Things Nobody Asked For: James Van Der Beek To Play Diplo In New Series About Diplo

Carl Williott | January 4, 2017 2:35 pm

Last summer, James Van Der Beek played a hyper-douche version of Diplo in an ad for the Mad Decent Block Party. And it was so well-received that it has spawned an entire new television series. Viceland has announced that its first scripted series will be the comedy What Would Diplo Do?, and the premise is literally that ad, extended into six episodes, made by the same creative team.

According to Deadline, the description goes: “Louie meets WorldStar HipHop crossed with This Is Spinal Tap, Van Der Beek plays a fictional version of DJ superstar Diplo in collection of parables about life as told through the eyes of guy who can bring 60,000 people to their feet… but kind of sucks one-on-one.”

JVDB is the showrunner, writer and executive producer, and Diplo is also an EP. Revisit the original promo to get a sense of what’s in store.