Americans used to wonder where their new heroes would come from.

Now they know: They'll come from those big stores near the mall. They'll be geeky guys, not tough ones in the "24" mold of Jack Bauer.

Proof of that comes from NBC's "Chuck," debuting tonight.

"You want to write what you know," says Josh Schwartz, "Chuck" co-creator. "And ... we know many more writers who resemble Chuck than, say, Jack Bauer.

Chuck Bartowski works at Buy More Electronics. He's tall and thin and geeky: "I would say cool-challenged," says Zachary Levi, who plays him.

He would get along fine with Sam, the hero of CW's the "Reaper," which debuts tomorrow at 8 p.m. Both work at big stores but get assignments from ominous forces — Chuck from the government; Sam from Satan.

Chuck works for his store's Nerd Herd, but has aspirations to be assistant manager. He has a friend (Joshua Gomez) and — despite some nudging from his sister (Sarah Lancaster) — no love interest.

Then he accidentally absorbs the government's top secrets. When they vanish from a computer, his mind becomes a vital national asset.

Now a tough federal agent (Adam Baldwin) works at the store to keep an eye on Chuck. "(He's) having to sell toasters to really annoying customers and wanting to kill all of them," Schwartz says.

A stunning — and sometimes deadly — blonde also hangs around. "She's really intelligent and very physically capable," says Yvonne Strzechowski, who plays her.

That's a favorite kind of character for the producer-director named McG. "I just liked the idea of an intelligent, kick-(butt), empowered, beautiful woman," he says.

He directed three of them in the "Charlie's Angels" movies and was looking for a new "Chuck" co-star. Strzechowski has Polish roots but is from Australia. "She literally landed in Los Angeles and came to see us about maybe 18 hours after getting into town," McG says.

She's unknown to Americans. None of the others are terribly familiar.

Levi was in "Less Than Perfect," Baldwin was in "Firefly" and movies. Lancaster was in "What About Brian," working with Gomez's brother, Rick.

Joshua Gomez has been a geeky guy in "Without a Trace" and maybe in real life. "We've been playing Xbox," Levi says.

They mesh with the geeky sides of the "Chuck" creators, Chris Fedak and Schwartz.

Fedak was born in New Jersey but grew up in places — Atlanta, Jacksonville and Orlando, Fla. — where he felt like an outsider. "I obsessively watched a lot of TV," he says.

Schwartz grew up in Providence, R.I., and the two met at the University of Southern California film school.

"We would show each other our scripts and talk about them," Fedak says. "Josh got started early."

Schwartz had been feeling like the ultimate outsider in California, surrounded by tall, tanned beauties. So he created "The O.C.," a series about outsiders.

That clicked with McG, whose own boyhood went from Michigan to California. "I graduated 5-foot-2, orange Afro, braces and shoe skates," McG says. "I never had one date."

He produced "The O.C." Later, Fedak talked up the idea of an ordinary chap turned hero. Soon, all three men were involved with "Chuck."

This was a chance to have action, fantasy and angst, Schwartz says, "and also be able to do it with a lot of humor." Chuck could save the world, sometimes in funny ways.