Patton Oswalt vs. Will McAvoy. (Getty Images)

Today The Hollywood Reporter announced that Aaron Sorkin's confusingly uncanceled HBO drama The Newsroom will be featuring two new cast members in its second season. The show, which has suffered from mixed reviews and sinking ratings, made headlines midseason when Mr. Sorkin fired (almost) all his writers, and apparently replaced them with alt-comedy fans.

So get ready for Will McAvoy to butt heads with not only economist lady Olivia Munn, but also King of Queens* actor Patton Oswalt. And also Rosemary DeWitt.

According to reports:

Oswalt will play Jonas Pfeiffer, the new vice president of human resources at cable network Atlantis Cable News, while DeWitt will portray Rebecca Halliday, a litigator brought in to defend the network in a wrongful termination lawsuit.

The casting marks a reunion for Oswalt and DeWitt, who played a couple on the Showtime dramedy United States of Tara.

You know what? Why not! It cannot hurt to have Patton Oswalt on your show, although we have to wonder why Mr. Oswalt isn't off doing something amazing like a spin-off of Young Adult that is just about the crippled, sardonic Matt Freehauf.

http://youtu.be/-WiojQj04hI
*We apologize for bringing that up, but honestly, most of America probably still only knows Mr. Oswalt as Spence Olchin.

Webby Awards announced (WebbyAwards.com)

The Webby Awards, which is in its 16th year of honoring the best of the web with five words allotted for winning speeches, announced their nominees today.

The websites and individuals honored are determined by the  International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, with the actual ceremony closing out New York's Internet Week on May 21. Past hosts have included B.J. Novak and last year's Lisa Kudrow, and this year marks a return to the standup scene as geek god Patton Oswalt takes the stage as the M.C.

Though categories range from the serious (Religion and Spirituality, Politics, Pharmaceuticals) to the self-promotional (Personal Blog/Website, Self Promotion/Portfolio, Art), the Webby Awards hooks in non-Internet nerds by styling itself as a comedy show:

Theron.

Another triumphant performance by Charlize Theron informs and enhances the otherwise uneven Young Adult, an edgy and sometimes disappointing drama about contemporary neuroses with comic undertones from director Jason Reitman and writer Diablo Cody, the team responsible for the surprise 2007 hit Juno. It’s not in the same league as Mr. Reitman’s hugely superior Up in the Air, but Ms. Theron, a true beauty and one of the screen’s most exquisite actors, keeps the film airborne even when it seems dangerously earthbound. She’s a one-woman emergency rescue squad.

Interesting, no? I mean the way great-looking actors will do everything they can to hide their camera-ready perfection. In her ugliest transformation, Ms. Theron disfigured herself to play lesbian serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster (2003) and not only saved the movie but won herself an Oscar in the bargain. The success and praise must have rubbed off. In Young Adult, she rarely wears makeup, her hair is an unmade bed, and the wardrobe looks like it came from a Black Friday sale at K-Mart. But she is mesmerizing as Mavis Gary, an obsessive-compulsive ghost writer of the kind of bare-chested “young adult” pulp fiction they display in airport departure lounges, who is so depressed she can barely crawl out of bed in the morning. Somehow Mavis manages to climb into her car and drive from her apartment in Minneapolis to her sad, boring little home town of Mercury, Minn., on a mission: to restake her claim on an old high school boyfriend named Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson), who is now married with a new baby. Mercury is one of those dead ends of Midwestern highway ambience well worth escaping—populated by Staples and Home Depots, with a Taco Bell, KFC and Chili’s, all in the same building—get the picture? So it is immediately obvious why Mavis left town, although her ambition seems to have flat-lined immediately. She’s a deplorable flop in life (unhappily divorced, no kids) and work. Even when she brags about her glamorous success as a novelist it’s a sham, since her romance series has been canceled due to lack of interest and she doesn’t know where her next paycheck is coming from. But she’s hell-bent on recapturing whatever appeal she once had to seduce Buddy again, oblivious to the fact that he’s happily settled into the role of hick-town husband and father and scarcely even remembers her. After checking into a sterile room in a characterless Hampton Inn, she finds his phone number and makes a date for old time’s sake. Oddly, she also accidentally runs into—and ends up spending more time in the company of—a fat geek (Patton Oswalt) who has been crippled for life by a high school gay-bashing experience. When she finally meets Buddy, he’s a square who talks about changing diapers and adoring his wife, who plays drums in a female rock band called Nipple Confusion. Nothing Mavis does to distract him from his creepy routine or besotted loyalty works, but that does not deter her from saying all the wrong things, going so far as to tell his wife, “Buddy used to sleep in T-shirts and boxer shorts—I still have some of them.” Treating Buddy to a round of tequila shots in a local bar, she purrs “I think that’s the song that was playing the first time I went down on you.”

