It beats hanging out at the counter of Schwab’s

Want to be an actor, a singer, a model, a writer, a showgirl, a wrestler or a film director? A national icon of female perfection? How about president of the United States?

If so, don’t waste time screening agents or campaign managers. Instead, look no further than television.

Blame it on “American Idol” -- and to a lesser degree “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” and “Survivor” -- but providing ordinary people a shot at stardom has become TV’s genre-of-the-moment, with shows on, or being planned, devoted to all of the above.

Given that announcements dribble out one by one it’s easy to ignore the parade, until you step back and fully appreciate the absurdity of this lemming-like behavior. Even some within the industry say the deluge of amateur-hour copycats appears ludicrous, with one producer joking that the only untapped idea would involve hunting for a TV columnist.

“We’ll put you out of business,” he said.

Perhaps, but I might not be alone on the scrapheap. Agents, managers and casting directors have cause to ponder their irrelevance as well. After all, their job has always been to sift through the world’s wannabes, weeding out no-talents and half-wits before they appear on national television.

Now, however, the process of thinning the herd is itself deemed ready for prime time -- a game-show approach that lets the audience decide who makes the cut.

The roster of such shows is almost too long to recite, but a partial list includes CBS reviving “Star Search,” HBO seeking another fledgling writer-director to torment on “Project Greenlight,” and MTV’s “WWE Tough Enough” teaching the ropes to aspiring wrestlers.

Bravo’s “The It Factor” returns in January (more than 800 people lined up at an open casting call to find nine actors), and UPN’s “Supermodel” shouldn’t be confused with “Vegas Showgirls” on E!, which also milked the hunt for a new “Wild On” host for a full six months.

It seems only a matter of time before the obvious pay-TV equivalent -- “Casting Couch: Anything for Fame” -- makes its debut on Showtime, or for that matter Fox.

In the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction department, meanwhile, is Animal Planet’s just-announced “Pet Star” -- essentially a stupid network trick, auditioning pets with “an unusual talent” -- and the FX channel’s proposed competition to select a presidential candidate for 2004.

So it’s come to this. Americans are apparently too lazy to choose their political leaders. We need a series on one of Rupert Murdoch’s networks to do it for us. (Come to think of it, FX might be popping champagne corks right now had producers mounted the show early enough to enter the victor in California’s gubernatorial race.)

Beyond all of this, existing series have introduced talent searches, again lending truth to comic Fred Allen’s line that imitation is the sincerest form of television.

NBC’s “Today” amassed over 4,000 tapes from singers eager to become “Today’s Superstar,” while “The Caroline Rhea Show” is conducting its own showcase this month (it’s sweeps, in case you couldn’t tell) under the heading “Now That’s Talent,” a pretty bold move for a host with so-so ratings, given the “All About Eve” scenario that comes to mind. At minimum, the “lucky winner” earns the right to open for Rhea’s stand-up act, plus a Dodge Durango in which to flee the scene.

The producers of “American Idol,” by the way, are hardly in a position to feign indignation over this attack of the clones, having brazenly ripped themselves off. Their upcoming projects include ABC’s “Supergirl” -- a sort-of pageant for young women with beauty, brains and the intestinal fortitude to watch “According to Jim” -- and “Second Chance,” another “Idol” worshipper for Fox, providing pop has-beens a comeback shot.

Granted, there is a degree of wish fulfillment in all these programs, feeding the fantasy that anybody can “make it,” given the chance.

Yet while the “A Star Is Born” formula possesses an enduring rags-to-riches appeal, the real impetus here is less about unearthing new talent than capitalizing on unknowns hungry to be on TV -- the perfect raw material for inexpensive programming.

Indeed, Hollywood regularly demonstrates that luck and notoriety can be every bit as valuable as talent and hard work, helping keep the Tonya Hardings and Joey Buttafuocos of the world in the spotlight, if only to serve as fodder for freakish spectacles like Fox’s “Celebrity Boxing.”

And really, how important can talent be when Colleen Haskell and Colby Donaldson segue directly from “Survivor” into film and TV roles? The latter appears Friday in “Another Pretty Face,” a Pax TV movie billed as his first dramatic gig, which fails to credit Donaldson for how well he pretended to be thrilled about losing out on the big money to Tina Wesson.

In short, TV is not only recycling celebrities but creating future has-been celebrities faster than you can say Kato Kaelin.

As for those who harbor caviar dreams, these unscripted programs simply offer another means of getting noticed and forgoing the rigors of paying dues.

This is clearly the rationale for the many struggling actors who appear on TV’s myriad dating shows hoping to be “discovered,” probably as likely to happen as finding a mate in a half-hour minus commercials.

For them, the message is clear: The quicker, easier path to fame lies through television, albeit with a small disclaimer -- namely, you potentially forfeit pride and privacy and must have nary a second thought about leaving inhibitions at the door.

On the bright side, as Faustian bargains go, at least it’s not your immortal soul.

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Brian Lowry’s column appears Wednesdays. He can be reached at brian.lowry@latimes.com.