Freddie Prinze Jr. is surrounded by a group of giggling pubescent girls. But a fan attack it’s not; merely a scene for his sitcom, "Freddie," shooting on a Warner Bros. soundstage.

Prinze, 29, still looks as cute as a teen idol should be, but in this episode, his character, Freddie Moreno, is trying to fulfill surrogate dad duties, chiding niece Zoey and her friends for inappropriate behavior.

Moreno, a successful chef planning to enjoy the bachelor high-life with rich pal Chris, has been drawn back into family responsibilities. For various reasons, his sister and her young daughter, his grandma and his widowed sister-in-law have all moved in with him, re-enveloping him in the women’s world in which he grew up after his father abandoned the family.

Besides being the title star, Prinze is co-creator, co-writer and co-executive producer of the ABC sitcom, which airs at 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays on KSTP, Ch. 5, and he takes his duties very seriously.

"It’s a lot of responsibility, but I wouldn’t have it any other way ... this is what I need," he says. "There are things that I’ve done that people are so quick to take credit for and there’s really not a lot I can do about that because of the perception of actors. So in order to protect myself, I needed everyone to understand that this is something that I love and this is something that I watch over and I protect on a daily basis."

Nevertheless, he thanks his cast, crew and co-creators Bruce Helford and Bruce Rasmussen, because, "I don’t delude myself that I care any more than they do."

While the sitcom’s obvious goal is to "make people laugh," it draws from Prinze’s own life.

He was a baby when his father, comedian Freddie Prinze, committed suicide in 1977, leaving him to grow up in a household of women, which included his Spanish-speaking Puerto Rican grandmother.

Grandma in the series speaks only Spanish, with English subtitles. She’s played by Jenny Gago, whose family came from Peru.

The actress grew up in the Bronx, with a mother who "refused to speak English at home," so she is thrilled with how the show deals with the complexities of assimilating into American society while retaining traditions and values.

Jacqueline Obradors, who plays sister Sofia, is equally pleased.

"This show feels like a true depiction of a Latin American family," she says, "because I grew up here, but my parents are from Argentina and always spoke Spanish in the home ... so this reflects my life in a big way and rings true."

The series also reflects Prinze’s religious faith.

"This family was raised Catholic and I think there are still some members of the family who are practicing Catholics, while others are recovering Catholics! That, to me, is a real part of America and we wanted to represent that," he says.

Writer-producer Conrad Jackson, who helped create the show and who is partly the inspiration for Freddie’s best buddy, Chris, met Prinze when they were kids in Albuquerque, N.M.

He says the show is "very much Freddie’s life," although Freddie, married since 2002 to actress Sarah Michelle Gellar, has never been "the player Freddie is — so that aspect is more a fantasy, but as far as the way he deals with kids and has women constantly influencing his life, I think that’s pretty much how it is in real life."