SEASON 1 – Fox
Created by Steven Levitan
Theme song by Steve Hampton and John Adair (and Paul Bessenbacher, uncredited)
- 001. Pilot – 4/13/2005
- Gavin P. Miller (Elon Gold) is a divorced, published author of a very low-selling book, who has opened his own bookstore called Stacked in Los Angeles with his younger brother Stuart (Brian Scolaro), who has a master’s degree in Psychology, but is basically a red-blooded male who is constantly chasing women, despite seldom getting any. Also working at Stacked is Katrina (Marissa Jaret Winokur), who mans the coffee shop counter. They have one regular customer, the curmudgeonly Professor Harold March (Christopher Lloyd), former head of the Physics department at Cal Tech, who likes to hang out, drink coffee, and read the paper. Once day a beautiful, busty woman named Skyler Dayton (Pamela Anderson) stops in the store after catching her musician boyfriend Eddie Banks (Charles Mesure) cheating on her once again, this time with two women at once, to search for a relationship self-help book. Stuart has an immediate crush on Skyler and tries to help her find a book. Gavin criticizes the book she winds up with and tries to steer her toward a headier book, but Skyler says the author looks too mean and buys her original choice, then hangs out to read it. After she asks Harold if he thinks people can change, and he says no, Skyler decides to break it off with her boyfriend. When she invites him to the bookstore to break up, Gavin becomes nervous when she tells him how he has an explosive temper. Meanwhile, Gavin still desires a reconciliation with her wife Charlotte (Paget Brewster), who stops by the bookstore with their children Owen (Vincent Martella) and Allegra (Carlie Westerman). Charlotte declines his request for a date because she has started to see a doctor. Gavin counters by telling her that he too is seeing someone, then sneaks over to Skyler and asks her to pretend to be his girlfriend. Charlotte is shocked, and their son Owen can’t take his eyes off her chest. Eddie shows up at the bookstore and pleads with her to come back to him. Charlotte also returns and has second thoughts about leaving the door open for a reconciliation. Gavin decides to pass on the offer, quoting lines from the book that Skyler is reading. Skyler throws him out of the bookstore, so he asks Charlotte out. She impulsively accepts, but then Gavin reminds her that their kids are in the car. Skyler announces a fresh start for herself to be her own soulmate, so Stuart asks her to come work at the bookstore. Gavin doesn’t think it is a good idea at all, especially considering the choice she made for the relationship book. Then Harold comes across an article that the author of the headier book had just strangled his wife with his Nobel Prize and stored her head in the freezer. Bruce Dent is the customer, Bruce. 11/27/23
- 002. Beat the Candidate – 4/20/2005
- Skyler shows up for her first day at work, hungover from celebrating her first day on the job with her friends and wearing a skimpy dress. Gavin starts to train her, but Skyler is interrupted by several phone calls from friends. Meanwhile, an over-qualified guy named Brent (Tony Hale) puts in his resume to work at the store. Gavin thinks that Skyler won’t be working there long, while Stuart thinks it is rude to assume she won’t last after only working there for five minutes. After helping a customer named Carl (Charlie Hartsock), who can do nothing but salivate over Skyler, she starts to yawn and complain about how tired she is. Katrina shows up, already jealous that there’s a new girl become the bookstore ‘hottie’ and gives Skyler a decaf cup of coffee when she asks for a triple espresso. In her exhausted state, she is witnessed by Gavin giving a customer named Sally (Rasika Mathur) a large amount of change when she paid with a credit card. He is ready to replace her with Brent, but Stuart argues that she brings vibrance and excitement to the store, especially after Skyler invites Stuart to go out dancing with her and her friends. After Katrina starts to read Skyler the tax code, she finally falls asleep at the coffee counter. Gavin fires her and hires Brent, who is full of silly book puns, and has a pompous attitude about his knowledge. However, Skyler returns and tells Gavin that she thinks he made a mistake, and that she has been underestimated all of her life and has wanted