Ricky Blitt is just as surprised as the next guy that The Ringer actually became a movie.

Blitt wrote this comedy about Steve Barker, a man who pretends to be intellectually challenged so he can win the Special Olympics.

It's a comic twist Blitt started toying with 15 years ago when he was still living and writing in Montreal.

"I always thought the idea had real comic potential if you could just get past the initial shock of it being so politically incorrect," says Blitt from his home in Los Angeles.

When Blitt moved to L.A. in 1991, he put The Ringer on a back burner while he wrote for such sitcoms as Brotherly Love, The Jeff Foxworthy Show, Politically Incorrect and Family Guy.

Buoyed up by his success with Family Guy, Blitt finally completed his screenplay for The Ringer.

"I took it to every studio in Hollywood. The executives would look dumbfounded during my pitch session. They'd tell me how much they liked it but then said it could never be done. After I pitched it to Universal they offered me the chance to write the second American Pie movie, but they wouldn't produce The Ringer."

Blitt assumed he was at a dead end until his friend, producer John Jacobs, suggested he take it to filmmakers Peter and Bobby Farrelly, the creators of such films as There's Something About Mary, Dumb & Dumber, Shallow Hal and Stuck on You. "Peter and Bobby were idols of mine. The day I pitched The Ringer to Peter was the first day we'd ever met ... After just a few scenes, Peter began laughing but it didn't sound like a positive laugh," recalls Blitt.

Two days later, Peter Farrelly arranged for Blitt to pitch his screenplay to an executive at Fox. "The guy looked terrified but then Peter put me on his knee and sort of moved me around as if I were a puppet and that got him laughing and we made the deal."

Farrelly made just one stipulation. He insisted Tim Shriver, chairman of the Special Olympics, be involved as an executive producer. "There was a scene in a strip club that had to be cut but, for the most part, Tim liked my screenplay," recalls Blitt.

Blitt says Johnny Knoxville did not hesitate when the Farrellys brought him the script.

"The wonderful thing about Johnny is that he's fearless and that's the approach and commitment this role needed."

Blitt has been asked to write the screenplay for the planned Family Guy movie.

"I'm trying to find a window for it in my schedule," explains Blitt who has already written a second movie for the Farrellys called Not a Pretty Woman and who's working on a TV pilot with the brothers tentatively called Blitt Happens.

Seth McFarlane, the creator of Family Guy, has also encouraged Blitt to resurrect Becoming Glenn, a comedy pilot he wrote for the 2001-02 TV season.

"It's a kind of screwed-up The Wonder Years about a 32-year-old slacker living with his parents who spends all his time watching TV and trying to lose his virginity."