Now he's aiming at a much larger audience — the 81 million homes that receive TNN cable.

        His Small Shots (8 p.m. today, TNN) is quite possibly TV's first comedy reality series.

        Mr. Cox and his partner, Matt Sloan, drive their RV into a small town and invite residents to star in a movie. In the premiere, the population of Alton, Ill., stars in Silence of the Yams.

        “It's like Silence of the Lambs, except it's a vegetarian version,” explains Mr. Cox, 29, a 1990 Sycamore graduate. His Hannibal Lecter feasts on heads — of lettuce.

        The nine-episode series also features The Great, Great Godfather shot in a Newark, Del., nursing home; Charlie's Middle-Aged Angels in St. Charles, Mo.; Non-violent Gladiator in Whittier, Calif.; and The Two Commandments, Boulder City, Nev.

        Just Two Commandments ?

        “We figured that today people have shorter attention spans, and we weren't that far from Las Vegas,” Mr. Cox explains.

        “We asked people to give us new commandments, and one old man suggested "Be clean,' and "Give a little, and take a little.' That pretty well says it all, doesn't it?”

        Most of the half-hour show is devoted to auditions, location scouting and rehearsals. (What you don't see are two dozen crew members needed to produce the series.)

        Small Shots closes with the slick 2 1/2-minute movie spoofs, which are as funny as the best Saturday Night Live commercial parodies.

        “We were surprised at how well they came out,” says Mr. Cox, who is executive producer with Mr. Sloan. “Most of each show — about 17 to 18 minutes — is unscripted, semi-structured improvisation with real people. When we finished the shows, we looked at them and said, "Wow! This worked!'

        “We have found that everyone is an actor in a way, as long as you don't take them too far out of their element. We just told people: "Don't try to be funny; just react to what we give you,' ” says Mr. Cox, who also is editing some of the shows.

        The former Blue Ash resident developed his comedy and editing skills here as a teen. He frequently phoned in funny bits to WKRQ-FM's (101.9) J.B., Pam Rahal and Jim Fox morning show, timing them so his classmates would hear them on their way to Sycamore.

        During school announcements, he'd slip in impressions of Ronald Reagan, Alex Trebek or Christopher Lloyd. In the summers, he mixed and edited video and audio at Paramount's Kings Island's old Sound Tracks music video studio.

        The Muncie, Ind., native moved to Los Angeles in 1994, after earning a telecommunications degree from Ohio University in Athens. He edited commercials, and performed with the Groundlings comedy troupe.

        “My dream as a kid was being on Saturday Night Live,” he says. “I always wanted to do the acting-comedy thing, but when I went to OU, I wanted to have a skill I could use out here.”

        In 1997, he and Mr. Sloan created some Hollywood buzz with their parody film, Swing Blade, a cross between Swingers and Sling Blade. They thought of casting real people in movie parodies in 1998.

        “That was before the reality TV craze hit, and nobody thought it would work,” he says. So he and Mr. Sloan wrote for FX's Penn & Teller's Sin City Spectacular variety show, the MTV Movie Awards and UPN's Off Limits sketch show.

        Mr. Cox also did voices for Fox's Family Guy cartoon, and wrote and performed satires about George W. Bush and Al Gore during the Florida recount for an Internet site (www.Mediatrip.com).

        When the networks began buying reality shows last year, they pitched Small Shots to ABC, CBS, WB and UPN and TNN.

        Unlike some of the mean-spirited reality shows, Small Shots dares to be different.

        “We're entertaining in a positive way,” he says. “It has nothing to do with people being voted off an island, or cheating on your wife, or having to eat a dead cockroach.”

        He also understands why MTV and USA rejected the series three years ago.

        “Reality hadn't hit yet, and this is comedy reality, two steps further outside of the box.

        “Who knows? Maybe the audience wouldn't have been ready for this back then. Now people are used to seeing these reality shows, so the timing is right for Small Shots.”

        Give it a shot. You won't be disappointed.

        Contact John Kiesewetter by phone: 768-8519; fax: 768-8330; e-mail: jkiesewetter@enquirer.com.
       

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