Or, you could choose to meld these disparate approaches and marvel at how one of the richest men in the universe has become so by reveling in such crass, debasing, utterly politically incorrect and, yes, pretty much devastatingly hilarious gags.

For the uninitiated, MacFarlane created the cartoon show "Family Guy," a funny show that becomes exponentially funnier when you hear about religious groups' complaints about it, which Fox cancelled not once but twice before this past week shoveling a cool $100-mill into his lap to keep doing it (and developing other shows, besides, for the next four years). MacFarlane also provides the voice of the show's clueless protagonist, portly (to be kind) Peter Griffin, as well as a host of other characters; Borstein plays Peter's long-suffering-to-the-point-that-it-becomes-eternally-suffering wife, Lois.

So anyway. Saturday night's concert, MacFarlane and Borstein explained, was something you'd experience if you shuffled through "a retard's iPod." They also worked off a vague alphabetical conceit, as well, crooning tunes with titles from A to Z, though adherence to their concept with letters such as L, V and Z were pretty sketchy, at best.

One of the evening's recurring jokes was performing songs inappropriately, offering a Vegas hack's stylings to the theme to "Animal House" or Journey's "Don't Stop Believing." (MacFarlane did his best Dean Martin impersonation, sitting on a stool, smoking cigs and quaffing Jack Daniels, throughout the event.)

But then, pretty much everything was inappropriate, if you have any taste. It's hard to precisely finger the most tasteless moment, but it was probably one of these:

* Borstein protesting MacFarlane singing "Edelweiss," saying her family included Holocaust victims. MacFarlane replied, "I don't think this is a place to bring your Hebrew baggage."

* Borstein performing Diana Ross' "Upside Down" in Marlee Matlin's slurred speaking voice. MacFarlane then asked the sign interpreters how they conveyed said slurring in their signing.

* In a version of the mawkish Barbra Streisand/Neil Diamond ditty "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" rewritten for Peter and Lois, MacFarlane and Borstein lamented very specific sexual acts that the drifting couple no longer performed on one another.

MacFarlane also did "Rocket Man" as "Family Guy's" Stewie, channeling William Shatner. They performed Queen's theme song from the movie "Flash Gordon" only to point out how sh!tty it was - so bad that they got bored and wandered offstage, where Borstein purported serviced Seth with some oral sex. Britney Spears, Monty Python, the Bee Gees, Lindsay Lohan, "The Little Mermaid," Blondie, Tina Turner and the Muppets came victim to their show's assault. The number of obscure TV themes MacFarlane offered up called into question just how much of his youth was wasted on crap TV.

Oh, and Borstein revealed she was pregnant. It wasn't until after intermission that MacFarlane realized she wasn't just doing some sort of shtick.

I've heard the term "painfully funny," but I didn't really understand it until Saturday night - my herniated disk and sciatica had returned with a vengeance, so every time I laughed I suffered a sharp, shooting pain. But not laughing wasn't exactly an option.

Janeane Garofalo opened the evening. "I would rather take a salt bullet to the knee than see 'Made of Honor,'" she declared, not unreasonably. Noting that she had a role in "24" this season before the writers strike (it'll return next year), Garofalo probably gave up more information than the producers would have liked: She'll play an FBI agent who can out-hack the show's resident computer expert, Chloe. Oh, and "Jack's gone rogue," but then, Jack always goes rogue. She explained what little she could make of the show: "Jack Bauer's an important guy and he gives people his word a lot."

And something else that'll endear her to the producers: "I don't watch this sh!t." They had shot nine episodes before the strike; expect her character to die a horrible death by episode 11.

Yes, seriously. April Fools was weeks ago. This is the first pickup at HBO since Sue Naegle replaced Carolyn Strauss as the head of programming.

"Hung," per Variety, "revolves around a well-endowed man who is plodding along in middle age as a struggling father and high school coach. The character was once a high school sports legend, and his luck returns when he figures out a way to use his best asset." At least it doesn't seem to have any psychiatrists.

This will come to us courtesy Colette Burson, who - again no joke - directed a film back in 2000 entitled "Coming Soon." According to Variety, it grossed all of $3,742.00. She also wrote an episode of "The Riches," and so her husband, "Riches" creator Dmitry Lipkin is also attached, as is director and Oscar-winning screenwriter Alexander Payne ("Sideways").

