Will Fox Risk the Risque?

A proposed TV series rife with the “seven dirty words” that comic George Carlin once observed can’t be said on television has landed at Fox, leaving some within the TV industry wondering just how far the network will push traditional boundaries of taste under its new management.

In one of the first moves under recently installed Fox Entertainment Group President Doug Herzog, the network has ordered a prototype for a comedy series titled “Action,” about a movie producer who cavorts with a prostitute, pops pills and uses language that would necessitate an R rating in a feature film.

Although the script will be toned down somewhat, Fox insiders were still said to have been surprised when the network picked up the property, which was initially written with Home Box Office in mind and became available when the production entity, Columbia TriStar Television, was unable to reach a financial agreement with the pay channel.

“It’s left development people lost,” said one producer who has dealings with the network.

Sources say the goal of Fox’s new regime is to schedule attention-grabbing projects, drawing inspiration from the box-office success of the lewd comedy “There’s Something About Mary,” which the studio released.

Fox declined comment regarding the project, but a source at the network indicated the material would be softened. There has been discussion, however, of leaving some of the potentially offensive words in the show and bleeping them out, as is regularly done on “South Park,” the animated Comedy Central series Herzog developed while running that cable network.

Those behind “Action”--previously known as “Gross Players”--include Joel Silver, who produced the “Die Hard” and “Lethal Weapon” film series and bears some resemblance to the fictional producer of big-budget blockbusters at the program’s center.

In addition to numerous inside-Hollywood references, the original script contains dialogue that would certainly be unprecedented for a broadcast network. Beyond the four-letter words, jokes revolve around such things as producer Don Simpson’s drug overdose and a studio cafeteria worker taking revenge on the producer by spreading something other than salad dressing on his Cobb salad.

Chris Thompson, whose credits include creating the Tea Leoni comedy “The Naked Truth” and writing for HBO’s “The Larry Sanders Show,” is currently reworking his original teleplay but said Fox assured him the project’s humor wouldn’t have to be seriously compromised from the existing draft.

“My first instinct was, ‘How do we do this show there?’ ” Thompson said. “I said to Herzog, ‘Are you willing to do the most outrageous show on TV?,’ and he said, ‘Yes, as long as it’s the funniest one.’ . . . My mandate from them is to do as funny and outrageous a show about the insider machinations of Hollywood as we can.”

When he joined Fox in January, Herzog stated that “South Park”--the bawdy animated series that put Comedy Central on the map for millions of viewers--would not be appropriate for a broadcast network. Yet he also said Fox would look to find programming “a little more adventurous, a little more edgy” than the other major networks, in keeping with its past renegade image.

“The essence of the script . . . none of that’s going to change,” added Columbia TriStar Television President Eric Tannenbaum. “I really think you can do this show and have it [be] every bit as funny.”

Few projects about Hollywood have proven to be major hits commercially. Despite critical acclaim, “Larry Sanders” never drew large audiences, even by HBO’s standards. ABC also tried at one point to construct a series based on the movie “The Player” but ultimately decided not to proceed.

More than anything, Fox’s apparent decision to “push the envelope” in terms of accepted broadcast standards may underscore the network’s desperation to find a hit live-action comedy after years of frustration on that front, despite its success with “The Simpsons” and to a lesser degree other animated programs like “King of the Hill” and “The PJs.”

Herzog’s hiring reflects the network’s emphasis on achieving a breakthrough in the live-action arena, after Fox’s production arm spent more than $100 million signing top TV writers to create new comedy series, seeking the next “Friends” or “Home Improvement.”

Still, those deals have yet to give rise to a hit sitcom airing on the Fox network, though they have yielded two popular series for ABC, “Dharma & Greg” and “Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place.”