Time To Move On Jenny Mccarthy Is No Longer The Co-Host Of Mtv’s Dating Game; Now She Has Her Own Show

Sure, she’s beautiful, but can she act?

All we know of blond, 24-year-old Jenny McCarthy - whose new MTV series, “The Jenny McCarthy Show,” premieres tonight at 10:30 p.m. - is her goofy personality on MTV’s “Singled Out.”

She spent about a year as the dating game’s co-host, and she certainly made the most of it. As she cavorted through a sea of hormonally charged adolescents, often the young men in the crowd couldn’t keep their hands off her, prompting MTV to announce before every taping: “Don’t touch Jenny!” Still, the network had to put several bodyguards posing as contestants in the crowd to ensure her safety.

McCarthy is now bidding adieu to this romantic zookeeping, although she finds she must retain the bodyguards.

“It was time for me to leave ‘Singled Out,”’ McCarthy said. “I didn’t want people to go, ‘What? This is all she can do?”’

Both to prove that she is capable of more and to capitalize on her massive popularity and publicity, MTV has given McCarthy her own sketch-comedy series in which she will play a variety of characters. (A half-hour special on McCarthy and the making of the show, “A Day in the Life of Jenny McCarthy,” airs at 10 p.m.)

“I like to call it ‘Saturday Night Live’ meets ‘Beavis and Butt-head,”’ she said. “It’s the perfect combination: sketches, parodies, a live musical performance at the end of each show.”

It’s also training camp for network prime time, with McCarthy signed up for an NBC sitcom next fall. By stretching her talents on MTV, she said, “Then people won’t be shocked when they see me on NBC. I’m making a huge transition.”

MTV took a big chance on McCarthy, whose main claim to fame prior to “Singled Out” was modeling for Playboy. She won a red Mitsubishi 3000GT and $100,000 for being named Playmate of the Year in 1994, which allowed her to move from Chicago to Los Angeles.

“They were hesitant because of the Playboy stuff,” McCarthy said. “But I went in there and did what I wanted. I did some improvised stuff, which I never do, and they said, ‘She must be nuts.”’ They called her in 16 times, and she was picked from 500 women, she said.

‘Singled Out” turned into a ratings smash and spurred a huge demand for more McCarthy.

Last summer alone, she appeared on the covers of four magazines (“Rolling Stone,” “Young Miss,” “TV Guide” and “Playboy,” although the latter photo was taken years ago). She’s had a guest role on TV (“Wings”) and small roles in films (including a nurse in “Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead”).

Her bodyguards fend off teen-age boys at all her public appearances, as when she signs covers of the “Jenny McCarthy’s Surfin’ Safari” CD. It is a compilation of beach music in which her only performance consisted of posing for the cover art, in a bikini.

Just don’t ask her to autograph a Playboy. “I’ll be 80 and all saggy, and there will be pictures of me (in Playboy),” she said. “I’m getting a little tired of talking about it because it’s a chapter that’s closed. But I am proud of it, because it got me started. The only problem is I don’t want (Playboy) to run them anymore.”

McCarthy got a start with Playboy after she was told she was too fat to be a professional model.

“I was actually around 138 (pounds, at nearly 5 feet 7 inches tall). I was a bit chunky but really happy with myself,” she recalled. “This Elite model woman told me I was fat and would never ever be on the cover of a magazine. But when people tell me I can’t do something, that makes me want to.”

She recently sent that agent one of her magazine covers. And now, at 120 pounds, she works so much she doesn’t bother to watch what she eats.

“I swear I’ve had a Big Mac every day this week,” she said.