The basic premise of the WB sitcom "Run of the House" seems, well, contrived. And sort of stupid.
When her parents relocate from Michigan to Arizona for her father's health, 15-year-old Brooke (Margo Harshman) is left behind in the care of her twentysomething siblings Sally (Sasha Barrese), Kurt (Joseph Lawrence) and Chris (Kyle Howard). Which allows her to live out every teenager's dream — life without Mom and Dad telling her what to do.
As dumb as it sounds, "Run of the House" (8:30 p.m., Ch. 30) is not the invention of executive producer Betsy Thomas. "I'm not that original," she joked.
Brooke's story is based on Betsy's.
"When I was 15, my Dad had open-heart surgery. . . . And they got a place out in California so that he did not have to live in the horrible winters," Thomas said. "And what inspired this whole show is that I was raised by my siblings, Sally, Kurt and Chris."
In real life, there were a bunch of other brothers and sisters (Thomas is the youngest of eight) who "shifted in and out" of the house in Minnesota.
Not that growing up without parents hovering over her was the dream life that teens might imagine.
"I would wake up and go downstairs on a school night and my brothers and sisters would be partying and . . . having a blast," she said. "I would (say), 'You guys, can you keep it down? I have a math test.' "
And her siblings would "laugh at me and ignore me."
"You definitely had to learn to kind of take care of yourself. Our kids (on the show) are slightly more responsible. But with my siblings it was like being raised by wolves, kind of. But really funny ones."
Perhaps realizing how that might sound — or, perhaps, having suddenly realized that she was talking to a bunch of people who were going to go write stories about this — Thomas backtracked a bit on what her siblings/surrogate parents were like.
"At the end of the day, these are responsible people. . . . I feel like I have to defend my siblings," she said. "All right, they're not really wolves."
WHAT'S IN A NAME? Joe, Joey, Joseph — what do we call Mr. Lawrence these days?
If he had his way, it wouldn't be Joey. But he's not all that worried about it.
"For me, it's so funny," Lawrence said. "Honestly, my name was never Joey. I was born Joseph and I was always called Joe. I was never called Joey."
At least not in his personal life. But then he got into sitcoms and Joey stuck.
"I played two characters when I was way younger, and those characters' names happened to be Joey," said Lawrence, who played Joey Donovan in the 1983-87 sitcom "Gimme a Break" and Joey Russo in the 1991-95 sitcom "Blossom."
He also played Joe Roman in the 1995-97 sitcom "Brotherly Love" but was still billed as Joey Lawrence in the credits.
But after taking a 3 1/2-year break from show business, he decided he wanted to come back as Joseph Lawrence and has been credited that way since 2000.
"You can call me whatever you want, but Joseph is what I want to see up there. It's as simple as that," Lawrence said.
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