As she proved with her controversial script for Juno, Ms. Cody specializes in unusual characters who say unexpected things at their own peril. Even when she tries new nail polishes and hair styles, Mavis looks bewildered in her desperate attempts to impress. She also gorges on junk food, chug-a-lugs Maker’s Mark and feels awful. She’s a lonely, confused, melancholy, 37-year-old mess, clinging to the past to camouflage the fact that her present is lacking and the future looks even bleaker. Her career is a sham, and the damaged Matt, the lost soul she bonds with, paints figurines of action-comics heroes in lieu of no career at all. The movie is about people whose lives have not worked out as hoped, who never lived up to their potential and ended up pathetic adults. The results are not always rooted in logic. Going to bed together out of mutual boredom and misery does not ring true for either Mavis or Matt. Her relentless pursuit of a married man who shows no interest in her whatsoever is equally unimaginable. The screenplay is episodic and fragmented, culminating in a hysterical party sequence where a drunken Mavis goes berserk on Buddy’s lawn in front of her parents, his family and the entire neighborhood—a scene that is awesome and embarrassing, for the audience as well as the neighbors. This is the star’s big rave and the writer’s coup d’etat, in which Mavis screams out the pain she has stifled for 20 years over the abortion of Buddy’s child. I loved the actress, but didn’t believe the character.

Mavis is an emotionally undeveloped child-woman who does not relate to the time when women had obligations as women. Eschewing marriage, motherhood, manners and political correctness, she has no obligations to herself, either. This is the film’s biggest problem. The more she rejects inductive reasoning, organized thinking and common sense, the more she alienates the viewer and the less we care about her or what happens next. In the end, she learns nothing redeemable about how to improve her life, and I, for one, felt cheated. This is not a reason to miss Young Adult. It’s a fatiguing, low-key character study that drags along annoyingly and pleads for patience, but stick with it and you’ll find the engrossing centerpiece performance by Ms. Theron a captivating reward that is well worth the effort.

rreed@observer.com

YOUNG ADULT

Running Time 94 minutes

Written by Diablo Cody

Directed by Jason Reitman

Starring Charlize Theron, Patrick Wilson and Patton Oswalt

2/4

Today is the official start date of  New York's annual Comic Con, the sad stepbrother of San Diego's way more famous nerd convention. Still, New York has its fair share of amazing graphic novel writers and artists (which was what Comic Con is all about, right?), and DC and Marvel have spent a good chunk of cash flying out some big name celebrities for panels as well.

There's also the indie comedy factor: IFC and Adult Swim have their hipster lineup of comedians, including David Cross, Fred Armisen, Carrie Brownstein, Patton Oswalt, Kristen Schaal, etc.

Since Comic Con can be a little overwhelming, we made a list of some of the more famous names coming to the Javits Center this weekend, and where you can presume to find them.

If you head to movie theaters on this, the last weekend of August, be on the lookout for some film critics. Once again, the week’s major releases went unscreened for reviewers, meaning if A. O. Scott wants to see Halloween 2, he’ll have to wait in line just like everyone else. Welcome to the summer death rattle: Four movies hit theaters today, and if you don’t like getting scared, you should probably just stay home. As we do every Friday, here’s a handy guide to the new releases.

