Diary of a Mad Black Woman earned more than $50 million and Madea's Family Reunion nearly $70 million. Since they only cost about $5 million to make, his films are a bargain to Lionsgate, which will distribute Why Did I Get Married and A Jazz Man's Blues after it puts Daddy's Little Girls into theaters on Valentine's Day.

Perry's latest feat of Houdini magic, though, could turn out to be his craftiest yet.

Situation comedies made for television usually come from the same stock in trade: Network buys sitcom it likes from a studio, finds a decent time slot, promotes it like mad, and then, with fingers crossed, hopes the forces of nature all converge for a big, sloppy hit.

Perry didn't want to go that way.

He saw a different route in syndication, which is to go for the morning and early evening airtimes that local and independent stations fill with reruns of network shows like Friends and Everybody Loves Raymond.

First-run shows in syndication are almost always talk shows, like Oprah and The Ellen DeGeneres Show, or judge shows. Not since Harry and the Hendersons, about a Bigfoot-like creature, has a show had even modest success in first-run syndication. Harry aired for three seasons in the early 1990s, when there was considerably less competition on television.