Believe the hype.

Out TV veterans Terry Sweeney, Lanier Laney, and Scott King--and a few gay writers--give a zippy spin to the WB's outrageous new sketch comedy series

While Hype, a half-hour sketch show debuting on the WB network this fall, may not be specifically gay, it bears a decidedly gay stamp. For starters, its creators and executive producers are Scott King, Lanier Laney, and Terry Sweeney, three of the most prolific gay performers and writers in TV history. And second, the show's writing team boasts celebrated drag performer Jackie Beat.

"The show is pretty gay," says Beat, one of two gay men on the nine-strong writing staff. "A couple of [hetero] guys can write great parodies of SportsCenter, but if you want to make fun of the `Cher Christmas Spectacular,' I'm your man."

Hype has a broad range of targets, poking fun at popular culture and the media frenzy that feeds it. That could be Kevin Spacey's sexuality or just about any show from E! Entertainment Television. "We're kicking things that take themselves too seriously," says Beat.

"We are equal opportunity offenders," explains King, who met Sweeney and Laney on Mad TV in 1997 and created "Intensity," the now-legendary Felicity parody that TV Guide named one of "The 50 Funniest TV Moments of All Time." "There are no sacred cows. All of its elements are post-PC."

Sweeney, who in 1986 spent a season on Saturday Night Live and in doing so became the first openly gay performer on network television, adds that the inspiration for the show came from the spiraling tendency in the media to hype and overinflate. "You can't be a model anymore; you have to be a supermodel," he says. "You can't be a sexy man; you have to be the sexiest man alive. This is our way to immunize against this."

And the three have insisted on plenty of gay elements in the skits, including a gay rapper called Feminem (which Sweeney says is a response to "everybody's favorite homophobe") and Biagra, a new drug that Beat says "doubles your chances of getting laid by causing temporary bisexuality." That, Sweeney says, is in addition to an all-pervasive "gay zap and zest."

That gay zest could be the most integral part of the show's recipe. "Gays are very good at observing a culture and seeing what's funny in it because they've grown up on the outside," says Laney, who is a cousin of Tennessee Williams's and is also Sweeney's longtime partner.

Sweeney and Laney met while in the sketch comedy troupe the Bess Truman Players; Laney was a writer, Sweeney an actor. They then moved on to a season on SNL.

"Saturday Night Live had a very straight, homophobic atmosphere on it when we were there," Laney says. "Even though Terry was one of the most popular performers that season, he wasn't going to last long."

Early reviews of Hype's pilot suggest that the time is right for a parody show on the world of celebrity and media. For New York fixture Beat it's too good an opportunity to miss, even if it means a temporary relocation to Los Angeles. Says Beat: "I can't believe I'm getting paid to be mean to Christina Aguilera."

Find more on Hype and its creators, Terry Sweeney, Lanier Laney, and Scott King, at www.advocate.com

Goodridge also writes for Screen International magazine.