Who are the hot new internet moguls? Soap chicks! Eden Riegel (All My Children) has a smash hit on her hands with the Web series “Imaginary Bitches.” Crystal Chappell (Days of Our Lives) is about to launch her much-anticipated “Venice.” And Lauralee Bell (The Young and the Restless) is really kicking ass with “Family Dinner.” This last show, about suppertime in a twisted household headed by an Oprah-obsessed mom (played by Bell), already has a cast that includes comedy icon Phyllis Diller. Now Bell has hired Oscar and Emmy winner Cloris Leachman to play the oversexed grandma.

“Cloris was full of suggestions,” notes Bell, with a laugh. “For one sequence—a fantasy where the whole family goes on The Oprah Winfrey Show—Cloris said to me, ‘You know what I have to do in this scene, don’t you? I have to jump out of my chair and start pulling your hair. And then I’ll pull up my blouse and flash the cameras. And then you can put one of those black bars over my t--s!’” Bell didn’t try to stop her. “Are you kidding?” she says. “That’s promo gold! I was, like, ‘Go for it, Cloris!’”

Bell landed Leachman by sending a script to her manager/son George Englund. “He called back and said, ‘We’re totally into this. Cloris is all about dysfunction.’ And I think she had a blast,” reports Bell. “By the end of the shoot she was saying, ‘We need to bring in cousins, uncles! I’m so excited to see who will come for dinner next!’ And I was so thrilled about that—it’s exactly the way I want our audience to feel.”

Bell has also expanded the show’s writing team to include Robot Chicken wisenheimer Mike Fasolo. You can check out the lunacy at familydinneronline.com and funnyordie.com.

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