ABC's American Inventor kicks off its second season tonight (at 9 pm/ET) with three new judges having been brought onboard to deliberate with executive producer/judge Peter Jones. One of those judges is the Olympic gold medalist, former heavyweight champion and bona fide grill master George Foreman. TVGuide.com spoke with Big George while he was in Las Vegas promoting his new book, God in My Corner.

TVGuide.com: Why did you decide to sign on as a judge for American Inventor?George Foreman: It's strange, because I was a good boxer and I made some money. I had done good with Madison Avenue, doing commercials for McDonald's and Oscar Mayer. Then somebody approached me with a little machine nobody was interested in and I made this venture and put my name on that little machine. It became the George Foreman Lean Mean Grilling Machine and it sold over 100 million units. So I thought this would be a great chance to be a judge and help find that new invention that would do the same thing for someone else. I'd be thrilled to be a part of that.

TVGuide.com: What do you look for in a promising invention?Foreman: Well, the grill had been around and everybody had passed up on it until I embraced it, so I'm not looking for something that's going to blow everybody away the first time they get a look at it. I've got to get in there and tell those judges, "Wait, this could be big," even though they might want to pass on it at first.

TVGuide.com: On American Idol, Simon is overly critical, Paula is overly supportive and Randy is pretty much even-keeled. What's your style going to be for American Inventor?Foreman: It's funny — Peter Jones, a tough judge on the show, said, "George, are you going to vote yes or yes?" He's already got me pegged. I'm sure I'll be saying yes to stuff that he can't see working out.

TVGuide.com: Your fellow judge Sara Blakely is known for inventing footless pantyhose. I know you're a good pitchman, but what would you say if Sara propositioned you about endorsing her products?Foreman: No. [Laughs] I've got to be sincere. What I sell is integrity, and I'm not going to tell somebody to go get something I don't use.

TVGuide.com: That's too bad. OK, how about this: What's a bigger achievement, winning an Olympic gold medal or selling over 100 million George Foreman grills?Foreman: Man, I was only a 19-year-old boy when I was standing in that ring with a tiny American flag. I was so excited to let people around the world know where I was from. Winning the gold medal was the biggest day of my life. To stand on that platform and have the national anthem play, nothing can come close to that. No amount of money could ever come close.

TVGuide.com: How about your professional boxing career? You were a champion. Did that come close?Foreman: It was really big being champion of the world, and it was especially big the second time around when I was older, but winning that gold medal as a 19-year-old boy who never had a dream come true — I'll still point to that one.

TVGuide.com: You were recently in the news for alleging in your new book that you were drugged before you fought Muhammad Ali in the "Rumble in the Jungle." Why did you wait until now to reveal this?Foreman: In God in My Corner, I was telling some stories that could help people know how to let go of negative things in their lives. So I told that story. At the time, they couldn't find the urine sample, and I told the press I was doped after the fight, but nothing came of it. Then I told Sports Illustrated about it in a story in 1984. It's been around a long time.

TVGuide.com: Why do you think it's become newsworthy again?Foreman: I really don't understand it. One great speaker said of the truth, "You knock it down to the ground and stomp on it, it'll always rise again." If something suspicious happens, it's going to always keep coming up. I wrote about it in my autobiography a long time ago, and now we're talking about it again.

TVGuide.com: Do you think you would have won the fight had you not been drugged?Foreman: Drugged or without drugs, I couldn't have beaten Muhammad Ali. He was too smart for me. When I watch that fight and think about my strategy, what I wanted to do to him, I couldn't have gotten to him. That man was not going to be knocked out. I told him three years ago that I wanted a rematch. He told me, "You crazy." I'll be honest with you: I couldn't beat him.

TVGuide.com: Coming from such a fierce competitor, that says a lot.Foreman: When you hit a guy with your best shot, and he looks in your face and whispers in your ear, "That's all you got, George?" What can you say?

TVGuide.com: I guess he really was the greatest.Foreman: He's the best one I ever got in the ring with, I can tell you that.

See our Online Video Guide for a sneak peek at the new season of American Inventor.

