It's Labor Day weekend and while the US Open Tennis Tournament starts tomorrow, we can't provide any other reasons to turn the TV on that day. Tonight, however, brings the return of Bill Maher to HBO, Sunday brings us "Mad Men" and Bill Burr's excellent special on Comedy Central, and Monday brings the premiere of Steven Bochco's "Raising the Bar" on TNT. Tonight 8:00pm The Grizzly Man Diaries Animal Planet - Series Premiere. 9:00pm Discovery......

Los Angeles-based comedian Bill Burr's excellent live show "Why Do I Do This?" makes it's TV debut on August 31st, Comedy Central at 11:00pm. You've had many opportunities to get familiar with Burr over the past 15 years, what with appearances on "Chappelle's Show", HBO's "One Night Stand", "The Late Show With David Letterman", his CD "Emotionally Unavailable", The Opie and Anthony Show, and his own XM Radio show "Uninformed". Not that Burr held anything......

Supposedly NBC is beating the ratings battle with this week's broadcast of the DNCC in Denver. We've listed PBS below because when you've got a commercial-free option, go for it. True we're not listing C-SPAN, but even we have standards. Despite posting a second quarter of profitability, Tivo's stock got pummeled yesterday because their profit did not meet analyst predictions. Despite competition from cable networks, the Tivo interface seems to be the best, so it......

You just can't keep an undead cable network down: TechCrunch has reported that The WB has been resurrected as TheWB.com, which launched today. The site will act as a source for all the TV shows that originated on The WB and has a number of interesting features. While one might argue with TechCrunch's assertion that TheWB.com is now a competitor to Hulu.com, they really do have a pretty awesome search engine that will hunt down......

Get ready for a crapload of Bogusky ads for Microsoft featuring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates. Microsoft is spending about $300 million on the campaign, dwarfing Apple's Mac Guy / PC Guy ad spend. Seinfeld is a fantastic stand-up man and comedic actor (despite the godawful "B-Movie") but something about his attitude and lifestyle tell us that he's motivated more by the $10 million he's getting than by the much disparaged Vista operating system. 8:00pm......

Pretty much an Olympics-only night tonight which looks like it will be focused on gymnastics (_still_) and now track. Left is a pic from the cycling men's sprint event which was very exciting but of course you won't be seeing any of it on NBC's prime time coverage. There's a chance to revisit a couple great shows from Sunday night: Comedy Central's Roast of Bob Saget was very good - the combination of some great......

Dear NBC, please remove Mary Carillo from all Olympics broadcasts. She towers over the terrified and cowering Chinese locals and her speech impediment caused by her oversized caps a la Matt Dillon in "There's Something About Mary" (or something??!!) is almost as incredibly annoying as the vacuous fluff pieces they have her doing - really, did we need to meet the tallest man in China who could have been her love interest or the overlong......

A couple months ago when "Wipeout" and "I Survived a Japanese Game Show" were first broadcast, TV Junkie readers voted "Wipeout" the keeper and it looks like ABC is of a like mind according to TV Week. Next year, get ready for another season of people humiliating themselves for a mere $50,000 in prize money. 8:00pm Last Comic Standing NBC - Last season's winner, Jon Reep, performs Gilbert Gottfried, Penn and Teller, and Joel McHale......

Some of the funniest TV ever is finally coming to DVD - we're talking about Comedy Central's "TV Funhouse" which was _finally_ released today. I've sent Comedy Central a few emails over the past 7 years begging them to revive the series or at release it on DVD, and even though it seemed like my messages sent through their "Contact Us" page seemingly disappeared down a black hole they have evidently been listening to me......

The Emmy nominations are out today and finally it seems like they're getting on the right track with nominations for AMC's "Mad Men", FX's "Damages", and Showtime's "Dexter". In comedy NBC is duking it out with itself between "30 Rock" and "The Office". If any of those previously-mentioned shows wins this will be a good year for the Emmys. In particular the AMC and FX nominations are groundbreaking for basic cable to receive such critical......

Oops, so there is something more to look forward to this month on TV: the July 17th premiere of "The Gong Show" on Comedy Central. The show will be hosted by Dave Attell and judged by (among many others): Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, Brian Posehn, Adam Carolla, Kate Walsh, Andy Dick, Ron White, Dave Navarro, Greg Giraldo, Jim Norton and JB Smoove. 7:00pm Tom Jones TCM - (1963) With Albert Finch as Tom Jones,......

Carlos Mencia is back at it and chances are you're either pumped or pissed about it. The loved/hated comedian's show, Mind of Mencia is back for a fourth season, his new Comedy Central special "Performance Enhanced" is now in heavy rotation on the cable network and he's hitting the road with the Bud Light Presents: Carlos Mencia at Close Range Tour, which hits the Gibson Ampitheater September 26 and 27. The comic who was......

Hope everyone had a great weekend with or without your TVs. Not much industry stuff of note today other than Variety pounding on the drums for the SAG contracts to move towards resolution. The two parties have met 17 times so far and still the June 30th date gets closer. Can you imagine meeting 17 times with someone and not having reached some kind of compromise? 7:30pm The Assassination of Richard Nixon IFC - (2004)......

Are you a "Lost" fan (like me)? Did you love tonight's episode? Are you wondering what's going to happen next week?! Evidently you/we are losers according to our friends at Comedy Central. No worries, I can laugh at myself and this current obsession.......

It looks like Time Warner Inc. will be spinning off Time Warner Cable and announcing that sometime today. No word yet on how that might affect subscribers (like yours truly) of the TV, phone, and web services that the cable entity offers. 9:00pm MI-5 BBCA - This show kicks butt over any similar US show: "CSI", "NUMB3RS", etc. 9:15pm Brief Encounter TCM - (1945) Hey romantics, this tale of unrequited love directed by David Lean......

