Comedy Central: All “Daily Show,” all the time?

Heartening developments at Comedy Central, not the least of which is they’ve pulled the plug on “The Showbiz Show with David Spade,” meaning that from now on, the guy with the least-deserved smugness in all of Hollywood can only grate viewers on “Rules of Engagement.”

Perhaps they’ll replace him with one of two new shows featuring occasional correspondents on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”

Yesterday, Comedy Central announced “Important Things with Demitri Martin,” a comic whose demeanor is unusually (and agreeably) deadpan and thoughtful for someone his age in this era of Jack-Black-style in-your-face comedy. It’ll be a sketch/variety show produced by Stewart’s comedy, which means it’ll probably be pretty good.

Today, the network announced “The Root of All Evil,” starring Lewis Black, whose demeanor is unusually (and agreeably) apoplectic for someone his age. In the show, two different entities vie for the title of most evil. Comics will argue the virtues (or lack of same) for both and Black will decide which is truly the viler of the two.

Paris Hilton-v.-Dick Cheney was offered as an example of the sort of squaring-off this show would engage in. It would seem that the show will depend more on the quality of the efforts of the comedians stating their cases than in Black’s participation, but it certainly creates a fun game in terms of cooking up the either-or’s for the show to determine which is more evil:

* David Spade or Carrot Top? (Carrot Top’s more annoying, but Spade’s more ubiquitous…)

* Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears? (Car-jacking vs. child endangerment…)

* “Cavemen” or “Carpoolers?” (One’s awful; one’s awful generic…)

* “Kid Nation” or Myanmar? (Skirting child-labor laws and feeding kids bleach vs. genocide at a safe enough distance that most people can ignore it…)

* The Dodgers’ collapse or the Mets’ collapse? (One torturously slow and heartbreaking, the other shockingly swift and heartbreaking…)

* Gap clothing or American Apparel advertising? (Child slavery overseas or rufie’d-up-and-underaged-looking models in subtextual porn…)

* “Funky Winkerbean’s” obsession with cancer and alcoholism or “The Family Circus?” (One forgetting it appears on something called “the funny pages; the other remembering it but powerless to do anything about it…)

* Republican ineptitude or Democratic wussiness? (The result always seems to be the same…)

* Cell phone commercials or cell phone users? (The former makes its customers look like unhinged, sociopathic loudmouths who can’t stop spouting idiocy rather via jabbering or texting while the latter are unhinged, sociopathic loudmouths who can’t stop spouting idiocy rather via jabbering or texting…)

And feel free to add your own!