Comedy Central execs are giddy at having nabbed the rerun rights to "30 Rock" starting in the fall of 2011.

How giddy? In a tribute to the Emmy-winning awesomeness of Alec Baldwin in his role as Jack Donaghy, Comedy Central program scout David Bernath has made a slight tweak to his title.* Why be a mere senior veep of programming when you can be senior veep of program strategy and microwave programming?

At this rate, David, you could be headed to the chairman's job at Viacom. Or back to the MTV Networks mail room. Only time (and the performance of those "30 Rock" reruns) will tell.

*At least for the purposes of the press release announcing the "30 Rock" deal.

Stephen Colbert the thesp-comic loves TV Christmas specials. Never missed 'em when he was a kid: Andy Williams, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, "A Charlie Brown Christmas," "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer," "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," etc.

TV's Stephen Colbert is a reverent Christian and, of course, proud foot soldier in the war on Christmas, fighting the scourge of "happy holidays" and "season's greetings" in public schools, department stores, city halls and wherever else the PC police may patrol.

Put the two sides of Colbert together, throw in seven original songs, a few pounds of fake snow, six notable guest stars and -- shazam! -- you've got a very funny Christmas spesh. "A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!" bows Sunday at 10 p.m. on Comedy Central.

"We tried to make it strangely sincere, but also sincerely strange," Colbert says.

"The Colbert Report's" frontman is always raving about "how there's a war on Christmas and we've got to do something about it. So how would he fight the war on Christmas? He'd have a Christmas special," Colbert explains.

POSTED BY STUART LEVINE
For years I've watched the Comedy Central roast and, while trying to catch my breath in-between laughs, I often wondered how much funnier it would be in person and witness the unedited version.

Sunday night I got my wish.

Bob Saget received a vicious skewering from the dais, which included Greg Giraldo, Gilbert Gottfried, Norm MacDonald, Susie Essman, Jeff Garlin, Cloris Leachman, Jon Lovitz, Jeffrey Ross, Jim Norton and Brian Posehn ("The Sarah Silverman Show").

Roastmaster John Stamos, who co-starred with Saget on "Full House," did a workmanlike job hosting the gala, and got off some nice zingers of his own.

Saget took it all in stride, with vile jokes concerning everything from his "association" with the Olsen twins, to his new own bawdy standup routine, to the kids of "America's Funniest Home Videos," to his appearance on "Entourage" and, of course, questioning his heterosexuality.

It was all in good jest, of course, and while most of the roastees were hysterical — though MacDonald and Lovitz shouldn't quit their day job, whatever that is these days — no one rocked the house as much as 82-year-old Leachman, who was as blue and filthy as any of the boys.

In her first comments after reaching the podium, the Oscar and Emmy winner openly pined — in a very blue way, of course — for a one-night stand with Stamos, who offered up a big smooch (photo above) immediately after she finished her routine. Good for her!

One of her best riffs might've gone over the heads of the prime Comedy Central demo.

"When Mary Tyler Moore has an orgasm, she throws her hat in the air." Priceless.

Show, which taped on the Warner Bros. lot, airs Aug. 17, and I'm curious to see what makes the final 90-minute cut. Whatever does survive the edit, be sure the kids are out of the room.

POSTED BY STUART LEVINE

While there were several great laughs to be had by Sarah Silverman and her "Sarah Silverman Program" entourage Friday night at the Paley Center for Media, I found her most intriguing when playing it straight.

Near the end of the discussion, moderated by On the Air's own Cynthia Littleton, Silverman started talking about Greg Aoki, the president of Media Action Network for Asian Americans, and how he started a firestorm after Silverman used a racially offensive term in telling a joke in 2001 on "Late Night With Conan O'Brien."

In describing the aftershocks of the incident, Silverman told how Aoki brought a few dozen of folks to the studio audience of "Politically Incorrect" to hound and castigate her, while she came to the Bill Maher's chatfest hoping to engage in a worthwhile conversation about the incident. She eventually determined that Aoki wasn't worth apologizing to, and decided that all of her humor — while some may find offensive and derogatory and others will laugh til it hurts — is never worth apologizing for.

Comedy is subjective, and the first time you have to make excuses to those who don't get the joke, your credibility is forever lost. You may or may not like her humor or punchlines, but she's a pro who delivers the funny right on target every time.

And then there was the insight into when the series filmed a scene at a church in South Central L.A., Silverman told of a racist cop's remarks that were so despicable that it left many in the Paley crowd in jaw-dropping awe.

As for the insight into the Comedy Central show, or should we say the "Program," it's in the third season of production right now, while it doesn't draw an audience the size of "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart," it cuts to the core of who Silverman is. So, basically, you like Sarah, you like the show.

Other topics of discussion Friday included her upbringing in New Hampshire (at 3 years old she would stand by the side of the road with a boy, putting feces on sticks and waving it as the cars drove by), making lifelong friendships while living in the dorms at NYU and living — with boyfriend Jimmy Kimmel — next to several gay neighbors who are the inspiration for the gay couple on the series.

Just before the evening ended, Silverman, pictured here with her sister Laura, confessed that if she could be any character on "Lost," she would be Jack, and thought his season-ending episode last year was a mind-bender. Here's wondering if she's interested in throwing Matt Damon under the bus for a YouTube rendezvous with Dr. Shepard?

(Photos by Kevin Parry/The Paley Center for Media)

Unlike the Democrats, "The Colbert Report" had plenty to crow about this past week.