Halloween 2

What’s the story: We made the mistake of watching the trailer for Rob Zombie’s torture porn sequel/remake last week and we’re still having nightmares. (That we burst into tears after the trailer was complete is neither here nor there.) Suffice it to say, Michael Myers is back and he is going to brutally murder a whole lot of people. Fun times!

Who should see it: Jason Voorhees

The Final Destination

What’s the story: There is something innately hilarious about a horror franchise going by the moniker Final Destination, but, unfortunately, New Line didn’t take our suggestion that the this entry be called “This Time We Really (Really) Mean It!” Despite our utter loathing of the entire horror genre, even we have to admit The Final Destination looks like a fun time: A bunch of fresh-faced teens cheat death at a NASCAR race (!!) and then get killed in increasingly ridiculous ways (we can’t wait to see the car wash drowning!). Did we mention that it all happens in 3-D? Yeah, go buy your tickets now.

Who should see it: Jeff Gordon.

Big Fan

What’s the story: It’s The Wrestler, but with football! Writer Robert D. Siegel (who not coincidentally wrote Darren Aronofsky’s fabulous indie) moves behind the camera as well with Big Fan. Patton Oswalt stars as Paul Aufiero, the titular aficionado—in this case, for the New York Giants—who has to deal with the aftermath of being beaten up by his favorite player. The reviews have been strong, especially highlighting Mr. Oswalt’s sad performance, but we just wish the darn trailer didn’t give away so much of the plot.

Who should see it: Anyone who has ever called into WFAN.

Taking Woodstock

What’s the story: At the beginning of the year, we had Taking Woodstock earmarked as one of the movies to watch in 2009. Turns out that was wrong. Ang Lee’s adaptation of Eliot Tibur’s book finally hits theaters today, and it looks like it’ll go down in the ledger as one of the talented director’s lesser works. That’s too bad because with a great cast—Emile Hirsch, Liev Schreiber, Paul Dano, Imelda Staunton and Demetri Martin as Mr. Tibur—and a somewhat timely subject matter (it was just the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, after all) we were hoping for something along the lines of Dazed and Confused. However, with our other options this weekend—must we redirect you to Halloween 2?—Taking Woodstock might still be our choice du jour.

Who should see it: Michael Lang.

Oh, and, have you heard? Anna Wintour goes all Devil Wears Prada in the documentary The September Issue.

Here’s a little movie opening this weekend that might get overshadowed by some of the shlocky, studio-dump features coming our way at the end of August (we’re talking about you, The Final Destination and Halloween II), but it’s one that is very much worth seeing. Big Fan, starring Patton Oswalt, is one of those rare films that is totally unpredictable, funny and sort of painfully depressing all at the same time.

Mr. Oswalt plays Paul Aufiero, a 35-year-old underground parking garage attendant who lives with his mother in Staten Island. His whole life—and we mean whole—revolves around his die-hard fandom of the New York Giants. On big game days, he and his buddy Sal (Kevin Corrigan) drive to the Giants Stadium parking lot, where they sit and watch the game on a little TV that they plug into the car’s cigarette lighter. At night, Paul calls into the sports-radio station 760 The Zone, where he is known as “Staten Island Paul” and pretends to give off-the-cuff shit-talking that he had actually carefully prepared during his work shift. Much of his ire is saved for his longtime nemesis, the Philadelphia Eagles, and in particular “Philadelphia Phil,” who dares to trash Paul’s beloved Giants on the air. In fact, the very likable Paul is rather muted and miserable when he’s engaged in any activity not connected to the Giants—whether it’s his visits to his more successful brother’s McMansion, or even when he’s quietly masturbating under the covers.

