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Entertainment Weekly called them the Slack Pack. USA Today came up with a cleverer nickname: the Frat Pack. Both publications seem to agree that there is a loose association among this group of young(-ish) dudes -- Jack Black, Will Ferrell, Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, and Luke and Owen Wilson -- who keep showing up in each other's movies. Products that have resulted from the Pack's joint efforts include Zoolander, Starsky & Hutch, Old School, and the now-mythic failed sitcom pilot Heat Vision & Jack. The Pack, so far, only consists of men, which is shocking! The original Rat Pack had Shirley MacLaine; the Brat Pack had Ally Sheedy. And now -- given her roles in Along Came Polly, Dodgeball, and the upcoming Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy -- it would seem as though the Frat Pack has finally found its moll in Missy Pyle.

Pyle had been plying her manic, Poehlerian brand of comedy in both high- and low-profile projects long before Stiller or Ferrell came a-courting. If you saw her unfortunate-looking Eastern-European refugee/dodgeball phenom in Dodgeball and felt sure that you had seen her -- minus the buns, fangs, and unibrow -- somewhere before, you're probably right; the question is whether you're more familiar with her work in the mainstream, or in pop culture's culty margins. For instance, lots of people saw her play a crazy-eyed alien in Galaxy Quest, but hardly any enjoyed her parodically bitchy Alexandra Cabot in the seriously underrated big-screen adaptation of Josie and the Pussycats. And, probably about fifty times as many people saw Ross try to woo her with his "insanely white" teeth on Friends as saw her date Arthur on an episode of the short-lived live-action sitcom version of The Tick. The unwashed, undiscriminating masses and the snobby cultural elite can find common ground on the subject of Missi Pyle, with her striking bone structure and admirably intense, creepily grinning comic persona. (Her presence in the seemingly idyllic town of Spectre, in last year's Big Fish, was a great big hint to the audience that all was not as utopically pastoral as it seemed.)

Now she's poised to take her rightful place as the Frat Pack's first girl-in-residence. There have been other recurring ladies mingling with the group, but they're just not quite...right. Christine Taylor (Zoolander, Dodgeball) is fine, but she really just serves as the guys' straight man. (And we do mean "man" -- did you peep that soup strainer she was sporting in Dodgeball? We swear there was one scene where we caught her twirling it.) Juliette Lewis (Old School, Starsky & Hutch) has a gratingly self-conscious screen presence, plus if any of the fellas ever crosses her, she's likely to do what her people do best: sue. (Also, bitch crazy.) But Missi Pyle fits in perfectly: she's pretty (in kind of an exaggerated way -- perfect for comedy), she's loopy, and she's up for anything, like how we imagine Parker Posey might be if she'd ever worked with the Upright Citizens Brigade. Maybe when the Frat Pack finds itself with a break between movies, they can do Missi Pyle right by coming out with a special edition DVD of Zoolander in which she is digitally inserted in place of Milla Jovovich as Katinka Borgovnina...na.

Yeah, we know. Like Ben Stiller ever has a break between movies.