Lipkin called "Hung" "a comedy with a lot of heart." And a lot of something else, too, obviously.

I can't wait to see the reviews for this in family newspapers.

Feel free to direct all d!ck jokes to the comments section.

"Sure, she'd be welcomed in the magazine. Very pretty lady," sez Hugh, with the attendant Rowwwrrrr going unspoken but understood. Hef, Hef - the problem wasn't that Miley had too much on in the photo. Hefner did allow that she'd have to be of legal age to appear in his glamorous smutrag - again, Hef, the whole problem was that she isn't of legal age. Pay attention.

Hef also declared, "I think to make such a big to-do over something as innocent as those photos, I think is a reflection on how schizophrenic America is about sexuality." Well, innocent, as opposed to the sort of photography he trucks in.

*

This intentionally vague Email arrived this afternoon:

"Please join us on Monday, May 12 at 12 p.m. ET for a special announcement regarding NBC's 'Late Night.'"

Alas, the location was 30 Rock in Manhattan, so I must send my regrets. But this likely means that Jimmy Fallon, who was "SNL's" smirky "Weekend Update" co-anchor who stood alone in laughing at his own material before Seth Meyers and has been long-rumored to be Conan O'Brien's replacement when Conan ascends to "The Tonight Show" next year, can put that abysmal movie career behind him and take a nightly ratings beatdown from Craig Ferguson.

*

Finally, I have no idea what this is about, but The Washington Post's Dana Milbank reports that Congressional Republicans officially hate their mothers:

"On Wednesday afternoon, the House had just voted, 412 to 0, to pass H. Res. 1113, 'Celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother's Day,' when Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), rose in protest.

"'Mr. Speaker, I move to reconsider the vote,' he announced.

"Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), who has two young daughters, moved to table Tiahrt's request, setting up a revote. This time, 178 Republicans cast their votes against mothers.

"It has long been the custom to compare a popular piece of legislation to motherhood and apple pie. Evidently, that is no longer the standard. Worse, Republicans are now confronted with a John Kerry-esque predicament: They actually voted for motherhood before they voted against it."

Sheesh. Happy Mother's Day.

But, good news! This announcement came with some of the most hyperbolic press-release gibberish we've seen in months:

Some guy from NBC: "We are certain that the loyal 'Heroes' fans will feel that these figures reflect the action and excitement of the series." Yeah, seven-inch-tall chunks of plastic really wind me up with their visceral recreations of spectacular sequences - oh, wait.

Some guy from the toy company stamping these things out: "NBC has a rich and proud history and Mezco is very excited to become a part of that tradition. Having our first series of seven inch 'Heroes' action figures on display at the storied '30 Rock' building in New York City is truly a dream come true for us and seeing the excitement of the 'Heroes' fans as they view the figures makes the dream all the more sweeter." Man, dreams really aren't what they used to be.

*

MTV is proud of the fact that it's a nonstop playground of advertising, product placement and, in general, hawking crap rather than trying to entertain viewers:

"Dario Spina, who handles [integrated marketing] for MTV's entertainment channels like Comedy Central and Spike, said ... 'That's the idea here; we want to blur the lines between the commercial breaks and the entertainment content.'"

Call me antiquated and old-fashioned, but I prefer having the option to mute the TV when the commercials come on so I can watch little wacky online films featuring Hillary Clinton trying to operate a coffee machine or Maria Bamford being exquisitely neurotic or Tim Fite smashing flowerpots or Tom Waits being Tom Waits. I don't want to be told to buy something I don't need, unless it's sweet, sweet booze.

The only example of this sinister plot I've witnessed is Stephen Colbert hawking a snack chip he clearly holds in at least a little disdain on "The Colbert Report" (Comedy Central is part of the MTV networks). I doubt other shows manage their plugs with such curdled irony.

Does everything have to be commercialized? It sickens me. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to snack on some delicious Trader Joe's© pinwheels - which will I have? BBQ Chicken Breast or Havana Style? I'll let you know later!

