People keep announcing the death of the sitcom, but like the novel — or certain rock bands, for that matter — it’s a tough old bird that refuses to die. “The Knights of Prosperity,” a new comedy series that makes its premiere tomorrow on ABC, makes you grateful the form is still alive. Unfortunately, ABC has decided to debut another, far less successful half-hour comedy series, “In Case of Emergency,” immediately following “Knights.” Think of it as a case of Reward followed by Punishment.

But let’s start with “Knights,” once bluntly called “Let’s Rob Mick Jagger” until it was decided (presumably by Mr. Jagger, or his lawyers) that some witty thieves might decide to treat the title as an invitation. It all begins when Eugene Gurkin (Donal Logue), a 40-something janitor who dreams of opening a bar but can’t get a bank loan because he has no high school diploma, no business experience, and only $87 to his name, sees the singer showing a camera crew around his Manhattan apartment on “E News!” Since this is Eugene’s “eureka” moment, it comes, appropriately enough, while he’s in his bathtub, which appears to be in his living room, which appears to have been cleaned and decorated, once, some time in the mid-1980s.

“Hi, I’m Mick, welcome to my apartment!” crows the grinning, wrinkled imp, strutting up to the camera in tight pants and a silver silk jacket as if he were about to go on stage in front of the usual half a million fans. “You know, it’s so nice in here I never really want to go out — well, hardly.”

Actually, the megapad purporting to be Mr. Jagger’s is so hideously nouveau riche you can be sure he’d never set foot in it, let alone live there, but that’s all part of the excellent joke, along with the game room featuring a popcorn machine from which liquid butter squirts through a tube nestled inside a giant gold replica of the Rolling Stones’ famous tongue-and-lips logo. As a send-up of celebrity, real estate envy, and the “MTV Cribs” genre, it could hardly be bettered.

We are also introduced to the singer’s sinisterly small, poker-faced Asian houseboy, who prepares a warm yogurt bath for him (“Good for the skin, fantastic!” the superstar exults), and shown a vast indoor swimming pool maintained purely for the use of his dogs, named after his bandmates, who romp in the water as he throws tennis balls at them. Finally, there’s his gigantic “hat room,” which is maintained at precisely 62 degrees Farenheit, 10% humidity. “You’re never alone with a hat,” Mr. Jagger observes in a doubtful aphorism.

It’s at this point that Eugene, still in his bathtub filled with cooling Queens tap water, sees the light and picks up the phone to call his best friend and fellow night-shift janitor, Francis “Squatch” Squacieri (Lenny Venito), informing him of the joyful tidings. “Hey, Squatch, it’s Eugene,” he says. “I’ve got an idea that can change our lives forever.” At which point we cut to commercial. This is a sitcom, after all.

It is, however, an unusually good one that finds a quirky way to tap into the American dream without beating you over the head with it. The first order of business for Eugene is to call just about everyone he knows for a meeting at his apartment. (Clearly, there are no women in his life.) The moment he announces his brilliant get-rich-quick scheme — “Let’s rob Mick Jagger!” — almost everyone assembled leaves, muttering and shaking their heads in disgust. The only ones who remain are Gourishankar Subramaniam (Maz Jobrani), an Indian cab driver who claims to have been a top attorney before he came to America, a plus-size, cigar-chomping black security guard, Rockefeller Butts (Kevin Michael Richardson), and Eugene’s fellow janitor, the gloomy Squatch.

At first the men are troubled by the idea of breaking the law, but Eugene wins them over with an invocation of Robin Hood. “We’re stealing from the rich to give to the poor — us.” They even pledge to donate any of the money not needed to various charities — Big Brothers, Meals on Wheels, “the Jerry Lewis thing,” and, Rockefeller’s choice, “Feline AIDS.” With their essential goodness established, the men are ready for their red T-shirts, bearing the legend “Knights of Prosperity,” with which Eugene has equipped them. A slow-motion shot reveals them walking down the street, à la “Reservoir Dogs,” complete with an exuberant Tarantino-esque soundtrack written by Paul Schaffer. (The show’s connection to Mr. Letterman, who is credited as a producer, is a strong one, since it was created by two of his writers, Rob Burnett and Jon Beckerman, who were also the creators of NBC’s “Ed.”)

Before the men get down to business, two new members come aboard thanks to the original members’ tendency to blab. One is Louis Plunk (Josh Grisettie), a nerdy communications student hired as an “intern” by Gourishankar, whom everybody calls Gary; the other is Esperanza Villalobos (Sofía Bergara), a sultry Colombian bombshell improbably waiting tables in a local diner. Trying to impress her, Eugene reveals that he’s the head of a gang planning to rob Mick Jagger. Somewhat at sea in American culture, Esperanza deduces from the conversation that Eugene, idiotic though he seems (she’s waited on him many times before), may be some sort of weird North American variant of the alpha-male. Soon she wants in, too, and the group is complete.

If every element of “Knights” is calibrated to perfection, from the ethnic makeup of the cast to the choice of Mr. Jagger (whose presence will be limited to cameos) as the celebrity to be robbed, “In Case of Emergency” feels like a rehash of 10 different shows you can barely remember because your brain, in its wisdom, hit the delete button. David Arquette, Jonathan Silverman, Greg Germann, and Kelly Hu play four 30-somethings who attended the same school and whose lives have all gone spectacularly wrong at precisely the same moment. (Trying to commit suicide, one of them shoots himself in the foot; another, a diet guru, steals a bakery truck and goes on a donut binge.) The premise isn’t bad, which leaves room for hope, but the script is weak, which leads everyone to resort to overacting, as if begging for our mirth. Where’s a laugh track when you need one?

bbernhard@nysun.com