The Ladies Man: Synopsis

Radio talk show host Leon Phelps (Tim Meadows) is a man with a mission. Drawing on his own vast and personal knowledge of love - at least certain aspects of it - he dispenses advice to the men and women of Chicago about matters of the heart - and body. Leon is earnest, inexhaustible and inexplicably attractive to women - he's The Ladies Man - and in his own endearingly innocent way, he only wants to do one thing: help the world with his expert knowledge of amore.

Leon, however, is having trouble finding a new job after he and his producer, Julie (Karyn Parsons), are sacked for the exceedingly "frank" nature of his on-air comments. He is running out of options when he receives a mysterious letter signed only "Sweet Thing" begging him to return to her -- and her money! With enough change, Leon figures, he could buy his own radio station. All he has to do is look in his giant little black book and recall which one of his many sweet things is the "Sweet Thing," but he can't remember. With so many past conquests to sort through, Leon's search promises to be difficult, made all the more complex by a posse of cuckolded husbands determined to take their revenge on him.

Karyn Parsons ("The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air") stars opposite Tim Meadows as Julie, Leon's radio producer, who loves the true sweetness and innocence that lies in this heart. Billy Dee Williams ("Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back/Return of the Jedi") appears as Lester, the film's smooth-talking narrator and owner of the bar where Leon hangs out with his friends. Tiffani Thiessen ("Beverly Hills, 90210") stars as Honey DeLune, who has promised Leon passion and, more important, money, but who has failed to tell him where to find her.

Appearing as Barney, one more husband whose wife has fallen to Leon's charms, is British comedian Lee Evans ("There's Something About Mary"), while "SNL" regular Will Ferrell stars as Lance, a Greco-Roman wrestling fanatic who leads a band of wronged husbands seeking revenge on Leon.

Meadows, a "Saturday Night Live" regular since 1992, debuted his "Ladies Man" sketch on October 17, 1997, and continued to refine the persona of Leon Phelps in subsequent "SNL" sketches. Soon guest hosts like Cameron Diaz and Helen Hunt were appearing alongside Tim's character, and Monica Lewinsky's appearance in a Ladies Man sketch drew national attention.

Meadows had based Leon, a ladies man with a '70s sense of style, on the kind of men he had encountered while working in a liquor store in Detroit as a teenager.

"They were the sort of guys who played the lottery every day," he recalls, "and always wore outfits which, though they were cheap, were completely matching. The shirt matched the belt and the shoes, and they had a lifestyle of having lots of women. None of these guys had girlfriends, but they all had lots of women, and they thought that was pretty cool."

At the urging of Lorne Michaels, "SNL's" celebrated executive producer, Meadows began writing a feature film based on Leon with writers Dennis McNicholas and Andrew Steele, who had been instrumental in developing The Ladies Man character for the television show.

Producer Michaels says of bringing the Ladies Man character to the big screen: "Watching Tim light up the screen for 90 minutes as Leon Phelps makes me very happy."