S#&! his dad says: Justin Halpern on his Twitter feed, best-selling memoir and William Shatner

Tonight is the premier of CBS’s new comedy, “S#&! My Dad Says,” starring William Shatner. His character was inspired by a real life curmudgeon named Sam Halpern. Millions of Americans found their sides splitting while they read his crass and hilarious quips on his son Justin Halpern’s Twitter feed. The feed became so popular, Halpern scored a book deal, which shot to the New York Times bestseller list.

What’s it like to be a struggling Hollywood screenwriter who gets his big break by writing his father’s seriously profane observations on a social networking site? Halpern says, considering he didn’t even know what Twitter was three months before he started tweeting: “pretty sweet.”