Focus : Stand-Ups Sit Down for Prime Time

Three years ago, Marilyn Krentz and Caryl Kristensen were Petaluma homemakers and neighbors who shared the same playful views on being wives and mothers in the pressure-cooker ‘90s. As The Mommies, they quickly became a hot commodity on the stand-up comedy circuit. Now, they’re starring in their own NBC sitcom called, oddly enough, “The Mommies.”

The incredible sitcom success of such stand-ups as Bill Cosby, Roseanne Arnold, Tim Allen and Jerry Seinfeld has thrown all four networks into a comedy club feeding frenzy, as they try to gobble up the next hot act and transform it into the year’s best Nielsen numbers.

While networks tried to entice Generation X viewers last season, this year no generation is left uncourted as the nets cast for the next “Roseanne” or “Home Improvement.” And since Cosby, Roseanne and Tim Allen scored big ratings points playing parents, it’s no accident that six of the new fall sitcoms with stand-ups turn those laugh-getters into wacky parental units.

“We actually performed in Montreal last year in the comedy festival,” Kristensen recalls. “Within a week, we had an offer from every network. We felt like Amy Fisher there for a while.”

The Mommies went with NBC. Others ended up on CBS, ABC or Fox. All with visions of renewal and eventual syndication dancing in their harried heads. Below, some of what’s in store:

‘DADDY DEAREST”

Sundays at 9:30 p.m. Fox.

Already premiered.

The Stand-ups: Mr. Warmth Don Rickles and Mr. Neurotic Richard Lewis. Lewis also is co-executive producer.

The Setup: Lewis plays a psychologist and divorced father of a young son (Jeffrey Bomberger) whose life is turned upside-down when his father (Rickles), a retired used-car salesman, moves in with him and his son.

The Skinny: “Fox wanted them together,” says co-executive producer Jane Milmore, adding it was Fox’s idea to have Rickles and Lewis play father and son.

“We figured that Richard deals a lot with the psyche in his act,” explains co-executive producer Billy Van Zandt. “We thought it’d be best to set him where the psyche takes place. And with Don, simply by making them father and son, you have a confrontational atmosphere based on their personalities.”

Milmore and Van Zandt gave Lewis a son in order to show Rickles’ softer side. “We don’t want him bombastic all the time,” Van Zandt says.

“THE SECOND HALF”

Tuesdays at 9:30 p.m. NBC.

Already premiered.

The Stand-up: John Mendoza.

The Setup: Mendoza plays a divorced sportswriter with two daughters. Mendoza also co-created the series with co-executive producers Leo Benvenuti and Steve Rudnick. In real life, Mendoza is divorced with a 17-year-old daughter. The series, Mendoza says, reflects his own life. “The girls will pretty much play my daughters. I’ll play the same schmuck I’ve been pretty much the last 17 years with my daughter.”

The Skinny: “(NBC) came to me,” Mendoza says. “I was working at the Improv out here. The next thing I knew we were doing a deal together. I am still playing the character I play doing stand-up, only now I have to move a little bit more to my left.”

“I think the successful stand-ups who become sitcom stars are the ones who stick close to the character and personae they’ve been portraying through the stand-up career,” says Rudnick. “We wanted to do the same thing with John. He’s divorced, he has a kid. He’s into sports, so we made him a sportswriter. We’re finding he’s the kind of character, if you set up a lot of things going around him, he just reacts to it.”

Mendoza hired all the creative staff. “I started all of this by myself,” Mendoza says. “Within five minutes, I sold the show. (NBC) told me to go out and find some writers. They said, ‘You need to go out and get a production company.’ That was Castle Rock. We shot a pilot. I’m very lucky. It’s a dream come true from every perspective.”

Stand-ups in Sitcomland: “A lot of it is formula,” Mendoza says. “The networks have found something that’s working. The formula works because we have been out there producing our own shows for 10, 15 years. I know who John Mendoza is. All I have to do is put him in the right situation.”

“THEA”

Wednesdays at 8:30 p.m. ABC.

Premieres Wednesday at 8 p.m. then moves to its regular time slot on Sept. 22.

The Stand-up: Thea Vidale.

The Setup: Thea Turrell’s a widowed mother with four children who works in a Houston supermarket. To raise extra money, she runs a one-chair beauty salon on her porch.

Thea Vidale, a former waitress, also has four children. Certain aspects of the series, she says, are based on her life. “I certainly do have four children,” she says. “I’ve insight into what it is about. A lot of it is the way I am as a human being.”

