New sitcom unveils Garth’s goofy talent

It’s a strange but true Hollywood story.

Jennie Garth has discovered her inner clown. The former teen trauma queen of “Beverly Hills, 90210” is just a chucklehead at heart.

“What I Like About You” makes its debut at 7 p.m. Friday on WB, Sunflower Broadband Channel 3.

And she’s about to prove it with “What I Like About You,” a bubbly new WB sitcom in which Garth displays her charming gifts for acting goofy. She’s funny. She’s really funny. Who knew?

“I always knew that I was a kook,” Garth says. “So it didn’t surprise me.”

OK. But after all those years of riding the soap-opera roller coaster of heartache, anguish and adolescent angst on “90210,” it may come as a pleasant surprise to many TV viewers that the former Kelly Taylor can shake up some smiles with her previously unseen comic skills.

“What I Like About You” pairs Garth with budding slapstick princess Amanda Bynes, who first gained acclaim and favorable comparisons to Lucille Ball as the young star of Nickelodeon’s “All That” and “The Amanda Show.”

The 16-year-old Bynes plays the rambunctious younger sibling to Garth’s more strait-laced, career-focused older sister. Through cockeyed sitcom circumstance, they wind up living together. And that sometimes-strained family relationship is where the laughs are.

Garth has even been blessed with the pratfall gene. She amusingly stumbles over living room furniture on the “What I Like About You” premiere.

“I’m clumsy by nature, so it just worked in my favor,” she says.