ABC has picked up the Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi's pilot The Smart One.

DeGeneres -- who's been generating headlines this week after One Million Moms protested her spokesperson deal with JCPenney -- will executive-produce the half-hour, multi-camera project with Lauren Corrao.

DeGeneres' wife De Rossi will star as a brilliant and successful woman who begrudgingly goes to work for her less-brainy but more popular sister -- a former beauty queen, weather girl.and now big-city Mayor.

Donald Todd (Ugly Betty, Hart of Dixie, Samantha Who? will write as well as executive-produce.

A Very Good Production, which is behind DeGeneres' daytime talk show, will produce in association with Warner Bros. Television.