If Sex and the City on-demand and near-daily airings of All About Steve aren't enough to get you to pay for HBO then check this out. This Friday the network will begin airing four new series' from some of the greatest comedic talent working today. First off is Funny or Die Presents, a new half hour series that compiles clips from the comedy video website that Adam McKay and Will Ferrell co-created in 2007. Funny or Die Presents is another step along the road to the fusion of Internet video and television video which has Network Executives crapping their dockers on casual Fridays. When the series was announced, Ferrell sarcastically asserted the deal was "the missing link moment where TV and Internet finally merge."

The show is introduced by a 1950s-style TV host who notes: "Funny or Die is at the forefront of computer technology, leading the way in computer comedy programming. Tonight marks a departure from our usual business model as we join the ever-declining world of broadcast television." Co-creator Adam McKay, best known as the director of comedies such as Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and the I-can-kind-of-see-what-you-were-going-for Step Brothers," says that joke is "70 percent true and 30 percent joking." This makes him not only a comedy genius but a math genius as well.

In addition to this repurposing of web video material there is also the highly-anticipated repurposing of podcast material when he Ricky Gervais podcast gets animated for HBOs new series The Ricky Gervais Show. Gervais was inspired to make the show by fan-created images when he realized that recreating the podcast antics with cohosts Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkerton would be boring and time consuming for everybody involved.

"Because Karl goes off on these flights of fancy, these fantastical stories where he personifies chimpanzees, it lends itself so well [to animation]," says Gervais, who calls the product "re-al-imation." "The worst thing would be if the cartoon made it worse — and I think not only does it not do that, but it brings it to life."

Gervais, who describes his cartoon self as a cross between Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble, wanted his show to look "warm and retro," partly to soften Pilkington's bizarre takes on such hot topic subjects as race, disability and the Holocaust. Pilkington's childlike nature helps, too.