"Call Me Kat," the FOX sitcom fictitiouslyset in Louisville, has been renewed for a third season.
Mayim Bialik ("The Big Bang Theory," "Jeopardy!") stars as a cheerful and content 39-year-old single woman who opens a cat cafe after leaving a job as a professor at the Universityof Louisville.
Although Katcelebrates her independence, a fact that bothers her mother, played bySwoosie Kurtz, Kat's single-forever plans begin to veer off-coursewhen her former crush and good friend, Max(Cheyenne Jackson), returns to town. Season 2 ended with (spoiler alert!)Max and Kat heading off to "live happily ever after" in Paris.Season 3 is expected to pick up where the last season left off.
Local fans of the show have become accustomed to weekly Louisville references such as The Brown Hotel, Churchill Downs and a fictitious reporter from the Louisville Courier Journal. Actors are seen wearing t-shirts and sweatshirts with logos from the University of Louisville, theUniversity of Kentucky and the image of Muhammad Ali.
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"Call Me Kat"starsLeslie Jordan,Kyla PrattandJulian Gant along with Bialik, Kurtz and Jackson. Jim Parsons,Bialik's husband from "The Big Bang Theory," has a behind-the-scenes role on the show — the former co-stars are executive producers on "Call Me Kat."
The first season of the sitcom launched with weekly shout outs to the Bluegrass State thanks to Kentucky nativesDarlene Hunt, who served asthe comedy's first showrunner and co-executive producerAmy Hubbsfrom Elizabethtown.
Sohow did the show end up set inLouisville, anyway?Hunt told the Courier Journal that she could have set "Call Me Kat" in any city, but chose a city she knows well.
"Louisville just felt right," Hunt said in a previous interview with The Courier Journal.
She hired Hubbs after learning the writer also grew up in Kentucky.
"I love being from Kentucky, it'swho I am," said Hubbs. "So when I heard there was a mainstream television show set in Louisville with the main character coming from a place of positivity, I thought 'how can I not work on that show?'"
The series is based on the British show "Miranda" which uses multiple cameras and a film technique known as "the fourth wall." The technique is the implied plane that marks the “edge” of the onstage action. Actors utilizing the
fourth wall"occasionally turn toacknowledgethe existence of the audience.
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Earlier this month, FOX announced its fall schedulewhich includes "Call Me Kat" on Thursdays beginning Sept. 29. It will air at 9:30 p.m.behind "Hell’s Kitchen" and "Welcome to Flatch."
Reach Kirby Adams at kadams@courier-journal.com or Twitter@kirbylouisville.
