Comedy

On TV's Rescue Me, the comic, actor and writer Denis Leary plays a highly strung, highly macho fireman Tommy Gavin, who deals with raging fires and his own raging male ego. Season 4 of Rescue Me starts next week on the FX network.

Leary, who's worked in films including The Thomas Crown Affair and The Ref, sidelines as a singer, too; his comedy CD No Cure for Cancer spawned the provocatively titled hit single "Asshole."

Larry Wilmore, jokingly billed as "Senior Black Correspondent" on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, worked as a writer on In Living Color and The PJ's before getting his fake-news-show gig.

Wilmore also created The Bernie Mac Show.

Judd Apatow has been a writer for Larry Sanders and Ben Stiller, and he worked on the cult-favorite TV comedy Freaks and Geeks. But you'll know him as the writer-director of the hit film The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

Now he's back with Knocked Up; guest host David Bianculli talks to Apatow and to Knocked Up star Seth Rogen, who plays an oafish slacker confronted with the prospect of fatherhood after a one-night stand.

Comic Don Rickles is known for insulting his audiences on stage, but he doesn't consider himself an insult comic. His heyday was in the '50s and '60s, on TV and in Vegas. Frank Sinatra, an early fan, helped get him noticed. Now Rickles has written a memoir, Rickles' Book.

Garry Shandling parodied TV talk shows on The Larry Sanders Show, which ran on HBO from 1992 to 1998 and is now out in a four-DVD box set. It's called Not Just the Best of "The Larry Sanders Show" — in part because it features eight hours of extras, including essentially unedited conversations with stars who made guest appearances on the Larry Sanders sofa.

MTV's new Thursday-night sketch-comedy series Human Giant got its start as a collection of Web shorts, and the rise of MySpace and the viral-video explosion helped it develop a big following online. Terry talks with Aziz Ansari, Rob Heubel and Paul Scheer, three of the comics who power the show's alterna-comedy antics.

Maz Jobrani, Ahmed Ahmed and Aron Kader make up the Axis of Evil Comedy group. (They're of Iranian, Egyptian and Palestinian descent, respectively). Their special premiered on Comedy Central last month. It's out on DVD this week.

Comedian and actor Andy Richter's new sitcom is Andy Barker, P.I. Richter plays an accountant who is mistaken for the detective who formerly occupied the office he is renting. He reluctantly takes on the role of private investigator and discovers he likes it.

The show just premiered on NBC and airs Thursdays at 9:30 p.m.

Brothers Rob and Nate Corddry are both former correspondents on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Now Rob Corddry has a new Fox sitcom, The Winner (by the creators of The Family Guy), about a 32-year-old virgin who still lives at home. It airs on Sunday nights.

Nate Corddry currently plays a TV performer and writer on the show Studio 60, which airs Monday nights on NBC.

English comedian and actor Sacha Baron Cohen is best-known for his characters. They include a journalist from England named Ali G, and Bruno, a flamboyantly gay Austrian fashion reporter. His most famous character is Borat, a Kazakhstan reporter who stars in the controversial film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. All three characters were part of his Da Ali G Show.