Dave on Demand: No shock it's mocked

Consider VH1's

Rock of Love

with Bret Michaels, the saga of a guy who once upon a time founded the Harrisburg hair band Poison. It's a show about a coarse, brain-dead former headbanger with an ego the size and buoyancy of a blimp. He's looking for "true love" with a rowdy group of shamelessly skanky, hard-drinking women - as Rick James once sang, "the kind you don't bring home to mama."

Obviously, it's a show that screams out to be spoofed. Again and again. My favorite so far featured Letterman bandleader Paul Shaffer as the rocker confiding, "I've never been good at relationships. I'm used to tour-bus sex."(You can see it at: http://www.cbs.com/latenight/lateshow/video_player/index/php/947178.phtml.)

It's a hoot to see famous baldy Shaffer in Michaels' trademark array: his head wrapped in a bandanna topped with a cowboy hat. (Come to think of it, there are persistent rumors about the authenticity of Michaels' long blond locks as well.)

I enjoyed Shaffer's ad-lib when Letterman asked if his wife wasn't bothered by his search. "She doesn't watch this show," he said of his Letterman gig, "so I don't know why she'd watch that one."

Also funny was Jason Sudeikis' Saturday Night Live send-up, with the romantic rocker musing, "I'm having a devil of a time figuring out which of these smokin' hot hotties is my rock of love . . . and sexmate."

This sketch focused more on the ladies, including Amy Poehler as the unforgettable Amber, a chicken-nugget-chucking amputee who bragged, "Here's why I'm going to win Bret's heart: I can do the worm. I've served jail time. I've got mad skin tags. And I'm rockin' one leg, bro." Who could resist?

Take that! Do not mess with Jimmy Kimmel! After his girlfriend Sarah Silverman hung the horns on him with her music video "I'm [Doing] Matt Damon," Kimmel unveiled his own response video, "I'm [Doing] Ben Affleck" on his post-Oscars telecast.

The hilarious clip is built on a celebrity-filled "We Are the World" chorus that included Joan Jett, Robin Williams, Don Cheadle, Perry Farrell, Huey Lewis, Cameron Diaz, Josh Groban, Lance Bass and others.

Kimmel's program clocked record numbers through the simple expedient of showing a brokeback Affleck. It just goes to show: Give the people what they want. . . .

The ultimate endorsement. It looks like a big few days for rap impresario Sean Combs. He starred in the remake of A Raisin in the Sun on ABC. And in tomorrow night's episode of HBO's The Wire, drug lord Marlo Stanfield will be seen running around in a polo shirt with Combs' Sean John logo. If you've got a hip-hop fashion line, you can't buy publicity like that.

Calling the kettle. After Regis Philbin's disastrous red-carpet show preceding the Academy Awards, he broadcast Live With Regis and Kelly from Los Angeles all week.

When guest Kim Kardashian mentioned that her reality show on E! is produced by Ryan Seacrest, Reege got huffy. "This Seacrest guy is really beginning to bother me," he growled. "He owns the whole town!"

Now you know how Dick Clark feels, Regis, when he contemplates your career overdrive.

Idol nonsense. Seacrest made the most ridiculous assertion that I've heard all year on Thursday's results edition of American Idol: "On the strength of this year's talent, Sony/ATV has released the Beatles catalog" for use on the Fox singing contest.

Sure, Ryan, it was an artistic decision. In previous years, when Idol tried to buy the rights to Beatles songs, the corporation that administers the catalog for pop kook Michael Jackson refused, saying, "No, we don't want Anthony Fedorov and Jessica Sierra singing 'She Came in Through the Bathroom Window.' Come back to us when you've got Amanda Overmyer and Danny Noriega."

Yes, it was talent that opened the vault. It had nothing to do with banks foreclosing on Jackson's Neverland ranch.

Watch Jimmy Kimmel's music video "I'm [Doing] Ben Affleck" at: http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=rGa29kPBbp4.EndText