Ron Mann has his 13-year-old son to thank for discovering his next project, Pure Pwnage, a web series that has just been greenlit for an 8 x 30 run on Showcase.

While at a comic book convention in New York, Mann’s son Oliver insisted that they check out the booth for the web series. While chatting with its creators, Jarett Cale and Geoff Lapaire, Mann was surprised to learn that it received 200,000 viewers per month, that they were from Toronto, and that the show was actually really funny.

Mann optioned the show through his Sphinx Productions, brought in Catherine Tait of Duopoly, and soon the two Internet sensations had become real-life TV writers.

Mark Steinberg (The Dating Game, Billable Hours) is writing the script alongside Cale and Lapaire. Derek Harvey (The Tom Green Show, Testees) is showrunner, while Mann and Tait exec produce.

‘It’s great working with young people,’ Mann says. ‘Cathy and I are vets so we get energized by them and caught up in their enthusiasm.’

Mann is also struck by the talent to be found online. ‘This is an example of how one can take an idea on the Internet and it can work on conventional television,’ he says.

Pure Pwnage gets its name from gaming slang. To be ‘pwned’ (pronounced ‘owned’) is to be defeated, often in a humiliating way. It stars Cale — who Mann describes as ‘the Tony Hawk of video games’ — as a 26-year-old online gaming addict who has lost touch with reality. Forced by his mom to get a job, he struggles to assimilate in society with comedic results. Many of the original cast from the webisodes will reprise their roles in the TV version, says Mann.

As for his son, arguably the catalyst in this deal, Mann says Oliver will be getting a ‘hefty finder’s fee’ and is already researching the new paintball gun he wants to buy with it.

Pure Pwnage is slated to go into production this fall, filming in Toronto and Hamilton before airing on Showcase sometime in 2010.