*

Here's a shocker: Media outlets have been reticent to follow a New York Times report (which we previously mentioned) about how media outlets were played for dupes by "military analysts" who were actually shills for the Iraq war. Actually, they're just taking a page from the Bush Administration playbook - if you don't 'fess up to a mistake, then it never happened.

I won't bore you with the details of the study, but the Project for Excellence in Journalism compared Stewart's show to the traditional news media's coverage of sundry issues, and found:

* "When Americans last year were asked to name the journalist they most admired, showing up at No. 4 on the list was a comedian. Jon Stewart, host of 'The Daily Show' on Comedy Central and former master of ceremonies at Academy Award shows, tied in the rankings with anchormen Brian Williams, Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather and cable host Anderson Cooper."

* "In its use of news video, The Daily Show is often quite documentary, culling through archives to show official hypocrisy, abuse of language, and spin. ... In its choice of topics, its use of news footage to deconstruct the manipulations by public figures and its tendency toward pointed satire over playing just for laughs, The Daily Show performs a function that is close to journalistic in nature--getting people to think critically about the public square."

* "'The Daily Show' not only assumes, but even requires, previous and significant knowledge of the news on the part of viewers if they want to get the joke. ... The survey also suggests 'Daily Show' viewers are highly informed, an indication that 'The Daily Show' is not their lone source of news. Regular viewers of 'The Daily Show' and 'The Colbert Report' were most likely to score in the highest percentile on knowledge of current affairs."

* "The presidential campaign and the policy debate about the war in Iraq, together added up to a quarter of the time spent on 'The Daily Show' (26%) for the year (2007, remember). This was significantly more than in the mainstream press, where the two stories commanded 18% in the same time period. ... Washington-related pieces, U.S. foreign affairs (especially the Bush Administration's Iraq war policy), and general politics accounted for 47% of the show's airtime in 2007. In that regard, by the numbers The Daily Show closely resembles in its topic agenda the news menu of many cable 'news' shows."

* "'The Daily Show' is clearly impacting American dialogue. ... Some of the show's sway as an information source could also come from language, and the sense that it is more candid, and thus somehow closer to one sense of accuracy than the more hidebound traditional media. 'My students tell me they read the news for facts, but they watch Jon Stewart for the truth,' Professor Steve Lacy of Michigan State University has observed."

Hence, PEJ's study concluded: "In its subject matter, 'The Daily Show' is indeed journalistic. Its topic agenda is highly focused on the public square, on issues of significance, particularly those focused around Washington. Its agenda is not dissimilar, indeed, from other cable talk shows. The language is even more blunt, and its point often more direct. 'The Daily Show' is no doubt entertainment, but it is entertainment, measurably, with a substantive point. It is, in its own way, another kind of No Spin Zone."

Bill O'Reilly, who dismisses "Daily Show" viewers as "pot-smokers," no doubt will love being compared to Stewart. He should be that talented.

So the most recent issue has been sitting around my place for nearly a week, and I've just now managed to coax myself into looking at it. And I looked at the cover, and that's about as far as I've been able to get. The headlines are idiotic.

For a "Grey's Anatomy" cover story, the headline reads: "Why is Ellen Pompeo smiling? Because her hit show is finally getting good again." Actually, it's because she's posing for a photo shoot, and smiling is generally what you do for one of those, and anyway, she doesn't look all that happy to begin with.

The other headlines: "Miley Cyrus: Get off her back!" (actually, people getting off on her back is what got her in trouble in the first place); "American Idol: Inside Their Fiercest Battle" (which no doubt explains why the show's ratings and buzz have slipped this season); and "Gossip Girl: Evil Has a New Name" (and EW actually likes "Gossip Girl;" this is only their fifth or sixth story on the show this season, which is really paying off, given that this week's episode was watched by a measly 2.1 million viewers - The CW's "Reaper" had nearly 2.5 million viewers last night, and without the benefit of a splashy new ad campaign).

*

AMC today announced it's renewing "Breaking Bad" for a second season, after its truncated (by the writers strike) second season. "Breaking Bad" is that nasty little inspired drama/black comedy starring Bryan Cranston as a beleaguered chemist with cancer who decides to fortify his pathetic health-care plan by eliminating the health of patrons and competitors of his spanking-new crystal-meth business. So, with this and "Mad Men," AMC's officially on a roll. Thoughts, HBO?

