Wanda Sykes Wants It All

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What does come up is a problem with the set. When the comforter in her room is pulled back, it is immediately apparent that the sheets have not been washed. The crew gathers around, riddling the bed's backstory like an episode of CSI: Pahrump. Though the Chicken Ranch management is horribly embarrassed by the lack of hygiene, Sykes, dressed in a velvet flapper outfit in the 100° heat, takes the situation in stride. Diamond, who changes the sheets, is also unfazed.

Everything is used for the show, including the fact that a reporter is on set. Playing Sykes' manager, Tim Beagley complains about the unseemliness of Wanda's behavior in front of a TIME reporter. For a scene shot back in Los Angeles, an actor is hired to play me. An actor who is slightly less handsome than I find realistic.

Sykes is trying to create a new kind of sitcom because, after her middling Fox show, Wanda at Large, was canceled last year, she no longer believes a writers' room can create an entertaining show. Reality, she believes, has made people realize how wooden sitcoms feel. "Now, when you have a laugh track, you say, What were they laughing at? It wasn't that funny," she says. The Comedy Central show forgoes a laugh track. "The people at home will do it for us. If you open your window, you will hear everyone laugh. It will be like Network. They might be watching Chappelle's Show, but still, listen to the laughter."

Sykes and writing partner Crouther have lifted such reality-show tropes as participants commenting to the camera about what is to transpire in the next scene to juice the comedy. In one episode, Sykes' manager tells the camera that Wanda often comes up with crazy ideas that wind up hurting her; we then cut to Wanda deciding to fix her drinking-and-driving problem by getting rid of her car.

Crouther says he realized Sykes' performing talents were greater than his (though, seriously, he was Pootie Tang) when they worked together as writers on Rock's show. "The first acting Wanda did was when she laid down on the street and pretended she got hit by a bus," he says. "It was like a shot to the brain. She was a great writer, and then she started performing."

Sykes' hooker performance is so strong (she could undoubtedly have turned a trick) that the Chicken Ranch manager asks Sykes if she can put her picture on its website. Since this is another form of promotion, Sykes briefly considers it in the limo ride back to the Mandalay Bay. Finally, she sighs and says, "I can't run for office with my picture on the Chicken Ranch website." The woman really is planning to do every job in the country.