HOLLYWOOD — In the days when Steve Franks was pitching his idea for "Psych," USA Network's new comedy about a fake psychic detective, he always began by talking about his dad.

His father was a Los Angeles cop who liked to call himself "a trained observer" and wanted to groom his only son to follow in his footsteps. Whenever they went to a restaurant, he would test young Steve by telling him to close his eyes and recall: How many people have hats on? Where is the exit? What's the name on the hostess' name tag?

Anyone who saw — and can recall — the July 7 pilot will recognize this childhood memory in the opening scene: a little boy being peppered by questions while having lunch with his demanding dad — a uniformed police officer. The show flashes back and forth between that past and the present, where Shawn (James Roday) is a footloose twentysomething living in Santa Barbara who clearly has not fulfilled his father's dream. But his powers of observation are so acute, he helps the police solve crimes by pretending to be psychic.

"I guess I was wired for this sort of show," said Franks.

USA is airing eight episodes on Fridays this summer, and four more in January. According to Nielsen Media Research, the show drew an average 3.3 million viewers in its first three weeks, a respectable showing for cable.

"Psych" could be seen as a meditation on the authoritarian father/unambitious son syndrome — the son knows whatever he does will never be good enough, so he avoids responsibility altogether. ("If you're going to play, Shawn, play right," the father (Corbin Bernsen) tells the young boy in one episode.)

But mostly, "Psych" is about "the search for fun, what place fun has in your life, and how much is too much fun," Franks said. "I'm trying to bring fun back to TV. You don't see it that much."

Some critics have complained there's too much silliness in the show. " 'Psych' is, for the most part, merely jokey," wrote Nancy Franklin in The New Yorker. Dule Hill ("The West Wing") contributes to the comedy as Shawn's reluctant assistant and best friend; he played one scene with dollops of shaving cream on his head. USA President Bonnie Hammer said she prefers to characterize the humor as "irreverent." Along with "Monk," she called "Psych" a perfect fit with the network, which is aiming to send Friday night viewers off to sleep with a chuckle. Its motto: "Characters Welcome."

Besides his own family, Franks said he was inspired by the lighter crime-solving shows he grew up with, such as "Magnum, P.I.," "The Rockford Files" and "Moonlighting."

Besides just watching TV, Franks was something of a "television savant" who played industry games of his own making when he was in grammar school. Just for fun, he would imagine television shows and then draw up charts and grids, scheduling one against the other, guessing how the ratings went — and then extending or canceling them accordingly.

When Franks was 16, his father took him along to the set of "Moonlighting," where he had a side job working security. That experience made Franks realize that a television career might actually be a possibility in real life.

After graduating from the University of California-Irvine, Franks sold a script for the Adam Sandler film "Big Daddy" (1999) to Columbia, and then pitched about half a dozen TV shows with little success. Long before psychic shows such as "Medium" became hot, Franks said, he came up with the idea of a psychic detective who wasn't really psychic. What it lacked, he said, was a way into the main character.

As it turned out, it was Franks' mother, not his father, who provided the key, he said. She was also an acute observer and could pick out the culprit on TV crime shows in minutes. Shawn displays that same skill in scene two of the pilot.

Franks said some well-known actors were interested in the lead but wouldn't read for the part — a prerequisite, Franks said, given the quirkiness needed to play it. Roday ("The Dukes of Hazzard") was the only candidate who grasped the type of comedy Franks was after, he said.

"We do a lot of word jokes about vocabulary and syntax," Franks said.

Later, Roday discovered that he grew up with a father similar to Franks'. Roday's dad was an Air Force training instructor, a disciplinarian prone to driving home object lessons. He also hoped in vain that his only child would pursue a military career.

Over time, though, Roday said his father came to accept his determination to become an actor. "He was fully on board by the time I finished college," he said.