producer, said in a statement. "This is only the beginning for our young social media players and we are excited to push them out in the big world to see if they sink or swim."