One evening, Sal and Paul are eating a slice of pizza in the neighborhood when they spy Paul’s favorite Giants player, quarterback Quantrell Bishop. They decide to follow him into the city, and trail him into a strip club, where a misunderstanding leads to Paul getting the crap beat out of him by Bishop and put in the hospital for three days, while the player is suspended upon further investigation. Paul’s family wants him to sue. The police want him to press charges. But all Paul cares about is: How are the Giants going to make it to the playoffs without their quarterback?

Even up to this film’s final moments, I had no idea where exactly it was going (which, in a summer of The Ugly Truth, is a welcome relief). This is the first leading role for Patton Oswalt, better known for his stand-up and voice-over work than his supporting film roles, and he conveys Paul’s inner turmoil beautifully. It would be easy to dismiss Paul’s life as small and insignificant—his family certainly doesn’t seem to understand it, and they nag him to find better work and settle down with a wife and kids. But the film is respectful of the fact that there is only one thing that makes Paul happy, and he doesn’t want to change a thing. 

Writer-director Robert Siegel was once the editor in chief of The Onion, as well as the screenwriter of last year’s The Wrestler. In fact, it was this script that caught the eye of Wrestler director Darren Aronofsky—after reading Big Fan, he asked Mr. Siegel if he’d be interested in writing a film set in the world of professional wrestling. Randy the Ram and Paul, not to mention both of Siegel’s stories, do, in fact, share some DNA. There’s nothing pretty about the gray skies and bitter winds and general nuttiness of the die-hard sports fan in Big Fan. Still, Mr. Siegel nails so many quirky details (and don’t even get us started on just how awesomely right it is to have cast Michael Rapaport as Philadelphia Phil), and finds humor in the smallest of moments, that Big Fan is surprisingly poignant, too. Also worth noting for the sports-averse: There is zero actual football in this movie.

svilkomerson@observer.com

Well, more like a quick run down: Funny guy host Patton Oswalt began the show with some jokes about hipsters and ironic t-shirts, warming up the sold-out crowd—all of the $10 tickets were snatched up in a matter of minutes after being released last month—for what would be a less-than-three hour event. (No complaints here, it being a work night and all!).

Some musicians then performed—including the raucous and oft-blogged Texas three-piece White Denim, multi-instrumental popstress and Female Artist of the Year winner, St. Vincent (nee Annie Clark, who formerly lent her musical talents to Sufjan Stevens and the Polyphonic Spree), and spastic U.K. rapper Dizzee Rascal.

And, of course, lots of awards were handed out honoring the best under-the-radar music and media of the past year (Album: Arcade Fire; New Artist: Justice; Punk Band: Gogol Bordello; Label: Merge; Blog: Stereogum, to name just a few).

There were also a few sorta funny video clips of Michael Showalter (of MTV’s The State and the Stella comedy troupe) making mix tapes, a “blogger pit” (you know, as a service to all those people with nothing better to do on a Thursday night than read about the Plug Awards in real time), and, most importantly, free beer in the third floor “V.I.P.” section, where the Culture Czar watched the show whilst nursing clear plastic cups of Rolling Rock.

The evening reached its climax when Mr. Oswalt stepped onstage to introduce the 2008 Plug Impact Award honoree, the legendary post-punk luminary and sinister balladeer, Nick Cave. "This is what 30 years of innovation gets you,” Mr. Oswalt quipped, before handing Mr. Cave one of the pointy silver awards, to roaring applause. “A butt plug designed by David Lynch!” (Apparently, the awards were actually designed by the Flaming Lips, 2005’s Impact winners. Go figure!)

Mr. Cave and his Bad Seeds, which now include fellow Aussie, the violin-wielding Dirty Three front man, Warren Ellis, proceeded to dazzle the audience with a roughly hour-long set—including two encores—that mostly featured tracks from the group’s brand new, 14th studio album, Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!. While the best of these showcased the same raw aggression and showmanship that distinguished Mr. Cave’s contributions to his original 1980’s band, the Birthday Party, a few older tunes were thrown in for good measure, like the early Bad Seeds’ composition “Tupelo,” and 1994’s “Red Right Hand,” which you may or may not remember from the movie Scream.

