Boycott crap TV -- watch Comedy Central

They tell me the new fall TV season is underway. I really wouldn't know. Network TV lost me a long time ago. Today, it seems, prime-time opportunities go to either has-beens who have flopped out of the movie business (Jim Belushi, Damon Wayans, Keifer Sutherland, Geena Davis, Charlie Sheen ... the list is endless and depressing) or hyperactive chefs.\n At this point, there's only a handful of shows that I watch regularly, and the vast majority of them are shown on Fox on Sunday nights. Once in a while I will watch "Monday Night Football," but only when they have a decent match-up (which, apparently, happens about as frequently as Eminem says something intelligent).\nCable offers a similarly bleak broadcast landscape. ESPN is OK for "SportsCenter" or college football, but that's balanced off by the presence of Paul McGuire and Joe Theismann -- both of whom were most assuredly dropped on their heads as babies -- on the channel's Sunday night NFL broadcasts.\nThe "news" channels offer talking Barbie and Ken dolls and frenetic, incomprehensible displays of computer-generated graphic excess. TNT or TBS might show a good movie once in a while, but only in between the 152 times a month they show either "Jaws" or "Stepmom." Then there's E!, a channel entirely devoid to phony breasts and even phonier people. (The one exception is "Talk Soup," which now features new host Aisha Tyler, who is witty, goofy and a total babe to boot. Too bad the show has been banished to the 1 a.m. slot. I guess E! executives figure it's much more important to show "Wild On Boise" in prime time.)\nAnd the music channels? The dimwits at CMT wouldn't know real country if it fell in their laps, MTV is a vacuous wasteland and VH-1 has been reduced to doing "Behind the Music"s on clowns like Creed or No Doubt.\nWhich, of course, leaves only one viewing option: Comedy Central. There's really no other logical choice.\nComedy Central is, of course, anchored by two mainstays: "South Park" and "The Daily Show." Although it has completely permeated popular American culture and become a merchandising juggernaut, "South Park" is still freakin' funny. It's maintained its edge after four years of swear words, poop jokes and Kenny deaths.\nAnd "The Daily Show" didn't win a Peabody Award for nothin'. Jon Stewart is easily the funniest and most cutting-edge host on the air today, and he's also quite the hottie. He's not as annoyingly smug as his predecessor, Craig Kilborn, and he's got a great supporting cast of correspondents. You got your sarcastic cynic (Lewis Black), your lovable loser (Steve Carell) and your nerd with a bow tie (Mo Rocca).\nComedy Central also is the only channel to show reruns of "The Critic," the hilarious but ill-fated cartoon featuring the voice of Jon Lovitz. It says a lot about the American populace that "The Critic" -- an insightful, intelligent comedy that skewered Hollywood with alternately biting and subtle humor -- failed miserably while Tim Allen survived for a decade doing the same hackneyed "dumb guy with power tools" schtick.\nMy favorite new addition to the Comedy Central line-up is "Let's Bowl," a slightly insane game show in which contestants settle their squabbles in a bowling alley. Set in Minneapolis, the show features two loony, dippy announcers and prizes like canned fish and a 1973 El Camino for prizes. I used to bowl when I was a kid, and it was nothing like this.\nBut Comedy Central does have one major drawback -- "The Man Show," which routinely features 30 minutes of lowbrow, sexist and downright lame comedy aimed at the worst features of the average male psyche. Example No. 1: they call their scantily-clad cheerleaders the "Juggies." Example No. 2: It's hosted by Jimmy Kimmel. Example No. 3: It's hosted by Adam Corolla.\nBut fortunately, "The Man Show" isn't on that often, and Comedy Central doesn't suffer as a result. And we don't suffer as a result. So boycott network TV. Ween yourself from Calista "For the love of God eat a sandwich" Flockhart. Resist the temptation to watch "The O'Reilly Factor."\nInstead, watch Comedy Central and become an introverted, anti-social freak like me. Come. Join us. An Emeril-free life awaits.