TELEVISION : ‘Sherman Oaks’ Unzipped : A bawdy new sitcom on Showtime intends to shake up the nation’s view of the Valley.

When this great nation of ours thinks “fleshpots,” it thinks Hollywood or Beverly Hills. It doesn’t think San Fernando Valley.

But that may change, thanks to a new R-rated sitcom premiering Sunday night on Showtime. In “Sherman Oaks,” as the show is called, the Valley is a suburban Sodom, complete with irreverent humor and the occasional bare breast. “Sherman Oaks” promises not only to gaudy up the Valley’s image, it also is the first series in history to feature an earthquake in every episode--not a big earthquake, but one of the 4.1’s and 3.6’s that are as much a part of our lives as SigAlerts and Gelson’s takeout.

Created by Chris Bearde, “Sherman Oaks” is being shot way south of the Boulevard, in Redondo Beach. Asked why, Bearde quips: “Because it’s cooler, and it’s cooler.” Oh, Chris, Chris, the Sherman Oaks Chamber of Commerce isn’t going to think that’s funny. Its credo includes the belief that Sherman Oaks is really cool, or phat, as the 12-year-olds now say, even if it isn’t on the Westside.

Like “Soap,” whose success the makers of “Sherman Oaks” would love to replicate, the new show illustrates the truism that the term dysfunctional family is redundant. A psychiatrist could find full-time employment in and around the hot tub of Sanford Baker, a Sherman Oaks plastic surgeon played by Nick Toth, his ditzy wife Beverly (Phyllis Katz) and their three over-the-top children--Tyler (Jason Behr), who wants to be black when he grows up; Kenny (Kristoffer Ryan Winters), whose heart leaps up when Newt Gingrich speaks, and the nubile Tiffany (Heather-Elizabeth Parkhurst).

Bearde says he considered a long list of local place names for the show. A former resident of Encino (he lived on Louise Avenue in the ‘70s), he settled on “Sherman Oaks” because it was funnier than “Encino.” Even the rhythm is funnier, he says, “like ‘Melrose Place’ . . . da dum dum.”

The texture of “Sherman Oaks” is part bawdy farce, part Frederick Wiseman documentary, hand-held camera and all. In the show the wacky antics of the Bakers are being recorded by a young practitioner of cin e ma v e rit e played by Tyler Bearde. His mission: “To expose both the cracks that run beneath the surface and the lives precariously perched on top.”

There may be people in the entertainment industry who admit they got their job because of Uncle Dustin or Second Cousin Steven, but Tyler Bearde isn’t one of them. He proudly relates that he beat out 70 other actors for the role of auteur E. W. Ziffrin and that Showtime executives never guessed he’s the son of the show’s creator (Tyler did use a pseudonym at his audition). Tyler describes his character as a rascal who fulfills the audience’s secret wish to invade the Bakers’ privacy. “You root for him. You want him to put that camera in the car. You want to see what’s going on.”

It is no accident that the cable network scheduled “Sherman Oaks” from 11 to 11:30 p.m. Sunday nights, when the kiddies are safely tucked in their beds. “We’re trying desperately to offend people,” says Chris Bearde, who was an Emmy-winning writer on “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.” (He was also a writer-producer on “The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour” and creator-producer of “The Gong Show”.) But “Sherman Oaks” is an equal-opportunity offender, participants insist. The lubricious Latina maid will undoubtedly rankle some, while both gays and straights may take umbrage at an episode that has Tiffany winning a bikini contest in a lesbian bar.

If the cable offering is going to succeed, Chris Bearde says, “it has to be something you’re not going to see on free television.” Much of what you won’t see on free TV belongs to Heather-Elizabeth Parkhurst. Described in the show’s press materials as “a voluptuous twentysomething who can’t seem to keep a job,” her character is living at home, selling doggie sweaters, in the first couple of episodes. But Tiffany is a character, and Parkhurst a performer, who is clearly headed for something bigger.

On the set Parkhurst’s agent hints of exciting things happening for the actress, things he can’t yet reveal to the press. Others involved in the show invoke her name in the same reverential breath as Pamela Anderson, possessor of the most famous body on the most watched show on the planet, “Baywatch.” From the hushed tones you’d think Parkhurst was on the verge of discovering a cure for cancer, but maybe not. Her bankable powers seem to be more directly related to her . . . let’s call it charisma. During a recent location shoot, as she lounged in a black leather bikini on the steps of a local bar, men began to materialize from nowhere, as if answering a call to arms only they could hear. And you wonder why her agent is smiling?

Her publicist, Lee Solters, is smiling, too. He confirms the rumor that he is currently exploring the possibility of having Parkhurst’s body insured by Lloyd’s of London for $20 million. Her entire body, he explains, although “what stands out is her natural endowments.” Natural? Absolutely, says Solters. “We made sure. Our own credibility is at stake.”

The Bakers inevitably invite comparison with the Louds, the real-life California family that let a documentary filmmaker into their home in the ‘70s and proceeded to unravel before our eyes. Will the Bakers become just another divorce statistic? Never, says “Sherman Oaks” writer and co-executive producer Ken Hecht. That would be too easy. Instead, Hecht promises, “we’re going to show what a family that stays together can do to their kids.”

Except for the earthquakes, “Sherman Oaks” offers generic upscale suburbia, rather than a detailed portrait of the Valley community of the same name. Writer Karyl Miller has lived in Sherman Oaks for 20 years and was once what she calls a “Sherman Oaks housewife.” That experience, with its suggestions of serious lunching and power shopping, sometimes informs material she writes for the character of Beverly Baker. “Of course,” Miller recalls, “I wasn’t a trophy wife. I was working on ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show’ at the time.”

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Another Valleyite is Nick Toth, who lives in North Hollywood. As the Baker patriarch, he is frequently in situations that strain credulity, such as translating the pronouncements of a son who speaks mostly Hip-Hop and trying to keep his wife from slipping the bounds of Earth and floating off to an astral plane with her Guru of the Week.

But, despite Baker’s greed and other flaws, we identify with him, Toth says, if only because he is as beleaguered as the rest of us. “Sanford is like the guy in the old ‘Ed Sullivan Show’ with all the plates spinning,” Toth says. “He’s trying to keep them all up in the air at the same time.”

As soon as the show is launched on cable, its creators hope to launch it in cyberspace. Showtime may promote the show via a page on the World Wide Web that will invite viewers to guess the precise moment the earthquake will occur in each episode. Forget “Sherman Oaks.” The producers could call the show: “How Tremulous Was My Valley.”

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WHERE AND WHEN

What: “Sherman Oaks.” Location: Showtime cable network. Hours: Premiering at 11 p.m. Sunday.

* FILM: The Valley also stars in another screen epic, “2 days in the Valley.” Page 8.