Wilmer, welcome to the majors
The plot: An awkward adolescent from Venezuela is dropped in the cafeteria of a brutal California middle school with nary an English phrase in his noggin.
To learn the language, he joins the drama club, and in a few years’ time – ta-da! – finds himself on a nationally syndicated sitcom. Meanwhile, away from the cameras, he beds three-fifths of the starlets in Hollywood.
The sitcom eventually comes to an end, as sitcoms are wont to do, and the guy realizes that what he wants now – really, really wants – is to be loved. By the kids. And the ladies. And the studio executives back in Los Angeles.
But right now, mostly by the kids.
“A lot of projects nowadays kind of take the easy way out to make kids laugh. This promotes more cleverness,” Wilmer Valderrama says of his new film, “Unaccompanied Minors.”
The holiday kiddie flick that has him playing a feckless airport worker charged with supervising one too many rascally tweens trapped in a terminal on Christmas Eve.
Beyond that, he says, “I’m working, developing a bunch of things for a couple networks and studios and stuff. I’m designing a couple sitcoms, and I’m designing a bunch of movies as well – you know, high-concept movies and things like that.”
Also things like “Handy Manny,” an animated Disney show for preschoolers that has Valderrama giving voice to a bilingual handyman with a box of talking tools. And “Yo Momma,” the insult-flinging MTV series he dreamed up just as his role as Fez on “That ‘70s Show” was blinking off the air.
Valderrama, 26, is considered a sage of sorts when it comes to nailing the subtle cultural yearnings of kids today. Programming executives open doors when he knocks; publicists schedule teen-idol-type mall stops when he’s on the road.
“Yeah, you know what it is? I’ll be honest with you: I’ve never forgotten what it is I have in common with my fans,” he says.
“That I used to be a kid once. I know what I want to watch, you know, and I know what I don’t want to watch.”
Then there’s his love life. Radio shock jock Howard Stern was riveted when Valderrama was on the shock jock’s radio show in March and dished about such famous ex-girlfriends as Lindsay Lohan, Jennifer Love Hewitt and Mandy Moore.
He’s unattached now, mostly because there’s so little room in his schedule. Four months ago he moved into a Los Angeles mansion previously owned by Chuck Norris, but he’s only managed a two-week stay there.
As for “Unaccompanied Minors,” he considers it nothing short of “groundbreaking” that audiences would believe him in a role with no resemblance to Fez.
His message for his various constituencies – the kids, the ladies, the studio execs – is a simple one: “As long as they keep believing in my theories and my ideas, I’ll be around.”
The birthday bunch
Actress Rita Moreno is 75. Actress Donna Mills (“Knots Landing”) is 64. Singer Brenda Lee is 62. Actress Teri Garr is 58. Actress Bess Armstrong is 53. Singer Jermaine Jackson is 52. Bassist Nikki Sixx (Motley Crue) is 48. Actor Gary Dourdan (“C.S.I.”) is 40. Actress- comedian Mo’Nique (“The Parkers”) is 38. Rapper-actor Mos Def is 33. Actor Rider Strong (“Boy Meets World”) is 27.