LOS ANGELES (AP) - Dilbert, the loser of the corporate world, looks like a winner on television.
The cubicle-bound engineer who suffers the tortures of office life in Scott Adams' comic strip is the star of "Dilbert," a clever new animated series on UPN that gives the struggling network a reason to live.
"Dilbert," debuting 8 p.m. EST Monday, doesn't suffer so much as a paper cut in the transition from the funny pages. The show skewers the absurdities of the workplace with wit as pointed as the hair of Dilbert's evil supervisor.
"Am I late?" says the top boss, strolling into a meeting.
Minion: "Right on time, sir."
Top boss: "Oh. In that case, I've got time to make some phone calls."
Thumbs twiddle, boss finally returns: "Am I late now?"
Minion: "Yes. But it's not because you're an inconsiderate dolt. It's because you're more important than us."
Welcome to Dilbert's world (maybe yours?) and don't forget to check the voice mail.
"You have 937 messages," intones the machine. "All of which are marked URGENT."
Think of Fox's "The Simpsons" with its clever social satire, but drop the warm and fuzzy family trappings. Dilbert is part of a chain gang, not a clan. And they're breaking rock piles for The Company not because it makes sense, but because. Period.
The series' fidelity to the comic strip reflects the involvement of Adams, who is co-executive producer. Executive producer Larry Charles, whose credits include "Mad About You" and "Seinfeld," helps make it work as a TV show.
An odd couple visually the neatly groomed Adams wears understated jeans and T-shirt, while Charles favors a colorful blend of long hair, beard and pajamas they profess to be in perfect sync about what matters in life and in "Dilbert."
Both read physics books. For fun. Both are 41, and from New York City. And they both want the series to make viewers laugh by being smart as well as silly.
"It's got its share of slapstick and abuse of authority and talking animals," said Adams. "Then there's another level of, 'Oh, my God, that happened to me.' That has always been the strongest Dilbert element.
"The subtler part, the more subliminal and metaphorical kinds of things, those are the reasons you'll be able to wrap your mind around it."
But comedy is still the goal here, the producers say, so don't fret about being forced to think too hard and feel free to bring the kids.
The satire may be beyond them, but the characters offer the requisite visual cuteness for the younger set.
There's Dilbert (voiced by Daniel Stern), the ultimate office corps nerd whose hopeless wardrobe is matched by his socially clueless behavior.
He's joined on the home front by the manipulative Dogbert (Chris Elliott) and ego-bruising Dilmom (Jackie Hoffman). Making Dilbert's office life unbearable are the Pointy-Haired Boss (Larry Miller), slacker colleague Wally (Gordon Hunt) and hostile Alice (Kathy Griffin).
That's letter-perfect casting, including Stern as the crucial lead drone. The actor has been heard to good effect before, providing the voice-over for "The Wonder Years."
Adams said he and Charles were determined not to do the series unless it had great voice actors. "We felt like we could make everything else work, but you can't bluff if you have the wrong voice.
"When we found Daniel Stern, that was the big, 'Ahhh, this is possible,' because he has that vocal quality, that nice-guy thing that comes through regardless of the dialogue. It's vulnerability without getting you to that uncomfortable thing you wouldn't want to watch for 21 minutes.
"A lot of actors wanted to give us Barney Fife, stuttering, 'I'm such a nerd."'
The big question, given the saturation marketing of the Dilbert strip through books and innumerable other items, is what took it so long to get to television.
Adams said he has been talking to prospective partners for about five years.
"As Dilbert grew and grew, we got better meetings and met a higher class of people who were more serious than speculative," he said. When he and Charles hooked up through Sony's Columbia TriStar Television, the next step was finding the right network.
UPN might seem an odd choice, given its difficulties in attracting an audience. Fellow fledgling network WB, which has successfully targeted young viewers, posted nearly double UPN's household rating last week.
But Adams and Charles saw opportunity at UPN, which agreed to air 13 episodes. That commitment, a rarity now in the competitive TV market, gives the show a chance to develop and gain an audience, Charles said.
Then there's the big-fish-little-pond aspect, which appeals to Adams.
"If it's good, it will be an important part of redefining what UPN is," the cartoonist said. "And how cool is that? It allows me to be part of something that's bigger than the page is."
And much bigger than a cubicle.