So, to sum up the Plug Awards: If all concerts cost ten bucks, were over in about two hours, and came with free booze and a headliner of Mr. Cave’s stature, New York would be a much better place!

@ Last year Patton Oswalt, the 35-year-old actor who plays schlubby, lovable nerd Spence Olchin on CBS's schlubby, lovable sitcom, The King of Queens , went onstage at a Pittsburgh comedy club and told a few jokes about the Bush administration.

Suddenly, he wasn't so lovable.

"I was chanted offstage," he recalled. "Three hundred people chanting 'Bush rocks!' and pounding on their tables-' Bush rocks! Bush rocks! ' People were trying to rush the stage. They had to lock me in the manager's office. ' Send him down here! ' People at the bar wanted to get into fights. It was a nightmare."

"When you do get the King of Queens audience out there, it's like a brick against their head," he continued. "And they need to hear it: Not everyone agrees with this bullshit administration."

On Monday, June 21, Mr. Oswalt was preparing to do a standup act for a more receptive crowd in the East Village, working material from his new comedy album, Feelin' Kinda Patton . Mr. Oswalt felt that a CD of his standup was the only way to define himself against the beloved TV character he's played since 1998.

"I could care less how many copies I sell," he said. "This is all about creating a separation between me and The King of Queens ."

On it, Mr. Oswalt lets his feelings be known about the war in Iraq. He suggests that owners of Hummers, for instance, should be hit on the back of the neck with a roll of quarters and left in the middle of the Iraqi desert to go find their own gas.

"Oh yeah, you can drive it," he says. "You just have to get the gasoline yourself."

He also calls Mr. Bush the man to end it all. "That's the one thing I like about George Bush," he says. "I really think he can get us into the Apocalypse."

Mr. Oswalt then does an imitation of a lucky soul who has died in the Apocalypse and gets to brag from "the velvet-rope section of eternity."

"You should have been there, man! Fucking volcanoes came out of the ground and spewed menstrual blood into the sky, and then it formed into Avril Lavigne's face and she recited the Good Will Hunting screenplay and then the words turned into sentient razors and just bored into your flesh, and George Bush was President and mediocrity held sway! It was amazing."

Mr. Oswalt stands at 5 feet, 7 inches, has a whiny, irony-drenched voice and wears rimless spectacles. He has popped up in the usual funny-guy venues on TV, from Comedy Central to VH1's Best Week Ever . He also had a memorable role as the disco D.J. in Starsky and Hutch . Mr. Oswalt said lots of comics are voicing viscerally dissenting views nowadays, "but they almost never allow it on TV." Consequently, he has a lot of fans among fellow comedians. "He's one of the best out there, truly of one of the top five comics out there," said David Cross, the onetime Mr. Show costar who plays Tobias Funke in Fox's Arrested Development . "And he's really ballsy."

On Monday, Mr. Oswalt was preparing to be a guest on Janeane Garofalo's radio show, The Majority Report , on Air America. "It really tells you something about how bad this administration is when somebody as dumb as me understands precisely, both in historical context and by just day-to-day revelations, just how bad it is," said Mr. Oswalt. "These last four years were such a brick against my skull as far as politics are concerned. This is like an old silent-movie, mustache-twirling thing-I mean, it's not even subtle."

His comedy isn't all political, of course. There are also some excellent jokes about midgets. "I read this in Discover magazine," he says. "If you hit a midget on the head with a stick, he turns into 40 gold coins-40 glittering gold coins!"

Tonight, CBS has a rerun of The King of Queens . Wait, do we really want to watch this show? Mr. Patton insisted it was loaded with subtly subversive material.

"It's very subversive and weird," he said. "References to race and drugs and sex and stuff like that."

[WCBS, 2, 9 p.m.]

