NBC picks up sitcom from Chicago’s Mike O’Brien, Seth Meyers

Mike O’Brien, the iO and Second City alum who wrote and sometimes starred in some of the oddest “Saturday Night Live” sketches of recent years, is launching an NBC sitcom.

Hollywood trades report that NBC has picked up his proposed series “A.P. Bio,” about a high school teacher exploiting his classroom full of Advance Placement biology students.

O’Brien wrote the pilot and will be executive producer alongside his former “SNL” colleagues Seth Meyers (himself a veteran of Chicago improv) and Lorne Michaels.

Glenn Howerton of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” stars as the teacher, a cynical philosophy scholar. The cast also includes stand-up comedian Patton Oswalt and Second City alum Mary Sohn.

On “SNL,” O’Brien was a writer and, for one season, a featured player. He went on to star in off-kilter short films for the show, playing a teen stud who takes a teacher (Michael Keaton) to the prom, a loser who fashions a new friend (James Franco) out of “Grow-a-Guy” powder and himself starring in a terrible Jay-Z biopic.