Comedian Howie Mandel, who created the character and supplies the voice for Bobby, the imaginative 4-year-old hero of Bobby's World, the top-rated of Fox's Saturday-morning cartoon shows, relies on his three young children for script help. "My kids come home, tell me what happened [during the day], and it ends up in the show," says Mandel, 37. Perhaps this explains why his children (daughters Jackie, 8, and Riley, 8 months, and son Alex, 3) remain unimpressed by how Dad makes his living. "I make funny noises and act like a goofball when I go to work, but they're more fascinated by what other people do. They'll come home and say, 'You won't believe what Josh's dad does—he sells cars! Isn't that cool?' "
THE SOUND & THE SILLY
Modeling has always kept Kathy Ireland in shape; it's her voice that needs work. Though her Kewpie-doll tones didn't hurl in the comedies Loaded Weapon I and Necessary Roughness, she has been taking voice lessons to further her acting career and has seen immediate results. "I used to not be able to order pizzas on the phone," says Ireland, 30. "They'd say, 'We need to speak to your mom or dad.' It was sad, really sad. I would have to go down there and pick it up myself."
WIGGED OUT
In playing Marilyn Monroe in a USA Network movie, Marilyn & Bobby: Her Final Affair (airing Aug. 4), Melody Anderson found that gentlemen prefer blond bombshells to be seen and not heard. Arriving on the set, "I could talk to anyone—change lines, make suggestions. But once I put on the [Marilyn] wig, eyelashes and falsies, I was not taken seriously by the crew and could never talk about the script. They patted me on the butt and made sexual innuendos." Understandably, Anderson, who until recently played Natalie on All My Children, found this glimpse into Monroe's life disturbing. Alter all, she sighs, "Marilyn couldn't take off the wig at the end of the day."
CHARACTER ISSUE
Leslie Nielsen doesn't mind being mistaken for Lt. Frank Drebin, the dimmest detective since Inspector Clouseau. "He gives me license to be insane," says Nielsen, 67, of his alter ego, who sprang from the TV sitcom Police Squad! and has since been reincarnated in the Naked Gun movies. Nielsen, whose new-mock autobiography, The Naked Truth, has just been published, was playing in the Bob Hope golf classic last year and, while waving to a group of fans who recognized him, neglected to strap his golf bag to the motorized cart. "I started the cart and baaaang. All the clubs fell out. So there I am picking up the golf clubs, and one of the guys says, 'Let me help you.' He's looking at me, and suddenly he says, 'Boy, you never get out of character, do you!' "
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