Thursday, June 24

) The folks over at Fox News are tickled pink with their in-house media critic, Eric Burns. The horn-rimmed host of the media-on-media show Fox News Watch may be less glamorous than his CNN counterpart, Washington Post media columnist Howard Kurtz, but his program has been averaging close to 900,000 viewers, nearly double that of Mr. Kurtz's Reliable Sources.

To what did Mr. Burns chalk up his ratings coup over Mr. Kurtz?

"I probably shouldn't admit that I don't see his show very often, if at all," said Mr. Burns from his home in Westport, Conn., on Monday, June 21. "The audience out there is full of media critics these days, partly because they're so offended by what they see as years of bias one way or the other, in part because they're appreciative that there's a show on the air that is critical of the business that the show is a part of. Kurtz's show I know doesn't do that."

Every Saturday, Mr. Burns, a fiftysomething former NBC News correspondent, picks over the latest issues with a panel that includes Jim Pinkerton of Newsday , Jane Hall of American University, media writer Neal Gabler and syndicated columnist Cal Thomas. He said Fox News Watch is a media "criticism" show and not a media "explanation" show like Reliable Sources , which he deemed an uncritical broadcast for media insiders. Even though Mr. Burns insisted he never watches Mr. Kurtz, he did happen to flip by it "in passing" recently and caught his interview with CBS News anchorman Dan Rather on Sunday, June 20.

"Dan Rather was on, explaining-or I should say promoting -the interview with Bill Clinton," he said. "We would never do anything like that."

Mr. Kurtz, of course, was inclined to disagree with Mr. Burns' assessment. "I ask tough questions of my guests," he said, "whether they are Dan Rather or Rush Limbaugh or any of the high-profile folks who come on.

"I asked Rather, for example, about criticism that he is friendlier to Democratic Presidents than Republican ones," he continued, "and also pressed him to justify his airing of the Iraqi prisoner-abuse photos.

"I am sorry those questions don't appear to meet Eric Burns' high standards," said Mr. Kurtz.

About those standards: Did Mr. Burns consider Fox News "fair and balanced," as advertised?

"Gee, you'd think I'd been asked that before," said Mr. Burns, pausing for a long moment. "It certainly attempts to be. The reason I'm hesitating is, that's a very-I think it makes more sense to think of that as a goal rather than something you can actually achieve. First of all, because the definitions are impossible. A lot of people criticize Fox News for conservative leanings. Well, does that mean that Fox isn't fair and balanced, or the people criticizing it for that are so used to a liberal tilt on CNN? Which, yes, does exist, and I say that without qualification. So there's a serious problem of definition of terms."

Clearly.

Speaking of Mr. Clinton, he's taking viewer calls tonight to talk about his memoir, My Life , in a very special 15-hour edition of Larry King Live .

[CNN, 10, 9 p.m.]

friday, June 25

T NYTV News flash: Harvey hearts Roger!

If you were watching AMC's Hollywood talk show, Sunday Morning Shootout , on Sunday, June 13, you may have done a double-take: That was indeed Harvey Weinstein you heard giving big ups to Fox News chief Roger Ailes. Apparently, Mr. Ailes has privately supported Mr. Weinstein in his battle with Disney over the distribution of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 .

"When the big fight over the movie [was going on], the unlikeliest of allies happened: Roger Ailes at Fox," Mr. Weinstein told the show's host, Variety editor in chief Peter Bart. "I mean, when he sees this movie"-Mr. Weinstein had to laugh just thinking about this-"I don't want to be responsible for a cardiac bill, but on a First Amendment issue, it blew his mind. So the best coverage we had wasn't ABC, CBS or NBC-and even Michael Moore couldn't believe it-it was Fox News. Roger Ailes said a movie, in his mind, that couldn't be distributed, or was having to fight for distribution, just was un-American. He'd rather say, 'Bring it on, we'll deal with that, but you have a right to show it.'"

A Fox News spokesperson confirmed that Mr. Ailes had spoken privately with Mr. Weinstein about issues surrounding the film.

