Greg Garcia is a guy who doesn't forget his roots. He sprinkles Washington-area references throughout his sitcoms. He named one son after the Baltimore Orioles' stadium and then used Camden for the setting of his quirky NBC series "My Name Is Earl."

But where did he get the inspiration for those hilarious low-life characters?

As it turns out, at the beach. The collection of losers who inhabit the Thursday night comedy had their genesis in Garcia's head one summer when he was hanging out with his family at Nags Head, N.C., he said.

The idea: A fairly stupid but good-natured loser wins the lottery, is hit by a car and, while recovering, hears TV's Carson Daly discuss the concept of karma. Earl Hickey (Jason Lee) gets the message: He needs to straighten out his so-called life.

The result is a sitcom that looks at the bottom-dwellers of American life.

"I've always been drawn to the world these people live in," Garcia said. "I believe in karma. I like the idea of people having an awakening in life and changing. So it was sort of the perfect storm."

The cast includes Earl's hapless brother Randy (Ethan Suplee); illegal immigrant Catalina (Nadine Velazquez); Earl's ex-wife, Joy (Jaime Pressly); and her husband, Darnell (Eddie Steeples). Beau Bridges periodically shows up as Earl and Randy's father.

"Earl" earned a 2006 People's Choice Award for best new comedy. The show was up for five Emmys this year — supporting actress, directing, writing, casting and picture editing — though Lee and the show itself were not nominated, drawing complaints from some critics.

Garcia, 36, who grew up in Arlington, Va., knows a bit about setting the bar too low. Because his high school SAT scores were less than stellar, he said, he applied to only one college, Frostburg State University in Maryland. He was accepted.

"And it turned out to be the best thing, because Frostburg had a television writing program that got my script sent to Warner Brothers," Garcia said.

After college, he set out for Los Angeles with his parents' encouragement and the name of a junior high classmate of his mother's who had become a makeup artist. For a while, he slept on a friend's couch. And he made sure to look up his mom's classmate.

Drawing from what's familiar works for Garcia. And Michael Pennie, a writer for the show, is a friend of Garcia's from high school who Garcia said once lived in a trailer. "I had a little window on that world," Garcia said of his friend's situation.

Garcia first hired Pennie as a writer and co-producer for "Yes, Dear," his CBS sitcom that began in 2000, and then for "Earl."

For "Yes, Dear," Garcia named the characters Greg and Kim, after himself and his wife.

In Los Angeles, Garcia has found hometown connections in Hollywood's A-list circles. At the People's Choice Awards in January, he spotted actress Sandra Bullock, a graduate of Washington-Lee High School in Arlington, Va., and struck up a conversation.

"All I had to say was, 'I'm from Arlington,' " he said. "There's something about hearing your hometown."

To actor Warren Beatty, who also went to Washington-Lee High School, he said, " 'My mother went to junior high school with you.' ... And (Beatty) came over and warmed right up."