*

Miss those fun days of the writers strike? Fear not: Actors and producers are conspiring in their squabbling to plunge us back into those halcyon days of inactivity and gutting L.A.'s economy.

Per the AMPTP: "Negotiations were thrust into reverse by SAG's persistent refusal to acknowledge that the three deals already struck with the writers, directors and AFTRA reflect the economic realities faced by everyone in our industry, including actors."

Per SAG: "The AMPTP suspended negotiations with the Screen Actors Guild today over the objections of SAG's negotiating committee.The committee had urged that the AMPTP continue discussion and had offered to negotiate around the clock if necessary in order to secure an agreement."

*

Fox's Monday-Tuesday schedule is a head-scratcher. They've kept "Hell's Kitchen" on Tuesdays after "American Idol," where it loses about half the audience. "House," meanwhile, is on Monday, where it's hardly struggling but is certainly not doing the business it has done on Tuesdays, where it'd reliably lure 18-23 million viewers after "American Idol." (Repeats of "House" have spent the season plugging any timeslot hole in Fox's schedule - do people realize these are new episodes and that it's been relocated?)

Here's why: Because while watching, you can imagine the lurid, Axe-Body-Gel-TV-Commercial levels of lustily frenzied sexual tension between the meteorologists.

The Smoking Gun has a piquant little yarn about a sexual harassment suit that the Weather Channel is trying to keep quiet (obviously, not too successfully). Bob Stokes, a 50-year-old former Weather Channel anchor, was canned after arbitration found that he asked a 38-year-old co-anchor, "Will you lick my swizzle stick?", "leered at her chest, and followed her into the women's dressing room. He also allegedly questioned her 'over and over again, non-stop' about her sex life, and once noted, 'It tortures me when you wear those heels and skirt.'"

This is inconveniently becoming public as the channel is up for sale. I say this makes it an irresistible new landscape of Caligulan debauchery for the guy behind the American Apparel ad campaigns.

As gung-ho as Jack may be, he has entered a land of abject malaise: The offices appear to have been looted; since there are no pens to be found, government employees are left to scratch memos on Post-It Notes with straight pins. Jack's boss (Matthew Broderick, who manages to make stultifying blandness fairly hilarious), Cooter Burger (a moniker bestowed upon him by the nicknamer-in-chief) an interim chief while the acting chief is on trial on sundry corruption charges, strives to maintain an upbeat demeanor - when Jack asks about a leak in the ceiling spilling copious amounts of water onto the desk below; Cooter insists there's no leak: "I'll show you the study," he offers.

Jack wants out, but as we all know, no one leaves the Bush Administration unless they really screw up. So Jack cooks up a monumentally inept plan.

There's some inspired comedy in "30 Rock's" depiction of a dissolute, desiccated and rudderless government run to ruin, populated by toadies given to kneejerk banalities. When Jack, trying to rally the troops, declares, "Rome wasn't built in a day," one gormless career hack replies, "Well, that's one theory."

Meanwhile, Liz fears she's pregnant and, in the requisite subplot that just doesn't work, Kenny the Page (Jack McBrayer) is in a monumental struggle to get his application to serve as a page at the Summer Olympics in Beijing in on time.

Here's hoping the keep Jack stranded in Washington a bit longer when the show returns next season, because they're tapping a rich comic vein there. And here's hoping Liz quickly forgets her vow at the end of the episode, because what she proposes is a reliably proven killer of quality TV.

- "30 Rock:" 9:30 p.m. Thursday, NBC Channel 4.

Some of the strategy isn't surprising or, even, offensive. "Top Chef: The Cookbook," which has been out for a month, fairly seems a no-brainer. "Top Chef: The 2009 Calendar," while nothing I'd want to see on my walls, is harmless enough, as is this fall's cross-promotion with a kitchen-housewares company that'll give you the book free if you spring for $400 in cookware (though, again, I intend to spend $400 in cookware over the entire span of my life).

