One problem with getting paid to watch TV is that you tend to see a lot more of it than any one person probably should and that after a while, just about everything looks familiar.

A Fox sitcom called "The Ortegas" is running into that problem with reporters here. We have the press kit, and so we know that "The Ortegas," which is about a Mexican-American family whose son does a talk show from a studio his parents built in their back yard, is based on a British comedy, "The Kumars at No. 42." (The Kumars are Indian.)

But a lot of us have also seen E! Entertainment's airing of "The Michael Essany Show," in which an Indiana teen-ager hosts a cable-access show from his house, with the help of his parents.

Essany, of course, is a real guy -- as real as any guy could be who does what he does -- and the Kumars/Ortegas are fictional, but the similarities are, well, right out there where you can see them.

After much back-and-forth between reporters and producers -- who gave the answer everyone always does in this situation, which is that they never even saw the other project you're talking about -- executive producer Gavin Polone ("Hack") had finally had enough.

This being Fox, "we'll do a celebrity grudge match between Al [Madrigal, who plays the young host] and Michael Essany," he suggested.

Moving on at last, Cheech Marin, who plays the budding talk-show host's father, was asked if his old partner, Tommy Chong, might ever be a guest on the show.

"If his ankle bracelet will reach that far, sure," Marin said, apparently referring to Chong's upcoming sentencing for selling marijuana paraphernalia over the Internet. "It's a question of range."