Hot, rich kids with equally attractive parents, a sexy California setting, and a new guy who doesn't quite fit in. Sound familiar? "Of course we're getting all The O.C. comparisons," says Kevin Williamson, the creator of the CW's brand-new Hidden Palms (Wednesdays at 8 pm/ET), who was also the brains behind Dawson's Creek. "But we were just trying to make something fun and juicy, a guilty pleasure." There's Johnny, who moves to Palm Springs with his mom and her new husband after his dad's suicide and his own brief stint in rehab. He's befriended by slick Cliff and falls for gorgeous Greta, whose former boyfriend supposedly killed himself in what is now Johnny's bedroom. But if you ask science geek Liza, it was more like murder. Hooked yet?

Johnny, "The New Guy" (played by Taylor Handley)"Johnny's like any kid who gets uprooted from his familiar surroundings and put into a new one," says Handley (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning). "He's had some problems in the past, so he's got a lot of different elements to deal with. He's just trying to find his way."

Greta, "The Heartbreaker" (Amber Heard)"Greta's the link that connects everyone in the story," says Heard (who played the young Charlize Theron in North Country). "Johnny's a fighter and relates to that sensibility in Greta, but she's more manipulative. She doesn't need anything or anybody. She can fend for herself."

Nikki, "The Party Girl" (Tessa Thompson)"Nikki has a lot of problems she doesn't want to deal with directly," says Veronica Mars alumna Thompson. "Drinking is her way of escaping. But there's more to her than that. Deep down, she's a kind, open, loyal person, which you wouldn't expect."

Cliff, "The Charmer" (Michael Cassidy)"Cliff is the kind of guy you want to be friends with," says Cassidy (The O.C.'s Zach during Season 2). "He's comfortable in every social situation. But you definitely can't trust him. You may think you know everything about him, but you don't know anything."

Liza, "The Outsider" (Ellary Porterfield)Liza's the shy girl next door who crushes on the neighborhood guys. "She's sweet and innocent, but there's something more," says Porterfield, who's still in high school. "She's always lurking — not just hiding — in the shadows."

Let our new Online Video Guide sneak you into the exclusive Hidden Palms.

The cardinal rule of Hollywood: never spend your own money. But playwright turned actor/director Tyler Perry has built an empire bucking Tinseltown's conventions. So when the man known to millions as smack-talking grandma Madea came up with a sitcom idea, he didn't even try to convince network execs that it would make a great show. Instead he showed them, by using $5 million of his own money to shoot 10 episodes about a large and boisterous working-class family forced by a series of unlucky circumstances to squeeze into one very crowded house.

His gamble paid off, and on June 6 at 9 pm/ET, new episodes of that show — Tyler Perry's House of Payne — will debut on TBS. The premiere comes less than a year after Perry made one of the most lucrative deals in TV history by selling TBS the right to air 100 still-to-be-shot episodes for $200 million. Not bad for a guy who was homeless about 12 years ago.

"Coming off being homeless, I wanted something that would speak to people," says Perry, who now owns an 8,550-square-foot house in Beverly Hills and a mansion and production studio in Atlanta. "I have a bunch of writers working for me. We've written up to [Episode] 50. We talk about everything that needs to be discussed in the African-American community." Perry's rags-to-riches success story has been an inspiration to many. But his plays and movies — including Diary of a Mad Black Woman and Madea's Family Reunion, which together grossed more than $110 million — often anger critics. Earlier this year, some African-American groups accused Perry, along with Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence — three men who dress as loudmouthed, obese grannies — of making it rich off modern-day mammy characters.

"It's totally preposterous!" counters Perry, who reaches for his wig again when he makes a guest appearance in Payne's first episode as his now-infamous alter ego. "Madea is what I use to pay homage to many strong African-American women," he adds. "There are millions of people who respect and appreciate what the character has to say."

Perry counts his pal and mentor Oprah Winfrey among those millions. After all, it was an episode of her show that inspired the New Orleans native to start the journal that became his first stage hit, I Know I've Been Changed. "It's really great to have somebody you've admired celebrate you and invite you onto the show that changed your life," says Perry, who's been a guest on Oprah four times."That's really profound." It's also the gain before the Payne.

Let our new Online Video Guide cue up some Tyler Perry clips for you.

