A desperate comic won't leave the stage

Pauly Shore.

Are you laughing yet? Probably not, since the has-been comic's notoriety as a punch line officially died with the movie ''Pauly Shore Is Dead" in 2003. Usually, when the butt of a national joke co-opts the joke, its life is over.

In ''Pauly Shore Is Dead," the MTV-bred clown desperately tried to stage a comeback by playing himself desperately trying to stage a comeback. In his tired TBS reality series ''Minding the Store," which premieres tomorrow at 10 p.m., he works a similarly self-ironic concept in a sitcom-like setting. ''I used to be on top of the world," he moans in the opening credits, ''but now, not so much." Can our hero return to movie prominence in the course of the show? And will he rescue his mother's failing stand-up venue, the Comedy Store?

It takes a confident and self-aware type of has-been to forge a career out of his own fading star -- Mr. Shatner, we are not worthy -- and Shore doesn't cut it. His attempts at reverse fame are no more engaging and original than those made by the likes of Farrah Fawcett and Gary Busey, whose Comedy Central show was a bust. While Shore may have enough entertainment-world stature to fuel a segment on Howard Stern's radio show, he's just not vivid or talented enough to carry a voyeuristic series. Watching him hit on women and argue with his buddies isn't as funny as he thinks it is.

On the show, Shore has weekly adventures trying to revive the Comedy Store, located in West Hollywood. In the first episode, the ''Hot Girls of the Comedy Store" light bulb goes off in his dim head, and the predictably wacky auditions begin. In the second episode, he decides the club must serve food, and he hands his comedian friends the task of picking the right menu. Meanwhile, Shore deals with his sex addiction, visiting a therapist who urges him to avoid casual sex when doing stand-up on the road.

The Comedy Store is owned by Mitzi Shore, who appears in the first two episodes only as a whiny voice on her son's cellphone. ''Don't you do anything without checking with me first," she warns Pauly. But, of course, Pauly must misbehave, since he's making a reality show called ''Minding the Store." He must enact a little plot arc each week to manufacture material. If he were more intrinsically bizarre, he might be able to loll around like Anna Nicole Smith and still provide the show's editors with enough Warhol-style reality fodder. But he's so stubbornly bland, he's obliged to fabricate dumb sketches.

In this way, ''Minding the Store" comes off as particularly set up and fraudulent, even for a reality show. The situations are too obviously contrived, even Shore's visit to his therapist. And because Shore is surrounded by comedians, including his father, Sammy Shore, most of the people who appear on camera try to turn their scenes into comedy bits. When Pauly's buddies go in search of the right food for the club, they clearly know they're expected to create a handy little subplot. Like Shore, they may look like they're minding the Store, but they're really minding the viewers.

Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com.