Earlier today, we reported on the first trailer for the Entourage movie, and hung our heads low at the injustices of modern life.  But in the world of showbusiness, every action has an equal and opposite reaction.  So if, for instance, a show that you feel symbolizes everything wrong with this wretched world lands a big movie deal, that’s got to come back around eventually.  It must necessarily be counterbalanced by a movie deal for a show made of purer stuff. 

Enter Key & Peele, Comedy Central’s sketch-comedy program created by MADtv alumni and extremely funny dudes Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele.  Over four seasons and 42 episodes, the comic talents have mined incalculable laughs from that last American taboo, race.  The pair have a knack for rooting out the little absurd hypocrisies of race and racism and exaggerating them to hysterical proportions. ( In a typical sketch, the guys play nonprofit workers who sit down at a soul food restaurant and one-up each other with progressively “blacker” orders, ending up with donkey teeth and shots of lard.)  It’s a great show doing good work, and in a heartening display of good fortune, it’ll soon take the shape of a feature film. 

Deadline reported last night that, as hoped, Paramount has optioned a movie treatment built around Key & Peele’s substitute teacher character.  Played by Key, sub Mr. Garvey brings his inner-city-bred intensity to a predominantly white suburban high school.  The joke is that he repeatedly mispronounces the names of his white students and flies into a rage when they correct him, under the impression that his pupils are having a laugh at his expense. (“ Denise” becomes something closer to “Da-nice.”)  Even for a three-minute sketch, that premise feels a little thin for expansion to feature-length.  Scriptwriters Rich Talarico and Alex Rubens, both fixtures in the Key & Peele writers’ room, will flesh out the concept with the introduction of a rival teacher character to be played by Jordan Peele, who will come into conflict with Mr. Garvey as a result of his efforts to be the students’ favorite educator. 

America will always need more studio comedies turning a sharply critical eye on issues of race, and so this announcement gets filed right in the “Good News” drawer.  With any luck, Obama’s anger interpreter Luther will soon land a three-picture deal, and the last picture will be two movies.  Below, watch the sketch that started it all: