"Surreal" Life with Webster

Did you ever wonder what hijinks would ensue if Webster from Webster and Natalie from The Facts of Life became roomies?

We didn't think so. But nevertheless...

Emmanuel Lewis (aka Webster) and Mindy Cohn (aka Natalie) have been confirmed as cast members of WB's planned reality show The Surreal Life.

They'll join rapper-turned-preacher (M.C.) Hammer, ex-Mötley Crüe rocker Vince Neil and onetime Baywatch babe Brande Roderick. The WB says at least one more female celeb (or semi-celeb) will be added to the group's Hollywood Square ranks.

No premiere date has been set. It's expected the show will be drafted as a midseason replacement.

Formerly known as The Surreal World, the Surreal Life will, as previously announced, track the waking hours of its B-listers as they move into a house in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley, share a bathroom, make dinner and perform other assorted chores. The adventure will last for two weeks, and, for now, produce six episodes' worth of would-be entertainment.

The series was said to be inspired by the popular commercials for Lipton Sizzle & Stir featuring disparate celebrities (example: Mr. T, Loni Anderson, tan-man George Hamilton and Olympic great Mary Lou Retton) as a functioning dysfunctional family unit.

Per its makers, Surreal Life will play more like MTV's The Osbournes or E!'s Anna Nicole Show than the like-sounding Real World franchise, also of the MTV universe.

"Our intent is to make you feel like you're really watching a sitcom," Mark Cronin, whose Mindless Entertainment will produce Surreal Life, explained to Variety.

Lewis and Cohn, at least, are vets of the sitcom form.

Lewis, now 31, and not to be confused with Gary Coleman, starred as diminutive orphan Webster Long on ABC's Webster (1983-1987). Retreating to Atlanta after the series ended and graduating there from college, Lewis recently has begun to cash in on his former-child-star status, appearing in a 2001 celeb edition of NBC's Weakest Link and cameoing as himself in the upcoming David Spade comedy, Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star.

Cohn, now 36, cracked wise as prep-schooler Natalie Green on NBC's The Facts of Life (1979-1988). She reprised the role in the 2001 reunion TV-movie The Facts of Life Reunion. She currently voices Velma in the new Scooby-Doo 'toon, What's New Scooby-Doo?.

Hammer, 40, meanwhile, turned to tele-preaching on the Trinity Broadcasting Network after blowing his "U Can't Touch This" fortune from the early 1990s, ending up in multimillion-dollar debt in the late 1990s and failing in a comeback bid on ganster rap label Death Row Records.

Neil, 41, lived the Behind the Music life as the hard-rocking and partying lead shouter of Mötley Crüe. Now a solo act, he was last seen walking off the stage in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, in August, after someone threw something (not panties, apparently) at the stage.

Roderick, the cast young'un at 28, played model lifeguard Leigh Dyer on the final Baywatch season, Baywatch Hawaii (2000-2001). She is known to the literary set from her work in the pages of Playboy. (She was 2001's Playmate of the Year.)

In other reality TV news, the makers of Survivor, including sainted (and knighted) Live Aid founder Bob Geldof, have sued the makers of a British game show that stranded eight U.K. notables on an island for the purposes of videotaping their exploits.

Like Survivor, I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! asked its game players to subsist on rice and the kindness of the local wildlife. Unlike Survivor, TV viewers, not fellow tribe members, voted off participants. (Also, nobody won a cash prize, just oodles of publicity.)

Geldof and Castaway Productions Ltd., which produces Survivor in more than one dozen countries, in a court action brought Thursday in London, accuse I'm a Celebrity producers of infringing on their copyright. They're seeking unspecified damages. The I'm a Celebrity camp calls the lawsuit "regrettable" and denies overstepping copyright boundaries.

There's no immediate word on whether the pending litigation will affect ABC's planned Stateside version of I'm a Celebrity, which was on the drawing board for a midseason launch.

Meanwhile, the latest U.S. edition of Survivor, Survivor: Thailand, premiered September 19 on CBS. Tanya Vance, a 27-year-old social worker from Tennessee, got the boot in Thursday night's episode, leaving 14 outdoorsy types left to compete for the $1 million grand prize.