Bye-bye, Christian Slater. His NBC actioner My Own Worst Enemy has just become the latest film star showcase to get axed fast.

Slater isn't alone, that's for sure. More movie stars than we can count have fumbled trying to play the TV series game.

When they say politics is a joke, they might be speaking literally in Minnesota. That's where comedy writer and sitcom star Al Franken is running for a U.S. Senate seat he may well win this week.

The Saturday Night Live veteran already had better luck there getting the Democratic nomination than he did in the Nielsen ratings, where his 1998 NBC sitcom Lateline failed to make the grade. Even when Franken means business about current events -- as in such bestselling books as Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot -- he doesn't take himself quite so seriously. The curly haired Minnesota native played slapstick lunkhead in Lateline, which is out on DVD and well worth another look as a rare satire of TV news and current events.

Not sure this series qualifies as "brilliant" per se, but it was a pretty clever concept and it sure was cancelled. Sid and Marty Krofft (the guys who concocted the trippy H.R. Pufnstuf) created D.C. Follies back in 1987, right before the presidential election. It was a satire of current events and politics but had puppets and Fred Willard. Oddly entertaining, it had potential to be a decent series if it had just been a little bit edgier or a little more biting. To me some of the then presumably lame jokes are kind of funnier in retrospect.

He's a sexy beast. A raging biker. A self-centered superhero. He's one of those actors who never plays himself, or the same person twice. Even when Ron Perlman isn't quite playing a person.

His starmaking turn as the latter character of Beauty and the Beast is being showcased anew in a complete-series DVD giftset of CBS' cult classic, just as Perlman revs up cable as the scary cycle gang leader in FX' Sons of Anarchy.

And the superhero? On Fox' short-lived 2001 live action version of The Tick, Perlman guested as arrogant Fiery Blaze, memorably hogging all heroic credit away from resentful sidekick Friendly Fire. Even in a comic-book comedy, Perlman conveys surprising emotional meat beneath the surface.

From deliciously venal Hollywood producer to silly single dad -- oh, how far mighty comic Jay Mohr has fallen. Of course, with his new CBS sitcom yawner Gary Unmarried, Mohr may also fall into a longer run and higher residual checks. But we'll stick with his classic Fox half-hour Action, which crisply dissected Tinseltown with a sharp scalpel.

How sharp? Back in 1999, Action was the first network comedy series purposely and regularly bleeped for language. Which added a certain je ne sais quoi. Some fans do, however, go for the full monty as delivered on Sony's uncensored DVD set, memorializing all 13 single-camera episodes, alongside extras like creator commentaries and a making-of half-hour.

Mary Tyler Moore's tube legend, launched decades ago with the '60s great The Dick Van Dyke Show and the '70s gem The Mary Tyler Moore Show, now comes current when MTM starts playing Brooke Shields' mother on the second season of NBC's soaperrific Lipstick Jungle (Wednesday at 10 PM ET starting Sept. 24).

But what shows did Mary do in between?

Oh, you'd be surprised. And you'd be surprised how many -- possibly none of which anybody can now recall.

Sorry, Ellen DeGeneres. No thanks, Conan O'Brien. The host-picking committee for this weekend's Emmy Awards has spoken: We don't need no stinkin' funny people!

Unless you think Ryan Seacrest is funny. (We hear you snickering.) Or Jeff Probst. (OK, it's getting out of hand.) Maybe Heidi Klum? (Stop with the guffaws already.)

You know time flies when Molly Ringwald is playing someone's mom. Weren't we just watching her surviving high school in movies like The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles? Or dishing dating woes in ABC's sitcom Townies?

Yes, it's been awhile since she started as one of the kids on The Facts of Life, but c'mon. Can Ringwald really be old enough to be the concerned mother of a pregnant girl on July 1's new ABC Family series The Secret Life of the American Teenager?

Where could they be found before they were Lost? While some stars of the ABC smash are genuine newcomers (Josh Holloway, Evangeline Lilly), most have long resumes including short-lived TV shows to inspire that seen-'em-before feeling. Here's your own flashback as ABC airs the two-hour Lost season-finale this Thursday (May 29).

As Grey's Anatomy finally returns with new post-strike episodes this week, we realize how much we missed the actors in that familiar ensemble. But it isn't just Grey's they're familiar from. Nearly all the cast members bounced around through other short-lived shows before landing in their current ABC megahit.

TV makes most of its stars work for what they get. How many shows was George Clooney in before ER? Five? Eight? (And can you name them? We've got answers below.)