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I was fully expecting to hate Stacked, the new sitcom starring Pamela Anderson. Fox has rushed this mid-season comedy onto its schedule (it premieres tonight at 8:30 on Fox and CH) despite the sudden defection of co-star Tom Everett Scott. A hastily arranged conference call with Anderson was ditched Monday. The title of the show was a cheap play on Anderson's fabulous, balloon-sized breasts. Except for the last, bad signs all around.
Then I watched the pilot. Hilarious -- it's like Frasier with boobs.
Anderson stars as Skyler, a babe-and-a-half who wanders into a book store (called "Stacked" -- get it?) in search of a book that will help her dump her jerk of a boyfriend Eddie. Basically she caught the rude rocker in bed with two other babes. "When I was with them, I was only thinking of you -- and another you," he tries to explain later.
The bookstore is run by Gavin, played in the screener by Scott. (Elon Gold from The In-Laws has been recast in the role.) He's an uptight book snob still smarting from the breakup of his marriage to a Lilith-like shrew (Andy Richter Control's The Universe's Paget Brewster).
Brian Scolaro plays Stuart, Gavin's tubby brother and fellow book clerk who goes ga-ga over Skyler. When the blond bombshell complains that she needs a self help book because she's always falling for bad boys, Mr. Comedy Relief sucks in his gut and says, "My name is Stuart and I can be found under dangerous men."
"So can I," says Skyler, "that's why I need the book."
The pilot is loaded with sniggling sex jokes and loaded lines meant to draw parallels to Anderson's checkered past. "I seem to have a thing for guys in a band... and actors... and pro athletes... and circus performers," Skyler moans.
Katrina (Marissa Jaret Winoker), the store's java-slinging Yetti, has no sympathy. "I'm into guys who are one naked girl away from realizing that they're gay."
Christopher Lloyd plays tweedy bookstore regular Harold, a retired Cal Tech physics professor and professional curmudgeon. He huffs and yells and wanders into frame with scientific aplomb.
You don't have to be a Cal Tech prof to know that Stacked isn't rocket science. But Anderson, despite her physical excesses, shows remarkable restraint as a comedienne. It's as if she wears a comedy minimizer.
The Double DD dialogue is obvious and predictable, but, like Anderson's immense hooters, impossible to resist. Since the show can also be enjoyed with the sound off, it is win-win.
Stacked isn't perfect. There's too much yelling and over-the-top acting. Everything takes place on the one bookstore set, which could get old quick. There's that old "where do they go from here" problem (Skyler winds up working at the bookstore, natch. As she says, "This would be the perfect place to stop meeting hot guys.")
Still, you have to love a show that implants laughter -- or laughs at implants. With implants.