While network executives and market researchers agonized over how to reach the young male audience, Comedy Central and a couple of creators took a showman’s leap of faith. They threw together and tossed out "The Man Show" and quickly clinched their share of the testosterone crowd.
    Amiably raunchy and lowdown funny – with the surefire male attraction of trampoline "juggies" – "The Man Show" has created a small but visible stir in cable programming, spawning an imitator ("The X Show") and perhaps even playing a part in inspiring TBS’s new "Regular Guy" promotion campaign.
    According to Jimmy Kimmel, the series’ co-creator and co-host, Comedy Central did something that other networks should do more often.
    "With all the research and the filling niches that these networks think about, a lot of them just don’t stop and say, ‘Hey, I think that’s funny. And if I think it’s funny, my friends will think it’s funny.’"
    It was this kind of instinctive response that kept the show alive after it had been shot down by a much bigger network.
    The idea for the program actually began as a reaction to another series concept. Kimmel took a meeting in which he discussed the possibility of co-hosting a he-said-she-said talk show. He was told that he was going to have to appeal to women. To which Kimmel’s immediate response was, "Oh, this is not going to work."
   Instead, he brainstormed the idea of hosting a man show alongside fellow comedian Adam Carolla. With the help of co-creator and executive producer Daniel Kellison, he sold the idea to ABC. They shot the pilot and showed it to ABC executives.
   "They saw it. They were horrified. They said absolutely no way," recalls Kellison.
    Comedy Central, though, moved quickly to make an offer, guaranteeing 22 episodes and creative freedom to boot.
   This video clubhouse for crotch-scratching mooks has clearly struck a chord with men who weren’t being reached before. Kellison, who spent eight years working on the Letterman show, gets specific about the type of humor that is making this male connection.
  "I went through a change in how I approach humor. With Letterman it was important to be smart and funny. On this show, it’s more important to be just funny--although it’s a smart show masquerading as a dumb one."
   Now that they have a cable success to their credit, do the "Man Show" creators have any thoughts on what sort of shows are likely to attract cable viewers?
   "My personal philosophy is that there are so many channels and so many shows, you really have to hit people over the head. For the middle of the road, people go to the [broadcast] networks," says Kimmel.
   "Cable is the place for TV producers to take chances. On cable you can’t pay the premium rates to people like broadcast does, so you get the young and the hungry and the people with possibilities. The broadcast networks look at shows like "The Sopranos" and they think why aren’t there more shows like that on broadcast. It’s because they want a homogenized product."
   The opportunities, Kellison points out, also yield problems. The proliferation of outlets spreads the talent mighty thin. Using an analogy that any true man can appreciate, which is to say a baseball analogy, Kellison likens it to adding expansion teams
    "The pitching gets worse," he says.
  "But it’s great for somebody like me. There will always be work. There’s never a shortage of people looking for producers for their awful television programs."
   In looking at challenges faced by cable producers in the near future, Kimmel begins to sound a bit like the niche-talkers he sometimes gets impatient with.
    "You really have to superserve specific interests. I’ve got DirecTV with a thousand channels. Soon you’re going to see shows about your block."
   "The goal of ‘The Man Show’ was not to get everybody to watch. They say, ‘What about women, what about this and that.’ There’s plenty of people out there. If we get a tiny percentage we can be an immensely successful program."

-David Everitt writes about television from Huntington, New York.

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