Fresh off of its Peabody win, "Colbert" demonstrated its anything-but-faux clout in the contempo political landscape, drawing brief appearances by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and a sit-down with Michelle Obama. How desperate are these candidate for the approval of "Colbert's" youthful affluent/educated/urban hipster (dare we say elite) aud? Really desperate.

For "Colbert," the show's weeklong stand in Philadelphia (aka the special "Doritos Spicy Sweet Pennsylvania Primary Coverage From Chili-Delphia -- The City of Brotherly Crunch!" edition) added up to the most-watched week in its two and a half years on the air. An average of 1.5 million viewers tuned in Monday-Thursday -- not bad for 11:30 p.m. on cable. It averaged a winning 1.8 rating with the men 18-34 that Clinton, Obama or McCain would love to see in their column on Election Day.

Most important, Stephen Colbert was on fire, taking the foul air out of the gaseous pre-primary atmosphere in Pennsylvania by skewering what the show aptly dubbed "Democralypse Now: The delightful dismemberment of the Democratic hopescape!"

"Shameless!" Colbert inveighed in one of his commentary segs on Obamamania. "Scoring political points using footage of Hillary being booed for scoring political points using comments Obama made to score political points. Who does he hope he is?"

On Friday, Comedy Central was kind enough to send along a highlight reel for the week:

And since they did the same for "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," what the heck, give it a spin. Stewart was in fine form too. On Thursday he added his pointed critique to the chorus savaging the perf of moderators Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos in Wednesday's Democratic debate on ABC.

"The first hour of last night's debate was a 60-minute master class in questions that elevate out of context remarks and trivial, insipid miscues into subjects of national discourse ... which is MY job!"

Lewis Black outta be in good spirits, for a change. His new Comedy Central skein "Lewis Black's Root of All Evil" did well in its Wednesday debut behind the 12th season opener of "South Park."

"Evil" banked 2.3 million viewers, coming out of 3.1 million for "South Park." Comedy Central sez it was its highest-rated series debut since the dawn of "Chappelle's Show" in 2003. Most important, by Comedy Central's yardstick, is that it scored with young men, finishing third for the night among all shows, in men 18-24 and men 18-34, behind "South Park" and (well behind) Fox's "American Idol."

"Evil" has a faux courtshow/gameshow format in which comics debate the evil-quotient of people or various social ills, phenoms and issues. Black delivers a monologue introducing the topic, other comics make the case for and against, and then Black renders his "final verdict." (Pictured above, Black and Patton Oswalt)

Here's a glimpse of Black expounding, in a most politically incorrect way, on what is more pernicious, Oprah Winfrey or the Catholic Church.

Stephen Colbert comes across as so comfortable in the skin of his "Colbert Report" arch-conservative pundit persona that it's easy to forget he's playing a character that has been developed by him and the writer-producers on his Comedy Central skein.

Chief among those "Colbert Report" truthiness-deciders is Allison Silverman, who was upped last month to exec producer of the show along with Colbert and Jon Stewart. Silverman, whose resume includes stints as a writer-producer on "The Daily Show" and "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," has worked closely with Colbert during the past two years to fine-tune the character that walks a fine line between arrogant jerk and arrogant-but-lovable-jerk. (And arrogant-but-lovable presidential candidate as of Oct. 17, so long as those pesky Federal Election Commission rules don't drum him out of the race.)

"In the beginning we were conscious that he could turn out to be a real jerk of a character, and we still think about it a lot. We've always wanted him to be arrogant and willfully ignorant, but not someone you'd just hate," says Silverman, who joined "Colbert" shortly after it was picked up to series in 2005. "A lot of times it's all about the tone. Sometimes he'll do something that comes off as too repugnant. He'll say the exact same things but change the tone just a little bit and it makes all the difference."

This just in...Somewhere, Pat Paulsen is smiling.

Stephen Colbert never fails to make me laugh.

I don't know how he pulls off his righteous indignation schtick without a wink but I'm glad he can. His angry-American persona is so ingrained that we can easily read a newspaper column by him (Colbert, in character, subbed this past Sunday for Maureen Dowd of the New York Times) and hear it being delivered in his "TV's Stephen Colbert" voice.

Here's a pearl from his "I Am an Op-Ed Columnist (And So Can You!) offering to the axis of evil, the New York Times, which served as great product placement for his new tome, "I Am America (And So Can You!).

Our nation is at a Fork in the Road. Some say we should go Left; some say go Right. I say, “Doesn’t this thing have a reverse gear?” Let’s back this country up to a time before there were forks in the road — or even roads. Or forks, for that matter. I want to return to a simpler America where we ate our meat off the end of a sharpened stick.

(Pic by Jeff Vespa/WireImage)

Congrats to Michele Ganeless, who's been upped to prexy of Comedy Central, making her the first femme prexy in the cabler's illustrious 16-year history. Like every other exec in TV, Ganeless has a mandate to expand Comedy Central's footprint in the digital realm, per her boss, MTV Networks Entertainment Group prexy Doug Herzog.

Ganeless is on her third tour of duty at the channel, having worked there in the early 1990s, just after its merger with HBO's erstwhile Ha channel, and again from 1996-2001 when she helped shepherd two of Comedy Central's most enduring franchises, "The Daily Show" (remember Craig Kilborn?) and "South Park." She spent the early part of this decade at USA Network, where her path crossed again with Herzog, who had been her boss at Comedy Central, and then again in 2004 when Herzog returned to the Viacom/Comedy Central orbit and so did Ganeless, this time as exec veepee and general manager. Got it? There'll be a quiz later.