"Top Chef's" 20-city nationwide tour, likewise, is not particularly odious - it will feature former contestants offering cooking demonstrations. The "Top Chef" culinary school, also featuring the TV contestants as instructors offering classes this summer in New York City, is pushing it, but has not yet utterly lapsed over into brazen bad taste.

But I start to draw the line with the "Top Chef" mobile game - what does your cell phone have to do with fine dining? And Bravo really plunges into the ninth ring of hell with its "Top Chef Crusining Experience," launching in a year, also featuring former "Top Chef" contestants giving even more cooking demonstrations that serve as the only respite from the mind-numbing tedium that can only come from being adrift at sea for weeks at a time.

Not that I have anything against cruises (see previous sentence), but it seems like Bravo's missing a good bet by not expanding the cruise theme to also incorporate some of its other reality programming and casting a wider net for potential customers. Since patrons will be eating nonstop, it would only be thoughtful for them to also offer a "Workout" seminar so that customers will still fit into their clothing at the end of the trip. And "Project Runway" demonstrations would teach cruisegoers, who will be financially depleted by journey's end, how to make their own clothing out of asparagus and tin foil. They could share some crack with the star of "Being Bobby Brown," dabble in whatever the hell "Hey Paula's" Paula Abdul is on and then lose some more cash in "Celebrity Poker Showdown" matches (hey, on TV the word "celebrity" has become so diluted that reality-show contestants qualify nowadays - just ask Kathy Griffin, star of "My Life on the D-List").

And, of course, they could throw in the "Real Housewives" of Orange County and New York and the cruise would be transformed into a floating key party. Naturally, they'd film everything and have yet another reality show.

C'mon, Bravo! If you're going to be cynical moneymakers, take it to its logical, Kurtzian conclusion!

Now, it's hugs and kisses all around. $100 million will do that for you.

That's how much TV Week says MacFarlane is getting for a four-year deal with Fox Television that will include his work on "Family Guy," "American Dad," an upcoming spinoff show featuring "FG's" Cleveland character, potential live-action comedies (MacFarlane executive-produced the short-lived sitcom "The Winner") and, if all goes according to plan, a "Family Guy" movie. Not bad for a show that got cancelled by the network - twice.

Let's go to Fox TV Chairman Dana Walden for the requisite press-release quote, which is gushier and less corporate-ese than usual: "Seth is an incredibly talented guy whose kindness and generosity are legendary in this business, and there's no one more deserving of the kind of success that he's had and will continue to have in the years to come. He's also about the most entertaining meeting you'll take as a creative executive, and everyone here lines up just to be in a room with him."

To celebrate, MacFarlane will allow you to be in a room with him: He and his "FG" co-star Alex Borstein will headline a live show, "Freakin' Sweet!", this Saturday evening at the Ahmanson Theatre, benefiting Center Theatre Group's New Play Production Program. After the show, MacFarlane will use his $100 million to buy all in attendance a steak and a highball. Well, maybe.

This, after decades as the magazine with the highest subscription base in America. Today, of course, it's a shell of its former self, a People Magazine Lite cluttered with frivolous gossip and childlike cheerleading for just about every show and sorely lacking the one thing people for which used to subscribe to it - the listings, which people of a certain age will recall fondly, riffling through the black-and-white pages when the chubby little thing arrived in the mail and checking off the shows that sounded promising to them, making a mental note to try to catch them, but knowing that convenient reminder in digest form would be there on the living-room end table.

But as TV evolved, TV Guide devolved. Cable gave the magazine more to write about, but it also diffused the star power of its cover stories - there were no shows watched by 30 million people every week -which seriously injured newsstand sales. It got to the point where they were featuring cover stories that had nothing to do with TV - hawking the big movie opening that week or NASCAR or pop singers or something, anything that might catch the eye of those in a grocery-store checkout line, since fewer TV personalities had the ability to move large numbers of copies. And the glut of channels made printing listings a logistical and paper-wasting nightmare, and with them being available online and from your cable or satellite provider, and with the advent of telegrazing via channel surfing, listings became expendable. Which probably inspired more channel surfing.

Ah, well, 55 years is a good, long run. It will be survived by TV Guide Channel, an eternal if less slick version of "Entertainment Tonight," and its online presence, defined by giddy gossip and vague spoilers for shows' upcoming episodes.

