Laugh tracks always amaze me. Just what kind of easily-amused simpletons do the networks hire to laugh at crappy sitcoms? I imagine it does something like this. A bunch of actors are wrangled into a studio and are told to pretend to be an interested audience. They are each given a secret dose of thorazine through a hidden syringe in their seats. Nitrous oxide is pumped into the studio. And just before the curtain goes up, they are each whacked across the face with a cast-iron shovel. Then they turn on the applause sign.

College Humor has taken this weird TV tradition and turned it on its head by providing a "groan track" to CBS' neverending sitcom 'Two-and-a-Half Men'.

Cross promotions are not a new concept to TV heads, but this one cooked up by the folks behind the CW's Vampire Diaries deserves a Peabody Award. As Brad mentioned earlier today, The Vampire Diaries is being cross-promoted with the American Red Cross in which the show is hosting its own blood drive.

What a great idea and a great cause! Just think of the other charitable promotions this will inspire other shows to tackle.

We told you a while back about the plan to have the writing staffs of CSI and Two and a Half Men swap places for one episode. Looks like that plan is going forward. Two and a Half Men creator Chuck Lorre even has the plot for the CSI episode: he's going to kill Roseanne Barr or Cybill Shepherd.

OK, they won't be on the show, but Lorre's plot revolves around the killing of a "sitcom diva." Lorre worked for several years on both Roseanne and Cybill (he created the latter), and both shows were notorious for behind the scenes friction and firings and chaos. And who does Lorre want to have play the sitcom diva? Shepherd's costar Christine Baranski, who didn't exactly get along with the star of the show (or vice versa).

Now the only question is: who will the killer be? (Second question: what plot will the CSI writers come up with for Two and a Half Men?)

It may sound a little bit like a headline from The Onion, but it's actually in the works, according to CSI producer Carol Mendelsohn.

Speaking at a Banff event in Canada earlier this week, Mendelsohn said she got a call from Two and a Half Men creator Chuck Lorre, who suggested the switch. I'm not sure if it would be permanent, but it's something they could do for an episode or two. CSI will also go on location to San Francisco this season, and next season might go to London.

Maybe the Two and a Half Men writers can have Grissom sleep with a different woman every night, and maybe even hire a wisecracking kid to help with a murder investigation. He can be a prodigy who doesn't do well in school but is a genius at forensics.