to succeed in job that isn’t in a bar. Gavin reluctantly agrees to let both Skyler and Brent work in the store for the day, and whoever does the better job will be the one to keep it. Whereas Brent sells a customer named Ruby (Alyson Steel) two extra books, Skyler recommends a book to a customer named Diane (Brenda Isaacs Booth) a book called The Impeccable Steve Charles Vanderkirk of Turberry Court… but Brent talks her out of it and tells her it is terrible. At the end of the day, Gavin decides that Brent is better for the job, so he calls Skyler over to tell her. She agrees that Brent certainly knows more about books than she does and cites how he called her out on the book she recommended… which turns out to be the book that Gavin wrote under the pseudonym G.P. Miller. Brent is summarily fired by Gavin, who tells Skyler that he’ll see her tomorrow. Derek Cox-Berg is the fat teen. 11/27/23
- 003. A Fan for All Seasons – 4/27/2005
- Katrina is suffering a run of bad luck, starting with the Aerosmith concert she attended the night before. She had gotten eighth row tickets, but a women’s basketball team sat in front of her. Skyler mentions that she was also at the concert and had gotten on stage since she once dated Steven Tyler (himself, voice only). Gavin comments that Skyler was merely a groupie, while she insists that she was an actual girlfriend. Meanwhile, the bookstore hosts author Susanna Wolfe (Marin Mazzie), of whom Gavin is a huge fan. After the book signing session, she asks Gavin to go to dinner with her and he ends up sleeping with her. He is thrilled by this, but Skyler then tells him that he is actually a groupie. Although the phone number she gave him is for the Carpet Emporium, he insists that they have a date for that evening. However, instead of her showing up, Susanna’s publicist Barbara (Andrea Savage) shows up with an excuse for why Barbara couldn’t make it. Skyler offers to take Katrina to the shooting of an Aerosmith video, but upon arrival she is hit in the head by a microphone stand and falls into an equipment trunk, where she passes out and remains for hours. Gavin ends up hitting it off with Barbara and winds up sleeping with her too. When Skylar hears this, she then tells Gavin that he is merely being passed around by Susanna’s underlings, again causing Gavin to feel used and abused. With Skyler’s encouragement, Gavin calls and leaves Barbara a nasty message about her using him, also blasting her for being horrible in bed. He then finds out that she really likes him when she shows up at the store to ask him out again. However, when she calls and gets her messages, she walks out on him. Stuart turns to Harold for advice on how to get Skyler to like him, but he merely tells him that he doesn’t have the charm, fame, or charisma, nor the prospect of getting enough of any of them to impress her. He later apologizes for hurting his feelings, but still compares him to a NASA chimp named Captain Bobo with whom he used to work. He tries to help Stuart by rigging the elevator to get stuck so that Stuart can rescue Skyler when she gets stuck in it. However, it turns out to be Katrina who gets stuck… just when Skylar has Steven Tyler stop by to meet her. The best he can do is give her a finger handshake through a small opening in the elevator. Andrew Friedman is the stalker fan George/Dylan. Jamal Hamilton is Dino the security guard. Heidi Kaufman is the set worker. 1/19/23
- 004. Gavin’s Pipe Dream – 5/11/2005
- Not long after clarifying a statement about Skyler’s ‘rack’ actually being the magazine rack and then making sure that she knows there will be no sexual harassment on his watch, Gavin ends up having a sex dream about her, in which Abraham Lincoln (Ed Trotta) makes an appearance. Harold points out that dreams do have meeting and tells them about a recurring dream in which a robot named Baker (Robby the Robot) comes back to haunt him after he sent it into space. Meanwhile, Katrina tries to sell peanut butter balls to the customers and employees to help raise money to have her second set of wisdom teeth removed. Gavin tells Stuart about the dream to try and interpret the meaning of it, but Stuart becomes resentful, remembering that Gavin had once stole his crush Jenny Wasserman (Jenni Pulos). Skyler overhears them talking about sex dreams and confesses that she has had one about someone in the bookstore. While Stuart