If you haven't bought gasoline in the last six months, you might not have realized that the 1970s are back (there's some ABBA movie opening tomorrow too, to make the connection even more explicit). A further example of the return of the Avocado Decade is The Gong Show With Dave Attell, premiering tonight on Comedy Central (10 PM). The original version of the series was one of the strangest things ever on American television: think the audition episodes of American Idol, with more confetti.

The format is unchanged from Gong Show Classic: acts in varying stages of awfulness perform until one of the judges grabs his gong and puts us all out of our misery. The premiere episode has taken on new significance in the last 48 hours with the arrest of one of tonight's guest judges, Andy Dick, whose entire life is on the verge of getting gonged. He is joined by Dave Navarro and JB Smoove.

Greatest American Dog (CBS, 8 PM): Week One of this series was OK, but so far the mutts are overshadowed by their owners and I would prefer it be the other way around. Tonight, one dog has unexpected trouble during an obedience challenge, and another dog has to be taken into the hospital after an injury. Is this anything like Hell's Kitchen? Didn't they keep the dogs away from the knives?

Last Comic Standing (NBC, 8 PM): The theme this week is prop comedy. Try to restrain your joy, though it might be impossible once you see it's another two-hour episode. With...prop comedy. And Carrot Top, who one of the contestants used as a punchline last week, will be a guest judge. Man, it keeps getting better. I was surprised to see Esther Ku and God's Pottery leave so soon, since despite their respective mediocrity they were the two acts who seemed to stand out the most.

VH1 Rock Honors (VH1, 9 PM): Two of the four original members of the Who died before they got old, but it's never too late for these rock titans to get the respect due them. Pearl Jam, which can summon up the grandeur of the Who at their best, headline the show (taped last Saturday); other performers include the Foo Fighters, Tenacious D, Incubus, and the Flaming Lips.

Burn Notice (USA, 10 PM): Michael knows that it's not fun when your own employers are out to get you, so he has the solution when a woman asks him for help with a soldier who is stalking her: give the guy something to really worry about from his own minders.

Fear Itself (NBC, 10 PM): "New Year's Day" has a simple but irresistible plot: a woman trying to stay alive in a world overrun by zombies. You can make a bad zombie film, but it's not easy. Briana Evigan is the lonely survivor; Darren Bousman (the last three films in the Saw series) directs.

Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List (Bravo, 10 PM): No one epitomizes the concept of giving back quite like Kathy Griffin; indeed, she makes Gandhi look like an Idaho survivalist. In keeping with her practice of lending her name to important causes, she heads to Mexico to open the Kathy Griffin Leadership Academy, which will no doubt be cranking out the next generation of celebrity snarkers any year now.

Penn & Teller: Bullshit! (Showtime, 10 PM): The boys examine a subject near and dear to my heart and my eyelids: the American sleep industry. I'm currently running the world's longest-lasting experiment on the subject of just how little sleep people really need, and an Olympics in Asia isn't going to help matters any.

Swingtown (CBS, 10 PM): The problem with swinging is that your life sure can get complicated in a hurry. Tom and Trina are longtime swappers, and yet still have the capacity to think of each other as cheating when matters are hidden. Bruce has a wandering eye now, as he has become attracted to a coworker. And even staid Roger, thrown off stride by the loss of his job, might be feeling as if it's time to shake things up.

Wrecked (Speed, 10 PM and 10:30 PM): This new series follows in the plodding footsteps of Parking Wars in trying to find the drama in vehicles being where they're not supposed to be. Tow truck operators in Chicago spend an unpleasant amount of time trying to get large vehicles out of bad situations, such as the result of a SUV collision with a tractor trailer.

Reality Bites Back (Comedy Central, 10:30 PM): Reality TV is pretty self-spoofing as it is, but Comedy Central will try its luck at an official spoof with this series, which puts several comedians (a couple of Last Comic Standing alums, but no one all that famous) in situations not unlike those on The Amazing Race, Big Brother, or Project Runway. Michael Ian Black is the droll host.

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