Hollywood Exclusive by Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

New Tim Allen Series Details Emerge/Fashion Maven Joe Zee Helps Hard Luck Designers on New Show

More details are emerging about Tim Allen's already highly anticipated ABC series pilot. Looks like his character will have a teenage son to relate to, though there are certainly more females around him in this sitcom incarnation than in "Home Improvement." Among those females, we hear, will be a Japanese exchange student who Allen's character thinks is male — till she shows up — and who speaks no English. The pilot storyline has Tim's character launching into a rant that gets posted on YouTube and becomes viral. Sounds fun.

Things are looking a lot different for Allen than a year ago, when he was getting over the disappointing fate of his acting-directing vehicle, "Crazy on the Outside" — and when he talked to this column about his dismay over Disney pulling the plug on his "Wild Hogs 2" movie. Now, the star not only has a new sitcom on the way, he also has the movie that will put him together with his "Toy Story" colleague Tom Hanks — their planned live-action feature based on the Disneyland Jungle Cruise ride.

GIVING THEIR ALL FOR FASHION: Elle creative director, celebrity stylist and fashion maven Joe Zee believes that although "There's been great stuff about fashion on TV, there's never been a genuine, authentic depiction of the process of how it all works." Until, that is, his "All On the Line" debuts March 29.

The show, which has been likened to a "Kitchen Nightmares" of fashion, has Zee working with talented designers who have had some degree of recognition and success — but who now find themselves in dire professional jeopardy.

"After I packed my bags and moved from Canada to New York to make it in the fashion world, there were some hard times — but I never had to risk being homeless for my business, as some of these people have done," says the personable Zee, speaking of the designers who've put their houses on the line and borrowed up the hilt from friends and family members trying to make good.

"Those are real stakes. To love your business so much you'd go to those lengths, well, them being that passionate drove me to work hard with them, mentor them and guide them," notes Zee.

"Sometimes it worked; sometimes it didn't. I'm proud of them all for different reasons. It's hard to let an objective person come in and tell them to redo something or abandon it. You're always invested in your own work, so that's a tough immediate hurdle. But I have to be honest. I'm not there to pass everything off and give compliments. That's not going to help anyone."

Designers had to "do a real, tangible thing, which was they had to create a collection using whatever resources they already had" for the Sundance Channel show. "I did not write a check. There was no smoke and mirrors," he says. They do, however, get meetings with powerful department store buyers.

Fresh from Oscar fashion commentating for E! and a whirlwind trip to Paris, Zee is just now getting a chance to catch his breath following the rush of awards season. As for his favorite famous fashion standouts these past few months?

"Mila Kunis has become such a star lately, and she hit a home run every time on the red carpet," he points out. "I love seeing the next generation of girls coming up. Emma Stone of 'Easy A,' who's now in the new 'Spider-Man,' is another one that young girls can look up to."

IF YOU ASK US: Despite being based on a popular book of the same title, we hope ABC and Darren Star come up with a new name for their series of "Good Christian B——s." Seriously, the ongoing coarsening of American discourse is sad, and television titles like "(Bleep) My Dad Says" just hurry it along and really aren't clever enough to warrant offending wide swaths of the viewing public. Be that as it may...

Word is out that Leslie Bibb and Annie Potts will star in the tale of a former high school mean girl who comes back to her Dallas home after her marriage ends in scandal — and has to face those now-grown-up, churchgoing girls she burned back in the day. It would be nice to see Bibb in a vehicle that hoists her to household-name status. She's come close a number of times, including when she played Carley Bobby, wife of Will Ferrell's NASCAR driver, Ricky Bobby, in the 2006 "Talladega Nights." She told us then: "She's mean, but it would be boring to just play her mean. She's definitely Southern. I grew up in the South," said the actress, who was raised partly in Virginia, "and my mother and I have a favorite joke you could never print about Southern women who have a pursed smile and say, 'How nice.'" Something that may well apply to characters on her new show.

To find out more about Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith and read their past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2011 MARILYN BECK AND STACY JENEL SMITH

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