desperately wants it to be about him, he asks Katrina to figure out who it was in her dream, and she quickly discovers that it was Harold. Surprised when he hears this, Harold tries to appear less sexy to her by rolling down his sleeves. When Skyler chokes on one of Katrina’s peanut butter balls, Gavin has to deliver the Heimlich Maneuver on her. When Stuart sees this happening, he is furious and blurts out that it was Skyler who Gavin had dreamed of. Gavin manages to upset Skyler by implying that he is too good for her to really be attracted to her, Harold by telling Skyler that her dream about him couldn’t possibly be based on a real attraction, and Katrina by saying that it wasn’t until a woman showed up at the bookstore that they began to have all of these troubles. Furthermore, Stuart is so upset by him trying to ‘steal’ Skyler that he bites Gavin’s stress penguin. That night, Gavin looks through his old pictures of Jenny Wasserman and gives her a call. After Harold tells Skyler that he is too old to have an affair with her, Gavin shows up to work and apologizes to each and every person who he offended. He tells Skyler that he promises to try and loosen up so that they can all be friends, then smacks her on the rear end before quickly apologizing. He also tells Stuart that he called Jenny Wasserman and found out that she did indeed like Stuart, although she thought his name was Steven, and only refrained from dating him when Gavin hit on her. He gives Stuart Jenny’s phone number and encourages him to call her. Harold is then suddenly attacked by Baker the robot, but wakes up from a dream… in bed with Skyler. This in turn is just a dream that Stuart is having while he is in bed with Jenny Wasserman. Claudia Stedelin and John Hill are customers. 1/19/23
- 005. The Ex-Appeal – 5/18/2005
- Skyler is annoyed when her ex-boyfriend Eddie sends her a pair of expensive earrings instead of sending back her grandfather’s watch that she was expecting from him. Meanwhile, the cancellation of Da Maddest, Baddest Scientist’s appearance at the bookstore leaves Gavin and Stuart scrambling for a replacement. They offer the job to Harold, but he finds the idea of giving kids a glamorized view of silence repugnant. Skyler calls Eddie and demands the watch, but he manages to talk her into meeting him at the bar across the street. Gavin volunteers to go see Eddie and get the watch back since he’s afraid that he will manipulate her. Katrina invites Skyler to come to her knitting group at the bookstore so that she can share her man-troubles with other women. When Gavin demands the watch back, Eddie gets rough with him at first, and then acts like a broken man who will miss Skyler. He then manipulates Gavin into thinking that he’s a ladies’ man like Eddie. Stuart dresses up like a wizard to do scientific tricks for the kids, but Harold finds it so off-putting that he agrees to talk to the kids himself. Gavin returns without the watch, thinking that he saw the real Eddie as a scared, little boy. He now claims he likes Eddie, who has convinced him that he wants to hang out with him. Stuart tells Gavin that he got conned by Eddie and volunteers to go see him and get the watch back. While Skyler meets the ladies of the knitting club, Becky (Shania Accius), Emily (Marsha Clark), and Caitlin (Lisa Ann Grant), who all share their men trouble. Most are unsympathetic to Skyler since it appears she could get any man, especially after the usually fun-loving Marcy (Amy Farrington) shows up after just being dumped. Over at the bar, Stuart tries to work on Eddie to get the ring back, but he introduces him to Brittany, Jasmine (April Bowlby), and Amber (Nicholl Hiren). Although he tries to hold fast to his mission, he can’t resist the compliments from Eddie. As the ladies get meaner and meaner to Skyler, she decides to take off and go get the watch herself. Even though Skyler catches Eddie kissing Caitlin, he tries to charm her and win her back again. As it seems to be working, Katrina and the other knitters show up and demand that he gets away from her and give her the watch. Everyone is surprised how Harold is able to make a group of children understand complex college science, but when he starts to get too real about radiation poisoning and death, they all break down crying. James P. Engle is the customer who get a percentage off. Mackenzie Hannigan is the boy child. Lily Jackson is the girl child. NOTE: Karen V. James is credited as Parent #1 but her speaking scenes were deleted. 5/21/24
