• by Karl Greenberg , July 15, 2015

Lexus is continuing its branded entertainment push on its L/Studio platform with a series that follows the exploits of real “Saturday Night Live” writers James Anderson and Paula Pell. 

Called, “Hudson Valley Ballers,” the first season of which premiered two years ago on comedy site Above Average, the eight-episode series has the two writers being fired — sort of — by producer Lorne Michaels. The show follows their exploits trying to run a bed-and-breakfast in Hudson Valley. Actually it's a bed-and-“brunch,” since, as comedy writers, they clearly aren’t trained to wake up early. 

The fun starts when the house they have bought for their “Embarrassed Lamb” BandB turns out to have been a crack den. The series features the likes of Lena Dunham, Rachel Dratch (the crack-addled former owner), Alex Karpovsky, and Cecily Strong. The first four videos in the series are live now. The second four come out in August. 

For its L/Studio platform, which Lexus started six years ago, the automaker and its AOR, Los Angeles-based Team One, sidestep doing the content creation, instead bringing in outside production houses as partners. In this case there’s a connection with Lorne Michaels as Above Average is a unit of his production shop Broadway Video, which has produced shows like “30Rock,” the current iteration of “The Tonight Show,” and “Late Night With Seth Myers,” among other things. 

For L/Studio, which, besides humor, has content around lifestyle, film, science and technology, Lexus partnered with Oprah Winfrey’s OWN network for another content series, “The Sessions Project,” spotlighting Will.i.am.  

Said Brian Smith, Lexus VP marketing, “L/Studio offers artists a creative forum for passion projects, and we’re excited to partner with the team behind this series as it is another opportunity to engage and entertain our audience.” L/Studio recently launched “It Got Better,” produced by Lisa Kudrow and Dan Bucatinsky, (who were behind the L/Studio hit “Web Therapy”) to spotlight LGBT achievers.