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What would a young and ambitious overachiever do to land an insanely lucrative job with a multibillion-dollar international company?

Just about anything, it would seem, at least according to Fox TV's newest "reality" series, My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss, which will premiere at 9 tonight.

The show features 12 contestants - young, MBA-wielding, type-A business professionals with plenty of drive and even more ego - vying for a $250,000 prize and a plum spot with a multinational company. To win the competition, they have to impress an arrogant executive named N. Paul Todd, founder and CEO of the company, called IOCOR.

If this sounds suspiciously similar to another "reality" series that features a millionaire business exec and a group of brash young job-seekers, that's not exactly a coincidence. In announcing its new show, the network says with a wink: "Fox 'Trumps' the Competition."

Like NBC's The Apprentice, Fox's Boss puts the candidates through a series of team challenges designed to test their smarts, their ability to work together, and of course, their eagerness to stab each other in the back.

But the tasks the hapless competitors are called on to perform on Boss are ridiculous: begging on the streets; selling goofy products like re-usable toilet paper and "environmentally sound" tampons made from nuts, twigs, and berries, and trying to operate a fax machine while dodging paint balls fired at them by a camouflage-clad Todd.

After each week's competition, the losing team sends two of its members to the boardroom to face the boss. One of the two will survive to grovel another week, while Todd will snarl at the other his soon-to-be signature catchphrase: "Get the hell out of my office!" (Maybe not as succinct as The Donald's "You're fired!" tagline, but pithy nonetheless, and sure to become part of the nation's vocabulary.)

The twist, of course, is that this whole thing is bogus. The $250,000 cash prize is real, but that's about it. The pathetic competitors don't know it, but IOCOR is a fake company and "Mr. Todd" is really actor William August, whose job is to confuse, unnerve, and humiliate the 12 know-it-all participants, just as another actor, Steven Bailey, did on Fox's "reality" spoof hit from last season, My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance - which itself was a parody of yet another reality show, The Bachelor.

It turns out that "Mr. Todd" isn't the one who's really making the decisions to kick people out of his office. A "mystery boss" is actually calling the shots, and Fox promises that when that boss is revealed in the show's final episode, it will be "the biggest surprise of all."

While it's fun to see a dozen self-absorbed eager beavers making fools of themselves, after watching early scenes from the show, a basic question occurred to me: If these aspiring moguls were really all that bright, didn't the fact that none of them had ever heard of N. Paul Todd or his multibillion-dollar company set off any warning bells?

Just wondering.

Fox grabbed some lofty ratings last season with Fiance, and the network is hoping for similar success with Boss, tacking it on at the end of a night of season-premiere comedies, including stalwarts King of the Hill, Malcolm in the Middle, and The Simpsons, plus the Emmy-winning but ratings-challenged Arrested Development.

But Boss won't have an easy time of it, facing off against the hottest new series of this season, ABC's wicked satire, Desperate Housewives.

The good news for Fox is that Boss is produced by Rocket Science Laboratories, whose track record of lowbrow but successful "reality" series includes such winning entries as My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance, Joe Millionaire, Trading Spouses, and Married by America.

Then again, Rocket Science was also responsible for the second installment of Joe Millionaire, a bomb so awful that it was kicked out of everyone's office.

Contact Mike Kelly at: mkelly@theblade.com or 419-724-6131.

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