PEARSON: Colorado calls to comic

Published July 14, 2007 at midnight

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Bill Engvall wants you to know that he is not a redneck. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Would a redneck find humor in James Joyce's Ulysses?

Would a redneck live in Louisville, Colorado?

But that's the setting for The Bill Engvall Show, premiering Tuesday on TBS, in which Engvall plays a good-natured family therapist who has lost control of his home life.

It's quite a change for the comedian who gained fame as part of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour. Amid the other tour headliners - Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy - Engvall seemed the odd man out, like a professor in a roomful of rubes. His humor has always been more pithy and observational than class-based.

The new sitcom gives Engvall the chance to do something he's wanted to do even before he started comedy: act.

"Let's not kid each other: Blue Collar is the reason we're talking," Engvall said in a recent phone interview. "The thing is that it ran its course and was a blast to do. This is something I wanted to do to show that I could stand on my own.

"When I was 7 years old living in Winslow, Ariz., my dad would take me to the Tonto Drive-In, and I would sit in the truck watching westerns thinking, 'I want to be an actor.' I didn't go to NYU (New York University) or anything like that. My lovely bride - who I've been with for 25 years - and I moved to L.A. when she was six months pregnant with our first child. I just thought you could be an actor.

"She got me to go to acting classes and I loved it more and more. Out of naiveté or stupidity, I thought I would get my shot and I wanted to be ready for it."

Back to Ulysses; you don't usually find James Joyce in a sitcom.

"When (executive producer) Michael Leeson and I were writing the first episode, I wanted to show that these people deal with normal issues," Engvall explained. "Every parent has had a kid come home with a difficult book they had to read.

"I think we need to give the viewing public more credit. One of the problems with family sitcoms is that they try to find big issues to deal with. I think the funniest stuff comes from day-to-day business."

Engvall plays Bill Pearson, a harried man with a beautiful wife (Nancy Travis), two teenagers (Jennifer Lawrence and Graham Patrick Martin) and a 10-year-old (Skyler Gisondo) obsessed with global issues such as Israeli-Palestinian peace. The supporting cast includes Tim Meadows and Steve Hytner.

Why set the show in Colorado? Engvall said he wrote about a place he loves and would love to live.

"We actually have a little place outside of Calhan, Colorado, and one of my favorite bars in the world is in Calhan, called Curley's. I thought Denver was the perfect place (for a show): It's in the middle of the country, has good people and beautiful countryside.

"I've spent a lot of time in Denver, and some of my first gigs were right there at the Comedy Works. Technically, the show is set in Louisville. It just seemed like the perfect place to set this."

Although the show is shot on a sound stage in Los Angeles, Engvall said he could envision shooting some exterior scenes in Louisville. But that's not in the cards just yet. Instead, he's concentrating on making people laugh at a time when he says we can all benefit from humor.

"After 9/11 the world changed for me, for you and for our kids. In my personal stand-up I've found that people want to laugh. They want to know that things are OK. We get so much crammed down our throats that sometimes people just want to come home from work and enjoy a TV program that's not making a statement."

Local focus

So what do folks in Louisville think of the city's impending TV stardom as the fictional locale of The Bill Engvall Show?

"We were so excited this happened," said Shelley Angell, spokeswoman for the Louisville Chamber of Commerce, who added this isn't the first time the city has been in the spotlight. "A few years ago we were voted the fifth-best place to live in the U.S. by Money magazine. Later we were voted the No. 1 place to live and raise a family by Frommer's Travel Guide."

What does Angell hope comes out of the TBS show?

"The town is such a great place to live that it's just nice to let the rest of the world know."

Centennial scenery

Other TV shows set in Colorado:

• Dynasty

• Mork & Mindy

• The Real World: Denver (pictured)

• South Park

• Everwood

• Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

Life after 'The Sopranos'

Emmy winner Michael Imperioli, below, in his first major role since the end of The Sopranos, will star alongside Oscar winner Ellen Burstyn in ABC's original movie Oprah Winfrey Presents: Mitch Albom's For One More Day.

Based on Albom's best-selling book, the Harpo Films production centers on Chick Benetto (Imperioli), a former baseball player battling alcoholism and depression who, on the verge of taking his life, is magically granted one more day with his deceased mother (Burstyn), who shows him a way to redemption.

Production began this week in Norwalk, Conn. For Imperioli, the role draws parallels to his trademark Sopranos character, Christopher Moltisanti, who suffered from drug addiction. New talent in CW stable

Canadian actress Laura Vandervoort has landed the coveted role of Kara/Supergirl on The CW's Smallville, and Katie Cassidy has been added to the series' companion series, Supernatural.

Kara/Supergirl (Vandervoort) will have a major presence on Smallville in the coming season. The character will be introduced in the seventh-season premiere.

Cassidy's character, Ruby, also will make a first appearance on Supernatural's third-season premiere. Ruby is a fellow demon hunter whom Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles) meet when they begin searching for the masses of demons who escaped from hell in the second-season finale.

Cassidy, daughter of '70s pop star David Cassidy, has appeared in such features as Click, When a Stranger Calls and Black Christmas. She also has been signed to play Lucy Ewing in the upcoming big- screen adaptation of the hit TV series Dallas.

Medical staffs beefed up

KaDee Strickland has come on board the upcoming Grey's Anatomy spinoff, Private Practice.

Meanwhile, after her brief appearance at the end of Grey's Anatomy's third-season finale, Chyler Leigh is joining the cast of the ABC medical drama as a regular.

On Private Practice, set at a posh Los Angeles private medical practice, Strickland will play Charlotte, a doctor and hospital administrator.

On Grey's Anatomy, Leigh plays Meredith's (Ellen Pompeo) half-sister, Lexie Grey, who comes to Seattle Grace as a new intern.

Strickland will next appear in the feature American Gangster.

Leigh most recently co-starred on Fox's Reunion.

pearsonm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2592

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