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But breaking rules can also produce The ''Daily Show'''s brilliant satire -- equally revered by urbane politicos and high-GPA frat boys. And it's hard to imagine Chappelle's skit about Mandela's boot camp for teens on any broadcast net. ''Comparing Comedy Central to the networks is ridiculous. They don't have to worry about shows that appeal to [everyone],'' says one network exec. ''We heard about Chappelle long before Comedy Central, but we couldn't put him on network TV.''

And that makes Comedy Central all the more essential. ''They're remarkably permissive,'' says Kellison, who also exec-produces ''Crank Yankers.'' ''I'm not sure they even realize what happened with Janet Jackson. We seem to do whatever we've always done. Their audience expects that; they don't want to be namby-pamby. As much as things have changed across television, Comedy Central continues to glide under the radar.''

Up next: ''Drawn Together,'' a raunchy animated ''reality'' series by Matt Silverstein and Dave Jeser (''Andy Richter Controls the Universe''), due in October. ''We had [network] offers for more money, but we took a pay cut and came here because we didn't want our show changed,'' says Jeser. Oh, come on! Surely that's not the reason. Okay, concedes Jeser: ''When I saw 'Mr. Hankey: The Christmas Poo' episode [of ''South Park''], where they had a singing piece of doody, I realized this is where we should be working.''