Tonight, Fahrenheit 9/11 is put into a particle accelerator with The O'Reilly Factor . The result is Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines .

[HBO, 32, 9 p.m.]

saturday, June 26

* Tonight, watch Fox News Watch on Fox News. Fair and balanced, bucko!

[FNC, 46, 6:30 p.m.]

sunday, June 27

* Instead of a Clinton Summer, NYTV opts for a Clinton Half-Week and calls it quits tonight with Primary Colors .

[BRAVO, 38, 2 p.m.]

monday, June 28

$ NBC Late Night host Conan O'Brien was among the professional comedy practitioners to remove his cap at the arrival of a new DVD set: the majestic five-disc collection of 90-minute SCTV episodes that united a comedy nation when broadcast on NBC in 1981 and forever made indestructible this nation's eternal respect for Canada. Imported from the Great White North, SCTV was the first comedy to understand both the glory and rot of American television, and won the eternal gratitude of the comedy elite in the United States, from Malibu to Manhattan, from Carol Burnett to … Conan O'Brien.

"It was one of the least-needy comedy shows I'd ever seen," said Mr. O'Brien, who wrote an essay for the DVD's liner notes. "They weren't waiting for you to get it; they were moving ahead at their own pace. So when you're doing comedy about, you know, Mike Douglas and Orson Welles on the 2001 spaceship hiding from HAL, you're clearly not playing to everyone in the audience.

"Even Saturday Night Live , which was supposedly the coolest show at the time, looked needy in comparison to SCTV ," he continued. "Because there was a studio audience. And whenever there's a studio audience, you're listening for laughs if you're a performer. You just are. And these guys were completely off on their own."

That much is clear. The cast were straight-faced comic geniuses: scar-browed Eugene ("Bobby Bittman") Levy, Catherine ("Lola Heatherton") O'Hara, Imogene Coca–like Andrea ("Edith Prickley") Martin, Joe ("Count Floyd") Flaherty, John ("Johnny LaRue") Candy, Rick ("Woody Allen") Moranis and Dave ("Bob Hope") Thomas. Watching it now, SCTV looks like it inhabited its own low-pressure zone, but it essentially invented TV satire on television within a time-frame of its own making. Mr. Thomas and Mr. Moranis were not so much hilarious as Bob Hope and Woody Allen, but oddly moving and evocative of cultural shifts in what constituted funny. On the other hand, "5 Neat Guys," the K-Tel sendup in which a barber-shop quartet sings "Who Made the Egg Salad Sandwiches?" and "I Got a Hickey," could destroy you without even trying.

Part of the joy, of course, was SCTV 's insider's quality. It was hard to find. Mr. O'Brien first began watching it as a kid, with his older brothers, late at night, from a poorly received Canadian-TV signal via a Buffalo, N.Y., station. "It almost felt like the Soviets were blocking the transmission, and it made it more appealing to us somehow," he said.

It's difficult to imagine SCTV existing on NBC in 2004. "Today, it's hard to get that much writing and performing in one place," said Mr. O'Brien, who wrote an essay for the liner notes. "Because there are so many outlets now in television that talent's always getting pulled apart. So that show would probably be broken up into seven different shows between FX, Comedy Central and MTV."

If the show were broadcast now, he said, networks would probably market it to death: "I would be hearing way too much about SCTV and it would be on the cool lists, and it would start to irritate me before I even saw too much of it."

Tonight, the Soviets are up to their old tricks again, trying to block Conan's signal. If Guy Caballero finds out, he'll go crazy!

[WNBC, 4, 12:35 a.m.]

tuesday, June 29

f Tonight, Cary Grant stars in his last movie , Walk, Don't Run , from 1966, in which he sits in a Japanese hot tub and looks very pleased with the whole thing. Listen closely and you can hear him humming the theme songs to An Affair to Remember (1957) and Charade (1963).

[TMC, 66, 8 p.m.]