Tyler Perry has written, produced and starred in two surprise hit movies in the past couple of years, and he’s now hoping to take that success to television.

The “Diary of a Mad Black Woman” creator is working with syndication company Debmar-Mercury to launch a sitcom called “Tyler Perry’s House of Payne.” The show, which had a test run in a few cities earlier this year, will launch on TBS in June 2007 and move into broadcast syndication the following year on a handful of Fox-owned stations.

The show, about a multi-generational family sharing the same house, has been in production for a while, and Perry expects to have a library of 100 episodes before the show even premieres on TBS.

“For a creator, you couldn’t ask for a better opportunity,” Perry says. “With TBS and Fox committed to 100 episodes of my series, I can concentrate on telling great stories and producing the best series possible.”

Syndicated sitcoms are a rarity in TV, but Perry’s track record with “Diary” and this year’s “Madea’s Family Reunion” helped sell “House of Payne.” The series stars Allen Payne (“The Perfect Storm”), LaVan Davis, Cassi Davis (“Madea’s Family Reunion”) and Rochelle Aytes (“White Chicks”). Perry will write and direct episodes and executive produce the series.

Following its premiere on TBS next year, the show will debut on Fox-owned stations in New York, Houston, Washington and Dallas, as well as independent station WCIU in Chicago in the summer of 2008. The four Fox stations are part of the new MyNetwork TV, which launches in the fall.

Patty Hearst joins ‘Veronica Mars’ army

A storyline on “Veronica Mars” this season will have a trustee of Hearst College, the university Veronica now attends, going missing on the eve of a crucial trustees’ meeting about the school’s future.

Who better, then, to play the part than real-life Hearst heiress and one-time abductee Patty Hearst?

Such will be the case in a November episode of “Veronica Mars,” which has its third-season premiere Tuesday, Oct. 3 on The CW. The show will follow Veronica (Kristen Bell) to college at Hearst, which is in her hometown of Neptune, Calif. The show’s core cast will remain mostly intact – Enrico Colantoni, Percy Daggs III, Jason Dohring and Tina Majorino will be back – but with the move from high school to college, some new characters will work their way into the show as well.

Hearst, who’s appeared in several John Waters films and on episodes of “Boston Common” and “Son of the Beach,” won’t exactly be playing herself in the episode. The character, however, is clearly tailored for her. She’s the granddaughter of newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst, and on the show she’ll play the granddaughter of Hearst College’s founder (a timber mogul rather than a newsman).

The character’s echoes her kidnapping by the radical group the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974. After several months in captivity, she took the name “Tania” and joined the SLA in a San Francisco bank robbery on April 15 of that year. She was arrested in 1975 in Los Angeles and convicted after a lengthy trial the following year. She served 21 months in prison before then-President Carter commuted her sentence in 1979.

Creator Rob Thomas described the origins of the story this way in speaking to reporters last month: “If we can get Patty Hearst to play a board of trustees member – what if she got kidnapped? That would be a pretty great story to tell. It’s not an idea we’ve broken, but it’s up on the wall as a possibility.”

That possibility has now come down off the wall and into a script. The episode featuring Hearst is scheduled to air Nov. 21.

Emmys set Spelling tribute

Sunday’s Emmy Awards will pay tribute to legendary TV producer Aaron Spelling, enlisting the stars of some of his many shows to honor him.

“Dynasty” star Joan Collins, “Melrose Place’s” Heather Locklear and Stephen Collins of “7th Heaven” – the only Spelling-produced show still on the air – will help honor the long and prolific career of Spelling, who died in June at the age of 83.

The Emmy telecast has also added a new round of presenters, among them nominees Annette Bening (“Mrs. Harris”), Craig Ferguson (“The Late Late Show”) and “Will & Grace” stars Megan Mullally and Sean Hayes. “Deal or No Deal” host Howie Mandel, Tom Selleck, Virginia Madsen and “Grey’s Anatomy” star Katherine Heigl will also hand out awards.

Spelling produced dozens of series and made-for-TV movies in his career, which began with a producing job on “Zane Grey Theater” in the 1950s. The bulk of those shows landed at ABC, which in the late “70s was sometimes referred to as “Aaron’s Broadcasting Company.” With good reason: In the fall of 1978, for instance, he had six shows on the network.

Although a number of Spelling shows, which also include “The Mod Squad,” “Hart to Hart,” “The Love Boat” and “Beverly Hills, 90210,” were enormously popular, they weren’t the stuff of awards all that often. Spelling won two Emmys in his career, for the 1989 telefilm “Day One,” about the creation of the atomic bomb, and for 1993’s “And the Band Played On,” about the early days of the AIDS epidemic.

The 58th Annual Primetime Emmys air at 8 p.m. ET Sunday on NBC.