davidspade

• At 8, NBC has new, supersized episodes of The Office and 30 Rock, then new episodes of Scrubs and Andy Barker, P.I.
• CBS has a new Survivor at 8, then new episodes of CSI and Shark.
• FOX has a new Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? at 8.
• TBS has four good Friends repeats starting at 8.
• USA has the first round of the Masters golf tournament at 8.
• At 9, TLC has a new American Chopper.
• HGTV has a new Divine Design at 9.
• At 10, ABC has a new October Road.
• Food Network has a new Throwdown with Bobby Flay at 10.
• Also at 10: Bravo has the special The World According To Whoopi.
• At 10:30, Comedy Central has a new Showbiz Show with David Spade.

Check your local TV listings for more.

• At 8, ABC has a new Ugly Betty, followed by a new Grey's Anatomy and the premiere of October Road.
• CBS has March Madness all night.
• NBC has a "newpeat" of The Office and a new Scrubs, then the premieres of both Andy Barker, P.I. and Raines.
• There's a new Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? at 8 on FOX.
• The CW has a new Smallville at 8, then a new Supernatural.
• At 9, ESPN has a new U.S. Poker Championships, followed by coverage of the Pacific Life Open tennis tournament.
• History Channel has a new Decoding The Past at 9.
• Also at 9: HBO has the Addiction special.
• At 10, Food Network has a new Throwdown with Bobby Flay, then a new Ace of Cakes.
• Comedy Central has a new Showbiz Show with David Spade at 10:30.

Check your local TV listings for more.

While I love all of the stations and choices we have now, I sometimes wish we could go back to just having a handful of channels to choose from. It was so much easier back then: shows started in September and ended in May, and the summer was for reruns, specials, and going outside. But now it's hard to keep track of it all. We have 300 networks and 1000 shows that start, well, basically anytime they want to.

Like The Showbiz Show. The Comedy Central celeb/gossip/news satire hosted by David Spade returns on March 15. Head on over to TV Filter to check out some video with Spade talking about Britney Spears.

Also note that not only is this show returning for its third season, Spade also has a Top 20 show over on CBS, Rules of Engagement. Not a good time to be a David Spade hater. I've always liked the guy. (And if you didn't see it, he live blogged the Oscars last night.)

• Give your kids a head start to teen fame (and rehab) with American Idol summer camp.
  
• Donald Trump is planning a lovely wedding chapel/mausoleum on his New Jersey gold course.
  
• Jimmy Fallon could be taking over Conan O'Brien's late night hosting spot in 2009.
  
• The Oscars are on this Sunday! Feeling anti-awards show? David Spade will be live-blogging them.
  

CBS is really promoting Rules of Engagement, the new comedy starring David Spade and Patrick Warburton. It seems like they're running an ad for the show on every other TV show that they have. But will this show be a success, or be just another midseason sitcom that gets pulled quickly?

I haven't seen the show yet, but the cast is funny. Both Spade and Warburton are funny no matter what they're in (I have no opinion of Oliver Hudson - not even sure if I've ever seen him in anything before). Warburton was funny in Seinfeld and The Tick, and Spade...well, a lot of people hate him, but I think he's a riot. Sure, he does one thing (horny, slightly sleazy guy with quirks), but he does it really well. Just Shoot Me wouldn't have been the same without his character, and I actually think that he's the reason 8 Simple Rules lasted so long after John Ritter passed away. The dynamic of the show changed and was actually improved somehow after Spade (and James Garner) were brought on board.

So will Rules of Engagement be a surprise hit, or will be just fade away into oblivion? (I guess there's a third option, the Yes, Dear option, where a show no one seems to watch or talk about somehow stays around for 25 years).

Snarky McSarcasm, or as we call him, David Spade, is returning with a third season of The Showbiz Show Thursday, March 15 at 10:30pm.

I have to ask you, TV Squad readers, does anyone still watch this show? I watched the first couple episodes and caught a few of the later ones, but ultimately I just can't bring myself to watch another show that pokes fun at celebrity excess. We've become so saturated with celebrity news and gossip that I can't stand to hear about it, even if the point of the show is to make fun of our obsession with it.

Also, it's difficult for me to get past the feeling that Spade doesn't seem that into what he's doing. When he did his "Hollywood Minute" segment on Saturday Night Live, that detachment worked to his benefit. His comical disdain for all things Hollywood is what made that segment so funny, but now that "comical disdain" seems to have grown into genuine bitterness. When I watch him now, I always feel like he wants to be somewhere else, and, consequently, so do I.

• At 8, ABC has Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, followed by a new Primetime.
• CBS has a repeat Numb3rs at 8, followed by repeats of CSI and Without A Trace.
• NBC has repeats of Will and Grace, My Name Is Earl, The Office, and ER.
• Over on FOX, the season premiere of So You Think You Can Dance.
• At 9 on CNN, Larry King interview Donald Rumsfeld.
• The Travel Channel has a new ep of Weird Travels at 9.
• Also at 9: BET has new eps of College Hill and Season of the Tiger.
• At 10:30, Comedy Central has a new The Showbiz Show With David Spade.

I don't know what other people think, but I think David Spade is funny as hell. I haven't seen any of his movies, I'm going by his SNL days, Just Shoot Me, 8 Simple Rules, and his guest appearances and commercials. Sure, a lot of his performances are the same type of character, but nobody does that type of character better than Spade, and I laugh out loud every time I see the guy.

He's getting his own satire show on Comedy Central, The Showbiz Show With David Spade, and it sounds a lot like the Weekend Update showbiz reports he used to do on SNL. I'm looking forward to this. If it can live up to the what Comedy Central spokesman Steve Albini said ("It will do for Hollywood and the entertainment media what The Daily Show does for news and politics"), then it could be must-see stuff.