Jenny (1997– )

(In case you're wondering, every episode title began "A Girl's Gotta...")

Mark & Howard Productions and MTV Productions in association with Paramount Television present a step-by-step guide to putting together shows guaranteed to bring the television system of the US crashing down around viewers' ears:

1. Create a sitcom for an enormously attractive but spectacularly annoying Playmate of the Year (Jenny McCarthy) under the belief that she's a gifted comic performer. (A couple of years ago, Jenny hosted "The Big Breakfast" on British television in tandem with her closest UK equivalent, the almost as insufferable Denise van Outen. Denise is at the time of writing starring in "Chicago" on Broadway - feel free to keep her, my American friends.)

2. Make sure it's about as ground-breaking as "Family Matters." And about as amusing.

3. Cast a genuinely talented and likeable actress (Heather Paige Kent) as her best friend, and ensure she gets less screen time to reduce chances of upstaging.

4. Give Jenny as much chances to inflict her teeth-grindingly irksome persona on viewers as each episode allows.

5. Cast George Hamilton as her father, and when the show is in need of a twist in the format allow the World's Smuggest Man (Non-Politicians Category) to take a more active role on the series. (Jenny McCarthy and George Hamilton together. Saints preserve us.)

6. Allow MTV - the World's Most Self-Enamoured Broadcaster Not Called The BBC - to be involved with the series, ensuring its trademark "Aren't we brilliant?" ethos will be imprinted on the series.

It never had a chance. One poster complained about "Nikki," but in the field of Vehicles For Hot Babes at least that was mildly amusing, and Nikki Cox is a better (and sexier) performer than Jenny McCarthy any day.