One of this season's funniest new comedies, the WB's "Maybe It's Me," is goofy, outlandish, often unbelievable — and based on real life.
Creator/executive producer Suzanne Martin (a two-time Emmy winner for "Frasier") based the show's main character, 15-year-old Molly Stage (Reagan Dale Neis), on herself as a teenager. And based Molly's wacky family on her own family. Really.
Does that include Molly's ultra-thrifty-to-the-point-of-dysfunction mother, Mary (Julia Sweeney), who, in the pilot, lets her kids go without painkillers at the dentist?
"My mom is very much like the character on the show . . . just incredibly cheap, down to the most ridiculous things," Martin said. "And we did not have Novocaine for cavities — that's absolutely true — to save money. I didn't know you could get Novocaine until a kid said, 'Don't you hate it when they do that needle?' And I thought — I hate it when they drill and it really, really hurts."
And, like Molly's battling twin sisters, Cindy and Mindy (Daniella and Deanna Canterman), "I have two younger sisters that my mom encouraged to fight," Martin said.
Like Molly, Martin also has two older brothers who sort of resemble their fictional counterparts. But only sort of.
Molly's brother Grant (Patrick Levis) wants to be a rock star — a Christian rock star. "My one brother . . . is a classical pianist," Martin said. "And I tried to put that in the show, but it's not as funny, so I changed it."
Molly's oldest brother, Rick (Andrew Walker), is a bit of a small-time crook, concocting various scams while locked in his bedroom. "My other brother is not a hoodlum at all, but he was always in his room," Martin said. "You just assume they're up to no good."
Did she even have live-in grandparents (Dabbs Greer and Ellen Albertini Dow), including a grandmother who hid food around the house?
"Again, my mom's mom and my dad's dad lived with us and never got along," Martin said. "And my mother's mother hid food — bananas mostly, for some odd reason."
As for Molly's father, Jerry (Fred Willard), well, he's based on another member of the family. "My dad is not much like the dad in the show," Martin said. "In some ways, that's a little more like my husband (executive producer Jeff Martin). He will say he has a healthy appreciation for girls' soccer, and I will say he is completely obsessed."
Like Martin, Molly is a teenager who suddenly finds herself popular after a big change in her appearance.
"I lost a lot of weight in a very short period of time, and it was really odd how your life can just change and how you feel just the same inside, and yet all of a sudden the most popular boy in the class — you really do one of these, 'Is he looking at me?' " Martin said.
In the very funny pilot episode (Friday, 7:30 p.m., Ch. 30), Molly is thrilled to discover that the cutest boy at school is taking an interest in her. And she's just as quickly horrified to discover that her mother has invited the boy to dinner.
"A lot of the series is based on just being embarrassed by your family," Martin said.
Indeed it is. But this is not a completely dysfunctional family. For all its quirks, these are people who love each other. And Molly is not the typical sitcom smart-mouth teenager.
"I find it hard sometimes when I watch sitcoms or TV shows where teenagers just say horrible things to their parents," Martin said. "And I know that that happens, but that's not how I was. I thought a lot of things in my head that were horrible, so that's more comfortable for me to write — somebody who thinks horrible things but doesn't say them."
But the audience gets to see those thoughts through pop-up word balloons and fantasy elements, most of which are very funny indeed.
Martin does, however, admit that she's a little worried about what her real-life family's reaction to "Maybe" is going to be.
"When I first pitched this, I said it's exactly like my family," she said. "And I moved to 'loosely,' and now I really want to get away from it entirely. Now that the show is actually going to be on, my family is going to be all over me.
"Although when I spoke to my mom, she was bringing up more cheap things she did — like we always had to take baths in the same bath water."
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com