Why is it that some television shows manage to be simultaneously offensive and addictive? I keep marveling at the fact that after eight painful episodes, I’m still watching HBO’s “The Comeback” with a compulsive curiosity. And so, apparently, are a lot of others; I keep hearing reports of people repeating their favorite “Comeback” lines with glee – Valerie Cherish’s “I didn’t need to see that!” being a particular favorite – and chortling over Mickey, the flamboyant homosexual hairdresser who doesn’t realize he’s gay. Maybe the pain is the point. What I still don’t like about “The Comeback” (its unrelenting sadness and its hateful characters) has become part of its allure. I guess it’s hard for me to admit that I might just want a generous dollop of pain with my television comedy, to help keep it fresh.

I may also yet overcome the off-putting aspects of “Starved,” an intermittently amusing new FX comedy, which debuts this Thursday at 10 p.m. I might just find myself perversely hooked despite – or because of – its similarly downbeat obsessions. “Starved” stars Eric Schaeffer, who is also its creator and executive producer; the show’s central characters all suffer from varying food disorders, and at some point in every episode they end up at “Belt- Tighteners,” an AA-style therapy session in which all food-related confessions are greeted by the group’s response: “It’s not okay!” A “Seinfeld”- style foursome emerges from the group: one pretty bisexual singer, one bulimic muscle-bound cop, one compulsive overeating writer, and Mr. Schaeffer, a commodities trader who fantasizes about chocolate pastries enough to eat them out of garbage bags.

It has been more than a decade since Mr. Schaeffer’s brand of comic narcissism arrived in the form of the independent feature “My Life’s in Turnaround,” a celebration of his show-business failures that resulted in several Schaeffer-centric follow-up films. In Mr. Schaeffer’s view of himself, no one can resist his wily charms, including the supermodels he typically casts as his love interest. In “Starved,” women still can’t seem to keep their hands off Mr. Schaeffer, in much the same way he can’t stop eating prepackaged chocolate cake. Perhaps his self-involvement will make him a role model to the predominately male audience that watches other FX shows like “The Shield” and, now, “Over There.”

What sets this series apart from Mr. Schaeffer’s earlier work is its single-minded and puerile fixation with the penis. While most sitcoms stoop to genital humor now and again, Mr. Schaeffer reveals a devotion to the topic that may be unprecedented in television history. In one particularly implausible sequence, Mr. Schaeffer and his male pals (while sitting in a coffee shop, “Seinfeld”-style) actually take a food scale off the table, remove their penises from their pants, and weigh them – ostensibly to determine which of their private parts weighs more than their female friend’s carrot. Later, Mr. Schaeffer takes scissors into the shower to trim his pubic hair – to make himself look larger – and ends up stabbing himself in the penis. These juvenile detours have little to do with the underlying (and not uninteresting) theme of “Starved,” the provocative notion that it may be impossible to change our worst habits, and that the way we live with them makes for potentially fascinating comedy.

All too often, Mr. Schaeffer departs from his theme in search of self-congratulatory yuks. In the second episode, his character discovers the joys of colonics, and actually manages to score a date with the beautiful woman who administers them. Will men identify with Mr. Schaeffer’s farfetched imagination, and believe that women might covet them even after filling their colons with liquid that encourages weight loss? If we lived in a world where flagrant egotism was an endearing quality, Mr. Schaeffer would be our Brad Pitt.

***

“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” strives desperately to be hip and ironic, but its terminal goofiness makes it nearly impossible to watch without cringing. The producers of this dismal companion piece to “Starved” on FX obviously thought they were paying homage to the political incorrectness of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” But by using similarly silly, bouncy theme music to juxtapose lightness against its dark themes – and stealing the notion of tacit racism that Larry David used to such advantage on his groundbreaking show – the producers of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” have only heightened our awareness of the differences.

Once again, three guys and a girl gather “Seinfeld”-style, this time in the unlikely setting of an Irish pub they own and operate together. The first three episodes engage them in various inappropriate and offensive indulgences, such as serving alcohol to underage high school students and then dating them, or going to abortion rallies to meet girls. Of course, because they’re endearingly cute and cuddly, we’re supposed to forgive their ethical trespasses. All right, but must we also forgive their lack of a sense of humor? “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” and to a lesser extent, “Starved” serve as fresh examples of how the single camera format (which eliminates the need for a studio audience and a laugh track) can sometimes give comedy writers an excuse not to write jokes.

Interestingly, HBO is in the midst of some counterintuitive thinking on this subject, and is developing several multi-camera, studio-audience comedies designed to kick-start the format that first attracted audiences to television in the 1950s. Watching these second-rate, one-camera comedies on FX, I’m hopeful that HBO can soon remind young television talents that there’s nothing wrong with comedies that actually make people laugh.