You'd have to go all the way back to Dynasty's Alexis Colby to find a saucier British TV import than Tanya Turner of BBC America's Footballers' Wives. To mark the fifth and final season premiere of the campy soccer-and-sex sudser (airing tonight at 8 pm/ET), we rang up Tanya's alter ego, Zoe Lucker, to talk about wild women, wacky ensembles and working with the original queen of mean.

TV Guide: Obviously, Tanya is a man-eater. But she's also a romantic. Zoe Lucker: I felt very strongly about that. If you play the straight bitch, then you're not going to have people on your side. I always maintained that the reason Tanya behaves the way she does is because of the way she's been treated. She basically wants to be loved by the right person.

TV Guide: And has she! How many husbands so far? Lucker: Well, she's killed two of them. [Laughs] The third one we never met, but we do see Tanya coming back from Brazil with his ashes!

TV Guide: What changed your mind about returning to Wives after leaving last season? Lucker: I was in New Zealand doing a play when I got a call from [Wives producer] Brian Park saying, "What if I told you we have Joan Collins to play your rival?" I couldn't turn that down. I've always been a huge fan and she is, like, the ultimate, you know?

TV Guide: It's like the Batman and Superman of bad girls. Lucker: Absolutely! And with a lot of eye movements. [Laughs]

TV Guide: What's Tanya biggest sin? Lucker: Probably putting a fake tan on a baby she stole. I would put that way above shagging her husband to death! [Laughs]

TV Guide: Now, you went brunette and low-key for your post-Wives show, [the police drama] Holby Blue, right?Lucker: I was playing a really lovely, selfless character who just got a job on the front desk at the station. She's still in love with her estranged husband. It was a really nice role and I loved playing it. I spent a year after I left Footballers turning down various roles because they were all Tanya-esque.

TV Guide: And Tanya would eat this woman alive.Lucker: [Laugh] Oh, yeah. Tanya wouldn't even look at her. She would think she was just the most dull, pointless person in the world. What I really wanted to do was play a character who was at the other end of the spectrum. I love being challenged. It's been over a year since I played Tanya, so it's sort of weird to be talking about her.

TV Guide: For us, it's still so culty. Yet America is all over adapting British shows. ABC tried to do Football Wives, CBS has Viva Laughlin, based on Viva Blackpool....Lucker: Oh, brilliant. So they're doing U.S. versions of them?

TV Guide: Had you heard about the proposed American version of Footballers?Lucker: Yes, I had. And it's quite strange, sort of imagining people playing characters that we created. The people in England just loved the show and to have that sort of reaction is such a good thing.

TV Guide: So much happens in a single episode, the pacing of Wives is so much faster than a typical U.S. prime-time soap.Lucker: I think that's what is fascinating. Everyone gets so excited about the show and actually it's only on eight or nine hours a year.

TV Guide: And the costumes are as over-the-top as some of the plots.Lucker: They're fab!

TV Guide: Did you keep any of them?Lucker: Let's be honest, I didn't really want to. [Laughs] There were a few little pieces, but generally I used to walk into shops and see things that, if I had never played Tanya, I would say, "Oh my god, I would never be seen in that outfit!" But it was a great thing to be able to go shopping for them and think, "That's perfect." How many times can you say that about a two-piece black-leather getup with flames up and down the sides?

TV Guide: When you go out, are there drag queens impersonating Tanya?Lucker: Apparently there is quite a big scene in New York at the moment where they're doing that. And I have spent quite a bit of time on Old Compton Street in London, which is like the Village in New York, and they're just crazy about the character there.

TV Guide: When the cast read the scripts, were you shocked by the twists?Lucker: There are times when you would look at them and think, "Surely not." I would read the scripts as me and find them outrageous and laugh. But this is real life for Tanya, so in her twisted world, it's normal. If you have your tongue in your cheek and you're sort of laughing, the audience is going to go with it.

TV Guide: And what about Desperate Housewives? Did you and your fellow Footballers watch that explode over here and think, "That's just like us, only in sensible shoes"?Lucker: [Laughs] You could definitely see the similarities, but Housewives has a different feel. It's a lot darker, isn't it? But I think it's brilliant and there are some great actors in there. Long may it continue.

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