I may regret saying this but ..."Eastbound and Down" has grown on me. Kenny Powers, the foul-mouthed, bellicose cretin at the center of the show, has grown on me. I can't explain why.

I pretty much sat slack-jawed through the first episode, not believing what I was seeing, or hearing. It's hard to describe specifics without giving too much away, but suffice it say that Powers, played by Danny McBride, is an ex-Major League pitcher in the mold of John Rocker. He's not just politically incorrect, he's just wrong on every level of his life.

We meet up with the mullet-headed Kenny a few years after he's been drummed out of the game for a steroid scandal, and he's hitting near rock-bottom. All he's got to his name is his truck, his jet ski and his audio book of the Kenny Powers guide to life, a relic of the brief moment when he was a big wheel in baseball.

He's now reduced to moving back to his North Carolina home town and moving in with his well-meaning older brother, his churchy sister-in-law and their three young kids, and he takes a job as the P.E. teacher at his alma mater, Jefferson Davis Middle School.

Powers' old flame from high school days now works as a teacher there, and she's engaged to the nebbishy principal, but he's determined to win her back, etc. He also reconnects with his hard-living, beer-swilling old friends, including the owner of a local dive bar, Clegg (played by series co-creator Ben Best pictured left), who helps Powers self-medicate.

The premise isn't all that unusual, but the setting is. You can tell that the show is shot North Carolina with local extras. The tweens and teens in the middle school scenes don't look like L.A. kids who are angling for their SAG cards.

"A fun way to send him off" -- that's how Will Ferrell described his decision to reprise his George W. Bush impersonation and head to Broadway for a limited run in "You're Welcome America: A Final Night with George W. Bush."

Ferrell and his producing partner Adam McKay, who wrote and will direct "You're Welcome America," promised in a satellite appearance at TCA on Friday that the show, which will have a live presentation  March 14 on HBO, will probe W.'s record but also take a few fictional talents. Ferrell handled Bush-spoofing duties on "Saturday Night Live" in the early years of W.'s first term.

People who hate Bush will probably think it goes too easy on him, McKay said, and people who idolize him will probably think its way to harsh. But why do it now, just as Bush is exiting the Oval Office? "You're Welcome" begins its run at the Cort Theater on Barack Obama's inauguration day, Jan. 20.

McKay, in a moment of seriousness, said he thought it was "a healthy thing that after eight years people look back at this," and he opined that one reason W. and Dick Cheney felt free to run amok was that people tended to "ignore the crimes of past administrations" after a regime change in the White House.

The premise of the play is actually somewhat generous to the outgoing prez, McKay explained:
"Before you close the book of history, let the man have his say." With Ferrell as the conduit.

Hey, look who showed up Sunday night at Radio City Music Hall for the last night of Will Ferrell's "Funny or Die" comedy tour: Tom Brokaw.

The NBC anchorman emeritus proved that the good sense of humor he always displayed in all those  "Late Night with David Letterman" appearances has not been lost in retirement. Ferrell by all accounts (here's the New York Times' take on the perf) had a lot of fun in his Ron Burgundy guise with this "anchorman-vs.-anchorman" moment, alternately grilling and chilling with the TV icon that Burgundy quickly dubbed "T-Bo."

All kidding aside, the eight-city  "Funny or Die" tour (designed to promote his latest comedy, "Semi-Pro," which bows this week, and the tour's namesake FunnyOrDie.com website in which Ferrell is a partner) did boffo business as it wound through college towns in chilly Northeastern climes this month. It's a comedy caravan that is likely to be replicated in some form in a city near you in the near future, as Variety noted earlier this week. There's been a clamor on this coast because Ferrell and his co-stars, Zach Galifianakis, Demetri Martin and Nick Swardson, haven't come anywhere near the 310, 323 or even the 818.

You gotta respect Ferrell for his love of the game. Instead of going for the cushy presenter slot (and swag bag) on the Oscar telecast, he spent Hollywood's Biggest Night on the opposite end of the country, digging the company of a few thousand fans, a fellow anchorman and three loopy cohorts who got an early, career-boosting Christmas present from Ferrell this year.

Now here's some good news for a town that could use a good laugh. Judd Apatow is lending his talents to FunnyorDie.com, joining the the comedy website promulgated by his pals Will Ferrell and Andy McKay as a partner.

"I am beyond thrilled to have Judd join us at FunnyorDie. However I do find him to be odd in social situations," Ferrell quipped. "This is very awkward but I don't know who Judd Apatow is," said McKay, adding that "Although, after looking him up on IMDB, he seems very impressive.”

Apatow's milieu already has been popular on the site through faux outtakes and clips from his raunch-coms "Knocked Up" and "Superbad."

“Adam and Will and myself have been friends for many years and we thought this would be the perfect opportunity to create a situation where the friendship could not survive." Apatow said.

FunnyOrDie.com, in which users are invited to vote on the mirth merits of various clips, launched in April and can already hang up the "over 35 million served" sign.

Here's a vid clip of Ferrell, McKay and Apatow heralding the news of his arrival. Fair warning, it's a little randy, as you might expect from these guys.

(Pictured above: Ferrell and Apatow at the June 2004 preem of "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy." Pic by Lee Celano/WireImage)

Had some fun this morning at the LATV Festival panel on how digital media is changing the face of TV. Not sure if we answered that question in 75 minutes, but the panelists were a good cross-section of the biz and they were talkative, which made my job easy. Chris Henchy, veteran writer-producer and head of Will Ferrell and Andy McKay's Gary Sanchez Prods., was one of the panelists, yakking about FunnyorDie.com, the comedy Web site that launched stealthily in April with some very funny Ferrell shorts and an open invitation for undiscovered comic geniuses to submit their own shorts. In "American Idol" fashion, users are invited to vote on their fave/least fave shorts, some of which become "Immortal" and some of which are banished to "the Crypt," never to be seen again.

It's kinda mind-boggling but the Ferrell short "The Landlord" (featuring a pic-stealing performance from McKay's toddler-daughter Pearl) has been viewed more than 40 million times since FunnyorDie.com bowed in mid-April. Henchy (pictured above at right with Ferrell), who's also busy juggling feature projects and an HBO pilot, said they're in the midst of trying to partner with a local comedy establishment to bring some of the undiscovered talents on FunnyorDie out of their basements and bathrooms to a showcase event that would be streamed live, natch, on FunnyorDie. And he confirmed that most of the Gary Sanchez-produced stuff on the site is filmed in under an hour, and slapped up on to the site while the DV cam is still warm. Gotta love the digital age.

Another panelist, "Heroes" co-exec producer Jesse Alexander, promised that the show had lots of fun in store for fans this weekend and Comic-Con and when season two of the NBC hit bows in September.