As the premiere of “The Jeff Dunham Show” gets set to air tonight on Comedy Central, it sheds light on an established trend in the entertainment industry: giving comedians their own television shows.

This strategy has worked to great success in the past, with shows like “Home Improvement” (Tim Allen) and “The Cosby Show” (Bill Cosby). And indeed, most new sitcoms or sketch-oriented programs are formed around a budding stand-up comic.

But Comedy Central has mishandled this approach in the past few years. (Its last true success in this genre was “Chappelle’s Show,” which ended its run in 2006.) As a result, the network’s comedian-headed programs are declining in quality, providing viewers with a mixed bag that contains mediocre-at-best programming.

For example, shows like “Lewis Black’s Root of All Evil” and “Important Things with Demetri Martin” have entertaining formats, but nonetheless are flawed.

Lewis Black’s courtroom parody, which last aired in October 2008, featured strong comedic monologues. It was also nice to see comedian Greg Giraldo in something other than Comedy Central’s Roasts. However, the show failed to fully capitalize on Black’s talents as he was entrusted with a somewhat limited role.

“Important Things with Demetri Martin” has it moments, too. Martin’s nerdy brand of humor is a breath of fresh air, and the show’s premise is simple but creative (each episode focuses on a single word or topic as Martin tells jokes and shows skits pertaining to the subject). Still, the jokes are largely hit-or-miss and some skits are significantly more amusing than others.

“The Sarah Silverman Program” is another attempt at furthering the career of an accomplished comedian. The show, which is notable for its crude humor, does an adequate job of examining the politically incorrect.

Despite this, Sarah Silverman seems better suited at delivering a stand-up comedy routine. That’s because her show lacks depth and her character is more irritating than she is entertaining.
Then there are shows that offer next to nothing, like “Mind of Mencia” and “Michael & Michael Have Issues.”

Carlos Mencia’s sketch show last aired in July 2008 and relied too heavily on racial and ethnic stereotypes. And the sketches on “Michael & Michael Have Issues,” don’t even warrant a chuckle.

So what does this all mean?

Basically, it means that Comedy Central has been too liberal in assigning comedians their own shows. For the future, the network should use strict discretion in deciding its lineup.
If not, it is likely that Comedy Central will continue to pump out ill-conceived projects. And in that case, there are always re-runs of “Chappelle’s Show.”

All comments are moderated before being published. We will not edit your comments, but we also will not approve those that are abusive, off-topic, attack another poster or contain information we know to be libelous or false.

During peak weekday viewing times, most comments will be reviewed within six hours. For more detailed information, click here.

After submitting your comment, check below for a confirmation message.

• Your name:
• Enter text from image:
  

• Your comment:

* 300-character count. HTML formatting will not display.