The Skinny: “I’ve been doing stand-up for nine years,” Vidale says. “I worked very hard to get here. I met (executive producers) Andrew Susskind and Bernie Kukoff. They got to know me.”

“We saw a tape of her,” say series’ creator Kukoff. “She was not only very funny, but very warm,” Susskind says. “She had a very strong comedic attitude, particularly we felt on the issue of parenting. We were drawn to that.”

When the two told Vidale they wanted her for a series, “‘my whole perspective was I will believe it when I see it. So here I am and I am believing it, because I see it. I look at it as a blessing from God. God has been good to me.”

Stand-ups in Sitcomland: “Who would know better about funny than a stand-up?,” Vidale asks. “It’s not like we are doing ‘Othello.’ We’re experts at what’s funny. Stand-ups are very diverse people.”

“GRACE UNDER FIRE”

Wednesdays at 9:30 p.m. ABC.

Premieres Sept. 22.

The Stand-up: Brett Butler.

The Set-Up: Grace Kelly (Butler), the frazzled mother of three, has recently ended a bad eight-year marriage. The latest from executive producers Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner, who brought us “The Cosby Show” and “Roseanne.”

The Skinny: Butler never wanted to do a series. “I was in New York and not very involved in the sitcom-auditioning process,” she says. “I was a diva before my time. The great thing for me was that some of the best producers found me.”

“I saw a tape of her doing a stand-up performance,” says creator and co-executive producer Chuck Lorre. “The series was being developed prior to meeting Brett. I thought it’d be an interesting series to develop around the baggage that comes after the divorce.”

Lorre did incorporate Butler’s own experience as a battered wife into Grace. “I’d met with a lot of single working mothers and the abuse is far more common (than I thought),” Lorre says. “Brett’s personal back story played into that.”

“They were very diplomatic about it,” Butler says. “It may hurt me to redig it up, but if it helps one woman out there....”

Ultimately, Grace became an entirely different person with Butler on board. “She’s tough and a survivor,” Lorre says of Butler. “In my earlier drafts, I was writing about a victim. You can’t do that with Brett because her very persona is one of a survivor.”

Stand-ups in Sitcomland: “I’m pretty sure it’s just to make Dan Quayle happy,” Butler deadpans. “I don’t have any kids, but I’ve four little sisters and a bunch of little cousins. I grew up with babies and kids. I like them. I like having them on the set because it makes the set a nicer place to work.”

“THE SINBAD SHOW”

Thursdays at 8:30 p.m. Fox.

Premieres Thursday.

The Stand-up: Sinbad

The Setup: Sinbad plays a struggling video-game designer and swinging bachelor who takes in two foster children.

The Skinny: “This is an idea I have had in my head for three years,” says Sinbad, the father of two. “I pitched this idea before and nobody paid attention to it.” The networks told him: “‘What kind of single man would want a kid? That’s not interesting to watch.”

Now, he says, “All of a sudden because networks are catching grief, so they said, ‘Let’s have families.’ This became the year we were tired of violence.”

Stand-up Mistakes: “There’s something special that makes a comic funny,” Sinbad says. “A lot of times (the networks) end up hiring comics and they end up almost destroying you because they don’t do anything to make you funny. This has happened throughout my whole career. Then they say, ‘He didn’t work.’ And now you can’t get work again for five years. They say, ‘He’s not funny for TV.’ I’m very involved in the development and the creating of (this series)”

Stand-ups in Sitcomland: “Isn’t it wild,” Sinbad quips. “We make good, cool parents. Plus, we’re crazy!”

“THE MOMMIES”

Saturdays at 8 p.m. NBC.

Premieres Saturday at 9 p.m., then moves to regular time slot on Sept. 25.

The Stand-ups: Marilyn Krentz and Caryl Kristensen

The Setup: The two play friends and neighbors trying to cope with their husbands and kids. “We’re playing ourselves,” Kristensen says. “A lot of the show will be taken right from our live show. It’s our lives.”

The Skinny: “There was a real buzz around town about them,” says co-executive producer Terry Grossman. “Paramount brought them to our attention. We fell in love with them. I think people may have been receptive putting them as co-workers in the work place, but that’s not what their material is about or what the essence is of how they are.”

“Their essence of their act is about being a mom,” says co-executive producer Kathy Speer. “If you go create a seres for them, your best bet would be to make them moms. I think the same applies to Roseanne and to Tim Allen.”

Stand-ups in Sitcomland: Both Mommies insist they weren’t nervous their first time in front of the cameras. “It feels like being at home,” Kristensen says. “‘I started disciplining the actors.” Adds Krentz: “We quickly bonded with our series husbands. Then they started irritating us like our real husbands.”