SEASON 2
- 006. Nobody Says I Love You – 11/9/2005
- Skyler comes into work one day and decides she is going to tell all of her friends and co-workers that she loves them. Katrina is initially confused, but ultimately decides that she likes it, while Harold thinks that it is very weird but is polite to her. When she tells Stuart that she loves him, he tells her that he loves her too and starts to fawn all over her, until Harold calls him aside and tells him that she has been saying it to everyone. Stuart then tries to backpedal so that she doesn’t think that he’s been harboring a love for her all along. He thinks he can make is seem normal that he said it to her by him also saying it to everyone else. When Gavin hears what Skylar is doing, he thinks it is very odd also, but he finds it even more odd when she doesn’t say it to him, whereas she says it to a a fill-in delivery man (Kid Rock). Stuart tells a customer named Brenda (Jayma Mays) that he loves her, only to find out that she has been in love with him for a long time and is bordering on being his stalker. When Skyler mentions how broke she is, Katrina thinks that she is only saying she loves people in order to get money from them. Harold overhears Skyler talking to a tree surgeon (Nelson Mashita) from Dr. Arbor about a tree she is going to lose in a few weeks, he thinks that she is the one who is dying. Stuart continues his charade of telling customers he loves them, and when he says it to a male customer (Ron Nicolosi), Brenda gets upset and thinks he is gay. He goes along with it initially to get rid of her, but she says they can work through it and continues hanging around. Gavin finally breaks down and questions why Skyler hasn’t told him that she loves him, and she says she was going to say it, but it seems like he is too emotionally distant to accept it. When the delivery man shows up with a laptop computer for Skyler that he stole off his truck, Gavin tells her that this is the reason she shouldn’t go around saying it. Katrina and Harold each espouse what they believe to be the reason, while Skyler simply says she felt like saying it. She ridicules Gavin for probably never saying it and then forces him to say it to Gavin. After their conversation ends, and Stuart admits the he likes having a stalker, Skyler finally tells Gavin she loves him. The male customer then returns and gives Stuart his hotel room key. 5/22/24
- 007. Two Faces of Eve – 11/16/2005
- Skyler’s old friend Eve (Jenny McCarthy) is coming to visit her, and naturally Stuart wants to know what she looks like. Skyler admits that she is very plain, but when she arrives, she is anything but. All of the men in the bookstore can’t keep their eyes off of her, especially when Skyler and Eve compare boobs by feeling each other’s. Eve tells Skyler that she had a lot of plastic surgery and has now met a man named Charlie (Bill Macy) whom she loves and plans to marry, requesting Skyler to be her maid of honor. When her fiancé enters the bookstore with his caregiver Nixi (Angela Sargeant), the first thing everyone notices is that she is older than dirt. When she admits that first saw him, he was in Forbes magazine, as he owns multiple businesses. After Charlie, Nixi, and Eve slowly head out for lunch, everyone makes fun of his age. Gavin tells Skyler that it is clear that Eve is using Charlie for his money, and even though she initially tries to defend Eve, she ultimately decides she can’t be part of the wedding. Meanwhile, Stuart laments that an old man like Charlie can get a beautiful woman while he cannot. Harold tells him that he needs to make more money and recommends some textile stock. Skyler finally decides to tell Eve that she can’t be part of the wedding since she doesn’t agree with Eve just using Charlie for his money. Eve insists that she really loves Charlie, and the two devolve into a fight of hair-pulling and Eve insisting that Skyler is just jealous because she can no longer look down on her for not being as pretty. Kat sees things differently, and after Eve storms out, she tells Skyler that she should have stood by her friend like Eve probably would have done for her. Gavin says that Skyler should take a moral stand, and this winds up causing Kat and Gavin to argue and start pulling each other’s