'Sherri' based on life of 'View' co-host

Sherri Shepherd has joked that she is the patron saint for any woman who has ever said anything stupid.

The actress-comic and regular on ABC's "The View" often shoots from the lip.

And she has tried to explain away one of her most jaw-dropping goofs: She once told the group that she didn't know whether the Earth is round or flat.

She has said that she was new to the show (fall 2007) and she got nervous after she declared that she didn't believe in evolution.

And when Whoopi Goldberg asked whether she thought the Earth was flat, too, Shepherd said that she didn't know because she had never really thought about it.

After the show, she said she did know it was round. She just got flustered.

Obviously, she will not be tested on geography and science on her new sitcom, "Sherri," which debuts in its regular time slot at 10 tonight on Lifetime (the show will feature stripped original episodes all week at 7 p.m.).

Loosely based on Shepherd's real-life experiences and her stand-up act, "Sherri" is about Sherri Robinson, a paralegal who is pursuing a career as a stand-up comic.

The law office workplace is a way to give her sympathetic female co-workers. They share her misery over miserable men. Her buds are sassy Celia (Tammy Townsend) and dumb blonde Angie (Elizabeth Regen).

At home, the Sherri character is a newly-single mom with a young son. She is divorcing her husband (Malcolm-Jamal Warner) for cheating on her with a 20-year-old sandwich shop worker.

There was a politically incorrect joke in the sneak preview that may have made some cringe. Sherri says, in rather crude language, that she could have forgiven him for cheating once but not for cheating with a white woman. It's a troublesome view of interracial infidelity, and it was reinforced a couple of times in the pilot episode.

Shepherd says the pilot episode was "pretty much verbatim" what she went through. She reportedly once worked as a paralegal. She has been through a divorce from a cheating husband. And she has a young son. Also, the other woman was pregnant, and when Shepherd confronted her, the woman said she was a big fan. Shepherd thanked her for the compliment.

Shepherd, who has a few film and TV credits (she has a recurring role as Tracy Morgan's wife on "30 Rock"), is good at delivering zingers - and many of the put-downs are funny even if men are the butts of the jokes:

"Once that bat signal goes up in the sky that your man's been caught cheating, women unite!" she says.

"The stages of grief are anger, anger, anger, anger and candy," she proclaims.

This being on Lifetime, the network for women, the theme of "Sherri" will be women supporting one another while dumping losers and pursuing Mr. Right.

GHOST HUNTERS: Two of the "stars" of SyFy's "Ghost Hunters" and the new "Ghost Hunters Academy," premiering in November, are coming to Halloween Horror Nights in Orlando. Steve Gonsalves and Dave Tango will sign autographs for guests at Universal Studios on Thursday.

Both are members of The Atlantic Paranormal Society, a group of average Joes and Janes who investigate hauntings across the nation. They will sign autographs in the New York area of Universal Studios.

TUNE IN TONIGHT

"The Good Wife," at 10 on CBS

Here's another woman wronged by a cheating husband. When the teenage son of a former friend hires her to defend him in a murder case, Alicia (Julianna Margulies) makes a difficult journey back to her old life.