ABC is all reruns again tonight, so unless you’re into “Top Chef,” you’re screwed if you’re looking for good television during prime time.

American Idol (Fox) — Jim Carrey’s daughter is a contestant this season. Even if you didn’t know it was Jim Carrey’s daugther, after one look at her teeth, you’d know it was Jim Carrey’s daughter (video after the jump, if you’re interested)

Whitney/Are You There, Chelsea? (NBC) — Serious question: I only watched the dreadfully unfunny pilot of “Are You There, Chelsea?” Did it get any better? Because I no longer believe “Community’s” return hinges on its cancellation. I think NBC is going to burn through new episodes of “Parks and Recreation” and run “Community” in its place come April.

Top Chef (Bravo) — There’s a strange bicycle competition in tonight’s episode. I don’t know what that has got to do with cooking, but for the love of God, don’t look at Padma.

The Exes (TV Land) — I kept meaning to get around to watching an episode, if only because of my love for Donald Faison. Alas, this is the first season finale, so it looks like I’m too late. It’s probably best; I wouldn’t want to tarnish my fondness for him. Here’s the Turk Dance, anyway.

LATE NIGHT GUESTS: Howard Stern is on Letterman to help him celebrate 30 years on late night; Daniel Radcliffe is on Leno; John Krasinski does Kimmel; The Shat will sit with Craig Ferguson; Tracy Morgan — who hates his mother — will be on Fallon; and Brad F***ing Pitt will be on “The Daily Show.”

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Jon Stewart and the team at “The Daily Show” are never better than when they’re mocking the moronic programming on 24-hour news channels. The show has taken a sledgehammer to all of the networks, from the mindless rabble-rousing on “Fox and Friends,” to whatever the hell MSNBC is doing with their schedule (“Tonight on MSNBC, a hard-hitting report by Rachel Maddow on our unsafe, overcrowded prison system. Then at 11 on ‘Lockdown: Violence Prison,’ someone gets shivved! MAYBE IN THE FACE!”). But last night they took it to a new level in a takedown of CNN’s new morning show “Early Start” — specifically, an idiotic segment where the hosts try to prank call celebrities at 5 a.m.

There’s not much I can add to this that isn’t articulated better in the clip. The whole thing is just so awkward and terrible and fantastic. I know Stewart can rub some people wrong way sometimes, but he’s doing the Lord’s work here. A segment this dumb (on a NEWS NETWORK) deserves to be mocked in the harshest manner possible, if only because you can’t physically grab a television show by the collar and scream right into its face like it’s an unruly drunk. Something to work on, scientists.

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TV's most controversial show

Here are some sweeping political generalizations I made, based on a recently released survey, conducted by Experian-Simmons and published on EW.com, on what shows “Liberal Democrats” and “Conservative Republicans” love and hate:

Democrats love: Sarcasm (“30 Rock”), New Orleans and/or white guilt (“Treme”), alcohol (“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” “Cougar Town”), gays (“Glee,” “Modern Family”), nudity (“Shameless”), and Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert (“The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” “The Colbert Report”). Also, funny things (“Parks and Recreation,” “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson,” “Raising Hope”).

Democrats hate: Swamps (“Swamp Loggers,” “Swamp People,” “River Monsters”) ghosts (“Ghost Hunters,” “Ghost Adventures”), teen pregnancy (“The Secret Life of the American Teenager”), Drew Carey (“The Price is Right”), and catching bad guys (“Dog the Bounty Hunter,” “COPS”).

Republicans love: When life re-sets itself every week (“Hawaii Five-0,” “NCIS”), swamps (“Swamp Loggers,” “Swamp People,” “River Monsters”), romance based on a lie (“The Bachelor”), Larry the Cable Guy (“Only In America with Larry the Cable Guy”), Nathan Fillion (“Castle”), antique collecting (“American Pickers”), and jokes that begin with “This is in the news” (“The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”).

Republicans hate: Marijuana (“Weeds”), exposing hypocrisy (“South Park”), divorce (“Divorce Court”), gossip and/or water bottles (“TMZ”), zombies (“The Walking Dead”), cancer (“The Big C”), people who take the law into their own hands when it’s not filmed with a shaky camera (“Dexter”), and Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert (“The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report”).

Full list below.

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In the wake of Rick Perry leasing a hunting camp called… ummm… *cough* *cough*head, Wyatt Cenac filed a report for “The Daily Show” (video below) that no white correspondent possibly could have: he pointed out that scores of other American geographical features are named with similar insensitivity to race issues. What I’m trying to say is, he said the N-word a LOT. And not the N-word the way black people say it to each other, but the way white slave owners used to say it: casually, and with a hard “-er.”

The piece made me wide-eyed and slightly uncomfortable until Cenac branched out into my preferred territory: locations named with old-timey racist slurs. And as we all know, old-timey racist slurs are the ONLY racist slurs I’ll tolerate around here.

Hahahahaha, “Squaw Tit Mountain.” Sounds like a Navajo strip club. I bet there’s firewater and slut machines there. “Wait, don’t you mean slot machines?” Nope.

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(via)

When I realized that the tenth anniversary of 9/11 would fall on a Sunday, I was relieved for wholly selfish reasons: I wouldn’t have to spend a workday worried about whether my lighthearted business of joking about TV was inappropriate. I was prepared to let the day pass without any kind of reflection, as there are countless other outlets that have already done it in more expansive and meaningful ways (such as New York Magazine’s Encyclopedia of 9/11 and Esquire’s Surviving the Fall).

Then I saw the State Farm 9/11 tribute in which kids sing “Empire State of Mind” to a bunch of New York firefighters (video below), and I almost cried because I’m apparently a 50-year-old housewife from Duluth. I should probably stop blogging and just bake you all some cookies.

So yeah, 9/11 gets a post. Along with the State Farm video below, I’ve included a couple more photos and links to poignant stuff or cultural ephemera that caught my eye.

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