B Real

Scads of attention focused right now on the girl buddy comedy (or lack thereof) in the movie business, what with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler popping up on every available piece of media real estate to hawk tomorrow's "Baby Mama" debut.

Look here for some Risky Biz observations from the New York premiere last night. Movie's pretty good, says Steven Zeitchik, who cut it more slack than THR's review that says the flick "barely crawls to the finish line." It has been and will continue to be judged harshly; that'll go double for the boxoffice.

Let us be clear about one thing: We don't expect "Baby Mama" to be a defining moment for women in aught-eight. (And that's not what its creators had in mind anyway -- they just wanted to bring the goofy.) Nor do we think the workaholic-businesswoman-meets-white-trash-breeder tale will drastically realign Hollywood in a way that shoves aside the Judd Apatow machine for the likes of sharply written stories about women over 30 (or even girls in high school, as Fey as proven she understands spot-on).

It would be nice, but we still consider the very existence of a double-chick-starring-flick a kind of progress. We're just not reading too much into it.

Perhaps glossed over (or ignored entirely) in the whole "Baby Mama" run-up has been a project from Poehler that's launching on Nickelodeon a day after the movie hits multiplexes. "The Mighty B!" is an animated show about a gutsy tween who dreams of having superpowers while on a perpetual quest for Honeybee Scout merit badges. (And her little brother's Andy Richter!)

Variety's Brian Lowry calls the series "imaginative and frenetic" and praises a girl empowerment show done in a decidedly non-girlie way. Read: boy safe! His review is here.

Heroine Bessie Higgenbottom (voiced and co-created by Poehler) is the kind of character -- a la iCarly, Buffy and every strong-willed, independent girl in between -- that can make a lasting impression, both with young audiences and entertainment execs who greenlight these shows and then see them catch fire.

That's where the real power and potential longevity lies. Not in a slapstick comedy that could get beaten by Harold and Kumar's latest bong-loaded misadventures.