"It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" (FX)

What a happy title and what an upbeat theme for a show featuring some of the most despicable people you've ever seen. "Philadelphia" is set in a bar, where the lowest common denominator, both behind and in front of the shot glass, tends to gather. Paddy's is run by twin siblings Dennis and Diandra Reynolds (Glenn Howerton and Kaitlin Olson), whom you could call the dumbest and the cruelest, if not the cruelly dumbest, duo on the face of the earth, were it not for the additional presence of their dad (Danny DeVito) -- or is he? -- and Paddy's co-owners Charlie (Charlie Day), who can't read or write, and Mac (Rob McElhenney), who is secretly dating a transsexual and who the gang suspects is a serial killer at the start of the third season. Did you get all that? "Philadelphia" is that rarity, a laugh-out-loud sitcom that doesn't wear out its welcome despite modest settings and essentially unlikable characters.

"Best Week Ever" (VH1)

And when the week is done, it's time to review its pop culture excesses with the team of stand-up comics enlisted to play the role of media commentators. Very much under the viewer radar, when it's not being mocked by "NBC Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams on "The Daily Show," "Best Week Ever" is one of the funniest, most fast-paced programs on the air. Who knows where they find them (are there really that many homeless comedians out there?), but the producers have come up with an arresting array of sit-down-and-dish comics, from Melissa Rauch to Jessi Klein, Rachael Harris to Frangela (Frances Callier and Angela V. Shelton). If you hate the idea that the media spends too much time on Paris-Nicole-Lindsay-Angelina, but have a secret curiosity about them anyway, here's a show that gives you a weekly fix of tabloid gossip while cleansing the stain with mockery.

"Moral Orel" (Cartoon Network)

The best animated show on television that isn't "South Park," "The Simpsons" or "The Venture Bros.," this stop-motion animation show is a series of immorality tales. The brainchild of Dino Stamatopoulos, "Moral Orel" is a true situation comedy: 12-year-old Orel Puppington, the scion of a highly religious family in a devout town in middle America, finds that his efforts to live according to God's law always lead him down Satan's pathway, and he generally finds himself in dire situations because he takes literally what the adult Christians around him say. The outrageous situations Orel finds himself in have to be seen to be believed, and are not for the faint of heart.