(Full disclosure: I once toiled for a couple of years for the L.A. bureau of the Canadian edition of the magazine, which had separate owners and content. At the time, it, too, had the highest circulation of any magazine in Canada; today, it has been reduced to a mere online presence. It was one of the most exasperating professional experiences of my life, if in fact "professional" is the appropriate word to use to describe that publication.)

It was announced today (wouldn't this be something you'd want to keep quiet?); it'll air in 2009. Here's the requisite press-release-ese:

"We are thrilled to unleash this wild project onto TV Land's schedule and join other successful and fun-filled shows like 'High School Reunion' from Mike Fleiss," stated Keith Cox, executive vice president, original programming and production. "The TV Land audience is looking for entertainment with interesting and compelling storylines -- something Fleiss has proven he can deliver to our audience."

OK, just what audience out there is not looking for "interesting and compelling storylines?" And didn't NBC do something along these lines only they had younger women in the mix, as well? And didn't that utterly tank?

No title yet, but why they just don't go with "Cougar on the Prowl" is beyond me. And why ape the tired old "Bachelor" format? Just follow some desperate ladies around as they hit bars (the cameras will likely help them score) and capture them in their natural habitat and it can be repurposed as "Wild Kingdom" episodes.

Patrick Dempsey auditioned to play another iconic TV doctor, "House."

"I was one of many people up for that," he told me in a recent interview. (And yeah, like Warren Zevon's werewolf of London, his hair is perfect.)

"It wouldn't have been the right role for me," he conceded. This is a much better fit.

"Otherwise, I would've gotten it, you know, if I was right for that. But I knew when they had me come back, I knew I wasn't going to get it."

Things seem to have worked out well for Dempsey anyway - and, of course, for Hugh Laurie, as well.

More on Dempsey in Sunday's paper or at LA.com, if those guys see fit to post it.

The writers strike has played havoc with the networks' ability to cobble together schedules for the 2008-09 season, with fewer pilots to choose from to fill more holes in the schedules.

The Hollywood Reporter notes, however, that Fox should be fully loaded: It has a "Family Guy" spinoff, "Cleveland," two dramas from cult-fave showrunners, J.J. Abrams' "Fringe" and Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse" (starring Eliza Dushku), a Bernie Mac sitcom and two potential animated series based on live-action sitcoms - "Sit Down, Shut Up," developed by "Arrested Development's" Mitch Hurwitz and based on an Australian sitcom about dysfunctional high-school teachers, and, um, "The Pitts," based on a mercifully short-lived Fox sitcom a few seasons back. The idea being, I guess, that the latter will be more palatable if the characters really are cartoons instead of being broadly cartoonish.

At CBS, there's yet another Jerry Bruckheimer show, "Eleventh Hour," "Exit 19," starring Geena Davis as a single mom/police detective, "The Mentalist," which sounds a little like a serious version of "Psych" and starring Simon Baker and the comedies "Single White Millionaire" (starring Fred Savage) and "Worst Week."

ABC has been the busiest and most ambitious, developing 20 projects including the "Harry Potter"-inspired "Captain Cook's Extraordinary Atlas" and David E. Kelley's take on the British lost-in-time cop drama "Life on Mars."

The Beleaguered© CW has only three pilots in the works: a "Beverly Hills 90210" remake, a "Gossip Girl"-y "How to Teach Filthy Rich Girls" and medical drama "Austin Golden Hour." The CW just doesn't care.

(NBC has already announced its schedule for 2008 and beyond.)

In the past, upfronts were lavish affairs, with comedy bits, musical numbers and plenty of star power. No longer: Now that the networks are crying that they're just as poor as you and I, they're downgrading from a circus to an afternoon tea. Only Fox will present a traditionally blustery upfront and blow-out party (though it'd be nice if they could keep it from becoming the bloated leviathan of two years ago). ABC's presentation will last less than an hour; CBS's will include talking up its other media to advertisers; neither will have a post-upfront party. Meanwhile, The Beleaguered© CW will only have a party (to celebrate the simple fact that they're still on the air?), which they'll interrupt briefly to reveal what little they have to offer.