Comedian Brian Regan has been on "The Late Show With David Letterman" an astonishing 19 times - if you haven't seen him there, then how about Conan/Johnny Carson/Dr. Katz/etc.?? The man that has been everywhere is coming to The Wiltern, this Saturday, May 3rd at 8:00pm. LAist had a chance to talk to the Las Vegas-based Regan about his recent Comedy Central Presents Special "Brian Regan: Standing Up" which is now on DVD, and his......

New York City may be all the way across the country, but if Rupert Murdoch gets his way there you can bet he will cast his gaze upon all other major metropolitan areas: the New York Times reports that Murdoch wants to obtain a permanent FCC waiver to acquire two TV NYC stations in addition to his three newspapers and radio assets. Will this be a last hurrah while the friendly Bush Administration still controls......

All this talk of the Olympics and whether we should boycott or not has got us thinking about the fact that all this hubbub is being generated without a single mention of steroid or performance-enhancing drugs - just wait until the first positive test comes back from the lab and then we'll really see some panties in a twist. We were fortunate enough to interview comedian Tommy Tiernan last month and in the above......

Comedic somnambulist Mike Birbiglia's new DVD is out today and it's pretty damn good. Birbiglia is a Comedy Central darling with multiple TV specials and album releases to his credit and the kid ain't even 30 yet. OK, so you somehow can't or won't watch Comedy Central, well then, you've had plenty of opportunity to see Birbiglia performing on every late night show on every network since 2002. "What I Should Have Said Was Nothing"......

LAist got to interview bacon-loving funnyman Jim Gaffigan back in November when he orbited close to LA, near Indio or a place of some such ilk. He heard us complain to him that he somehow managed to avoid the megalopolis known as Los Angeles. In reaction to our objective suggestions he's just announced a major US tour where he'll be refining material for a Comedy Central special to be recorded at the end of the......

With Lost sent off to Hiatusland for the next month, Thursday's have suddenly deflated to an extraordinarily flaccid state - makes me hunger for the return of Thursday regulars like "My Name Is Earl" (check out NBC's CEO Jeff Zucker season rehash promo). After scouring the listings I can only come up with Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train(1989) on IFC at 8:15pm and then Don Rickles on Jimmy Kimmel for late night watching. In news......

The 10:00pm slot is hot again tonight but I'm going to have to go with Lewis Black again, that's a great show, maybe Comedy Central has finally figured out what to do with him. In other items, the Nielsen Company, whom I've occasionally reported on/castigated in this column, is inviting LAist to submit some TV Trivia questions for an "Ultimate Pop Culture Trivia Challenge" contest and I'd to invite YOU, our readers, to submit some......

Tommy Tiernan has won national comedy awards and contests in the UK and Ireland and he's establishing a beachhead here in the States. If you didn't get to see him during his three week run in 2006 at UCLA’s MacGowan Little Theater, we're going to get another chance this year. He was on Letterman (for the second time) just last week and was given a nearly 10 minute slot which is huge - Bill Cosby......

[The Junkie's been sick for a few days but we're back] LAist has some great coverage of the Project Runway finale tonight on BRAVO @ 10:00pm so I'm not even going to touch that. If you can't stand the fashion tension, you can always switch over to the L.A. County Board of Supervisors Meeting broadcast on KLCS and your tension will be released utterly. If you follow the link you can see, there's plenty......

Idol-heads and Runway-heads have a lot to celebrate tonight and I'll be damned, look at how busy the schedule is in the 10:00-11:00pm time frame. Since I don't think any of the options are fantastic is it better to have a little or a lot of mediocrity to choose from? In other news, yeah the writer's strike is over, and SNL is finally heading back into production with it's first show scheduled for Feb.......

Photo courtesy of Miramax When was the last time an actor executed a more profound career turnaround than Casey Affleck? Gone Baby Gone is his second superb performance of the year. If you don't see it for him, see it for Amy Ryan's breakout, Oscar-nominated turn. The mere presence of the divine Anne Hathaway makes Becoming Jane worth renting. James McAvoy was better in this than in the over-hyped (but still good) Atonement. No......

Flavor Flav Roast Highlights on FunnyOrDie.com What could be a better Valentine than telling your loved one that you ordered the Comedy Central Roast of Flavor Flav for them? I think the purpose of the above highlight reel is to see how many times they can get the word "pussy" into a highlight reel. Hopefully the WGA East and WGA West can help finalize a deal this weekend. Word has it that if they decide......

Want to be a singer, a model, or maybe a comedian or TV Host? Then Big Shot Live is your chance to do just that. Simply go to the site, submit your video, and see if you're one of the lucky winners to get flown to LA (given that you're not already here) to pursue your goal and have it documented on the web. But unlike most talent contests, you get flown out right away,......

Nothing says Hebrew like some good old (testament) Hip-Hop. Say what? The Israelity Tour, which is sponsored by Birthright Israel, is heading out on a West Coast tour, and will be hitting LA on February 16th for a night of music and comedy. Featured performers included Subliminal, Israel's #1 selling rap artist, and members of the T.A.C.T. Family (kind of like Subliminal's Wu-Tang Clan), as well as hip-hop/funk band Coolooloosh and singer-songwriter Michelle Citrin,......

John Mulaney - talent reelComedian John Mulaney is taking SoCal by storm, check out his schedule for the first part of this month (he'll be back in LA at the end of the month also): Feb 5 2008 8:00P - Comedy Death Ray @ UCB LA Hollywood Feb 6 2008 8:00P - The Improv Hollywood Feb 9 2008 8:00P - The Improv Hollywood Feb 11 2008 9:00P - Garage Comedy Feb 12 2008 9:00P -......