hair. Stuart is busy obsessing over his stock, and when Harold tells him that there is a boll weevil epidemic that could halt production of textiles, Stuart immediately sells his stock. As the Rabbi (Ira Denmark) is getting ready to pronounce Eve and Charlie as man and wife, Skyler bursts in and apologizes and asks Eve if she can be her maid of honor again. Eve enthusiastically agrees, but by the time they get back to the ceremony, Charlie has died. Since the wedding never concluded, Eve no longer will collect his money, so she blames Skyler for not becoming rich. Harold tells Stuart that he didn’t sell his textile stock and made a large fortune, while Stuart got out before the price went up due to a low supply and high demand. Harold admits that he still wishes that he had someone to share the money with, and Eve is right there to introduce herself to him. Skyler tries to protest, but Harold tells her to butt out because he knows what he is doing. 10/7/24
- 008. Darling Nikki – 11/30/2005
- Harold gets a call from the brother of an old colleague of his from Cal Tech named Bert Henderson, who asks him to deliver a toast at Bert’s 75th birthday. Meanwhile, Skyler gets a call from an old friend/rival named Nikki (Carmen Electra), who started to act like a psycho the more that she felt she was in competition with Skyler, especially when it came to breast size and who had the most songs written about them. Skyler also says that Nikki tries to steal her ex-boyfriend Eddie as soon as she met him, and eventually wound up in a psych ward. Stuart and Harold are aroused by the whole thing. When Nikki arrives, she is very apologetic to Skyler and wants to make up for all of the craziness and invites her to lunch. Stuart encourages Skyler to give her another chance, and adds that if they’re still in a competition, Skyler has already won. Skyler agrees with him and gives him a big hug. She and Nikki wind up going out for drinks and getting drunk. Although they agree not to compete anymore, it doesn’t stop them from racing back to the bookstore. In her tipsy state, Skyler tells Stuart he looks like a panda bear and gives him another hug. This lead Nikki to believe that they are daring, and using her old tactics, she seduces Stuart and invites him back to her hotel room for sex. Harold tries writing his toast to Bert, but a buzzing sound distracts him. He looks all over to try and find the source of it, but almost no one, barring one crazy customer (Ken Magee) who thinks he was abducted by aliens, can hear it. The next morning, Stuart comes in on top of the world and brags to Gavin about the sex he had. Gavin tells him that he’d better tell Skyler about it before Nikki does or she will never speak to him again. Worried about losing her friendship, Stuart confesses what he did to Skyler, but she and Kat can only burst out laughing. Skyler thinks it is hilarious that she slept with Stuart all for nothing. This hurts Stuart’s feelings that she didn’t show even a hint of jealousy. Harold reports that the doctor couldn’t find anything wrong with him to explain the buzzing in his ear. Kat talks him through the source of the problem, and Harold agrees that the root may be that Bert’s brother asked Harold to write the toast, whereas Harold’s own brother Millard would never do anything like that for him. In fact, they haven’t spoken in many years, so he decides to call Millard and renew their relationship. However, he has a hard time hearing him, because it turns out to be his phone that was making the buzzing sound the whole time. Stuart confronts Skyler with how he feels, so when Nikki comes in and tries to rub it in Skyler’s face that she and Stuart slept together, Nikke responds by telling her that Stuart already told her and she forgives him. She says that she has been taking him for granted lately and understood why he did it. Stuart is so touched that he tells Skyler that he’d rather have her and effectively breaks it off with Nikki. She then tells Skyler that she knows why she loves him so much, because he is such a good guy, and is ultra-appreciative of sex. When she tells Skyler that she still has bigger boobs, she has to admit that they just haven’t been put in her yet. Skyler asks Stuart why he chose her, as she was only trying to get him more action from Nikki, so he dumped her for no reason. 10/7/24
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