Dom Joly to get 'Trigger Happy' for US television

The Channel 4 show that turned Dom Joly into a television comedy star, Trigger Happy TV, is to have an American makeover.

The US cable channel Comedy Central plans to film a new series of TriggerHappy shows in American locations. As in the UK, Joly will take centre stage in the new programmes, possibly beside an American host.

Comedy Central has ordered six new episodes of the series, tentatively scheduled to air in April. The deal, for an undisclosed but substantial sum, was reported in the film and television trade magazine The Hollywood Reporter.

Jim Sharp, the channel's vice-president for development and original programming, told the magazine that the "strong performance and warm critical reception" of the show – and the fact that only 14 episodes of it were ever produced – sparked Comedy Central's decision to commission an extension of the series set in the US.

Comedy Central is already showing episodes from Joly's original Trigger Happy TV shows. And in a move that is common in the American television industry, the cable channel has asked viewers to say "which characters you loved" in the series. The most popular "characters" will be guaranteed a transfer to the US version.

Among these are likely to be the mobile phone user who shouts into his giant phone, shocking those around him out of their silence, and the spoof interviewer who starts a serious discussion with an unwitting celebrity before startling the guest with some surreal action such as turning violently on an innocent bystander.

A spokeswoman for Channel 4 International said that the original programmes of Trigger Happy TV had been much admired by Comedy Central.

Joly, who once worked as a television news journalist and now writes a weekly column in The Independent on Sunday, rapidly became a cult figure during the series, particularly among students.