Amazon Studios this morning officially ordered its first original series, giving series pickups to comedy pilots Alpha House starring John Goodman and Betas, which received the call 10 days ago, and kids pilots Annebots, Creative Galaxy and Tumbleaf. The five series will air exclusively on Prime Instant Video later this year and in early 2014. The shows came out of Amazon’s inaugural slate of 14 pilots — eight comedies and six kids shows — that were made available online on April 19.

The series pick up decisions were based in part on feedback from viewers in the U.S. and the UK. “We are thrilled at the enthusiastic customer response to our first original pilots,” said Amazon Studios director Roy Price, indicating that the company will continue to make its pilots available to the public. “We built Amazon Studios so that customers could help decide which stories would make the very best movies and TV shows. It’s exciting to see the process in motion, doing exactly what we set out to do. The success of this first set of pilots has given us the push to try this approach with even more shows — this is just the beginning.”

Alpha House, which stars Goodman,was written by Oscar nominee and Pulitzer winner Garry Trudeau and produced by Elliot Webb and Jonathan Alter, is a comedy about four misfit senators-turned-unlikely roommates (Goodman, Clark Johnson, Matt Malloy and Mark Consuelos) who rent a house together in Washington DC. “We’re thrilled to have emerged safely from this harrowing exercise in online democracy,” said Trudeau. “All of us at Alpha House thank both Amazon and its wise and wonderful customer base for such a happy outcome. As the future of episodic TV packs up and moves to Seattle, we hope the audience will continue to have as much fun watching the show as we have making it.”

Set in the land of Silicon Valley start-ups, Betas, written by Evan Endicott and Josh Stoddard, follows four friends as they attempt to strike it rich with a new mobile social networking app. Ed Begley Jr, Jon Daly, Joe Dinicol, Charlie Saxton and Karan Soni star. Michael Lehmann will direct and produce along with Emmy winners Alan Freedland and Alan Cohen, and Osacr nominee Michael London. “After many sleepless nights scrutinizing the number of stars we were getting online, we’re excited that both Amazon and the Amazon customers have given us a vote of confidence to move forward with a full season of Betas,” said London. “This is only the beginning for our young social media players and we are excited to push them out in the big world to see if they sink or swim.”

Creative Galaxy is an animated interactive art adventure series designed to inspire kids creative thinking through crafts, story, music and dance. The series was created by Angela Santomero, creator of Blue’s Clues and the Emmy-nominated literacy series Super Why!. “It’s really rewarding to hear that customers loved Creative Galaxy. It has been a passion project for me to bring the best arts and creativity to kids with Amazon, and I’m so excited that kids are going to be able to enjoy a full season of the show early next year,” said Santomero. “We need more innovative kids programming that puts a strong emphasis on creativity and education. I’m proud and honored to be collaborating with Amazon to make these shows for kids.”

Annebots revolves around Anne, a young scientist, who creates three robot helpers to assist her scientific experiments in the back of her dad’s junkyard. This science-based series from creator J.J. Johnson aims to introduce kids to science and technology in a fun, new way.

Tumbleaf was created by Drew Hodges and Kelli Bixler of Bix Pix Entertainment, the award-winning stop motion studio. The series, aimed at preschoolers, is set in a whimsical land where a small blue fox named Fig plays each day and discovers adventure, friendship and love around every bend. Children will be enriched by narratives that promote play through exploration and scientific thinking.
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Anyone watch any of the pilots? I never got around to it and seeing that only 2 of the 8 comedy pilots got orders, they must have been pretty bad :x