To the list of thirtysomething Kentucky natives making their names in Hollywood entertainment, add Kirker Butler.

An independent filmmaker whose short satire, "The Confetti Brothers," was screened before packed houses at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, Butler recently joined the writing team for "What I Like About You," a new sitcom in the WB network's fall lineup. The show stars Amanda Bynes ("The Amanda Show," Nickelodeon) and Jennie Garth ("Beverly Hills, 90210," Fox).

Born in Hartford, Ky., Butler doesn't hang out with TV- and movie-business transplants from the Bluegrass, but he does identify with them, including "Traffic" screenwriter Stephen Gahagan, "In the Bedroom" actor and Tom Cruise cousin William Mapother, E! Entertainment TV-news director Peggy Jo Abraham, and her brother Mark, producer of "Spy Game" and "The Family Man."

"The more people I meet here, the more people I'm finding are either from Kentucky or spent a significant amount of time in Kentucky," Butler said in a phone interview from Los Angeles. "And oddly enough, my second or third day at 'What I Like About You,' I found out that another writer on the show, Lesley Wake, is from Lexington."

Butler's first boss in Los Angeles was Louisville native Peggy Jo Abraham, who hired him as a producer for E!

"It was just a total fluke," Abraham said. "We didn't know each other or know anybody in common. My mom literally met his mom in Stein Mart, they started talking, and he had been doing some television news work in Louisville. I got his resume, sent him a writing test, and he was quite talented, had a nice writing flair, very creative and inventive.

"He was here about a year and a half, doing a great job, when he landed this assignment on the WB show. We were sad to see him go, but if you know how few shows get produced every year, and how many people want writing jobs, he had our blessings, because it's an opportunity he couldn't ignore."

Butler, 31, is the only child of Les Butler, a retired data manager and amateur photographer, and Linda Likens, an educational consultant, who live in Louisville.

After graduating from Western Kentucky University in 1993, Butler worked as a tape editor for WHASTV news, then for two years studied writing and directing in Chicago at Second City, the improvisation powerhouse whose alums include Andrea Martin, John Belushi, Eugene Levy, John Candy, Martin Short, Catherine O'Hara and many others.

On July 1, 2000, Butler married Dawson Springs, Ky., poet Karen Harryman. Two weeks later, he said, "We packed up and came out here. We had no jobs, no apartment, nothing. We just packed up, drove across country and found a place to live that actually we're still in." While shooting a "Confetti Brothers" scene in Los Angeles, a family friend suggested that Butler contact TV writer Wil Calhoun, who then worked on the NBC hit "Friends" and would become executive producer for WB's "What I Like About You."

"I meet Kirker; he seemed like a nice guy," Calhoun said, "and he started sending me some of his work -- his plays . . . spec TV things.

"He had a non-annoying way to get me to read his stuff. I saw that the writing was really, really good, and I kept up with him, for a couple of years, always had him in the back of my mind. So when Warner Bros. asked if I'd be interested in creating a show for Amanda Bynes, and I was getting a staff together, I called him."

To become a series, "What I Like About You" beat five other comedy pilots that WB had in development. It is scheduled to run Fridays at 8 p.m., starting Sept. 20, and has been given the green light for 13 30-minute episodes.

The show explores what happens when a wacky 16-year-old girl (Bynes) with a knack for getting into comedic situations moves in with her twentysomething sister (Garth).

"There's lots of physical comedy, because Bynes is really good at it," Butler said. "Tony Hawk, the skateboarder, is in the pilot, and Amanda loses his board and has to hang off the side of a building to retrieve it. It's funny."

Calhoun said of the show, "It's 'My Sister Sam' meets 'I Love Lucy.' "

Butler said, "This is my first experience doing anything like this, and it was really intimidating, being in the writing room with lots of very established writers from 'Friends' and other shows."

Butler hasn't forsaken his filmmaking career or forgotten his Kentucky roots. In the works is a feature-length musical, "Bats: The Vampire Baseball Musical Comedy."

"It's a musical comedy about a minor-league baseball team made up of vampires," Butler said. "The music will be by Stephen Lynch (Comedy Central, VH-1), and we're hoping to shoot next spring in Kentucky."

He said the screenplay predates the Louisville Bats, and calls the naming of the team "a very odd coincidence."