Hey, it's a guy thing!

What are a couple of manly men doing sipping on a pink lady -- a frothy gin-laced cocktail? Why, promoting the wildly successful The Man Show, of course.

To be fair, they didn't order the drink -- they merely acquiesced to try mine. But both declared it tasty. And the guys -- Jimmy Kimmel ( Win Ben Stein's Money) and Adam Carolla (MTV's Loveline), co-creators and hosts of The Man Show, due to have its debut on the Comedy Network this Thursday -- certainly know a little about taste -- or lack of it.

As an antidote to such female fare as Sex in the City, their winning formula of sophomoric shenanigans is a celebration of urination, defecation and flatulence -- not to mention girls. The Man Show delivers an eyeful of females flaunting their, er, attributes. Replete with nurses in garter belts, it's Benny Hill meets Howard Stern -- with a nod toward nasty rather than naughty.

With fingers poised on the pulse of the alpha male -- ages 18-34 to be precise -- Carolla and Kimmel know what men want: "Girls -- girls jumping on trampolines -- and monkeys and midgets." And boy, they got 'em. And beer. The hosts and audience are never without a pint in their hand. Zigga-zigga zigga-zigga hoy hoy hoy, indeed.

Sadly, Bill Foster, the pair's piano-playing sidekick and prime imbiber, who we'll see on the show's first season, died six months ago after battling prostate cancer.

Defiantly opposed to what they term "the Oprah-ization of America," they joyously turn the clock back on women's lib with the mantra: "We're the ones that should be telling them [women]what to do."

What spurred the pair was TV's unrelenting portrayal of men as bumbling idiots whose wives were always right. One doesn't have to look too far to see their justification, with such shows as Everybody Loves Raymond and Home Improvement. "There came a time in the early seventies when being a white male was bad," offers Carolla, "and it made you stupid and politically incorrect and there was a lot of woman power and that kind of stuff. It's interesting. I think it's being a white male that's stupid. There aren't black guys on TV that are stupid are there? Or Mexican guys?" Seemingly loath to continue in this vein, Kimmel, the milder of the two -- mellowed perhaps by marriage and children -- sums it up, saying, "Boy, it really turned the corner with Maude."

That logic struck a chord with ABC executives who financed the pilot, only to pull the plug at the 11th hour. In retrospect, Kimmel says, "We were mad because it took them so long to make the decision. On the other hand, they were good enough to give us a million dollars to make a pilot and without the pilot it just would have been an idea. It's all for the best. We would have been on four times and then thrown off the air."

No doubt. Segments such as the History of Men brought to you by Primate Playhouse features chimps lighting their farts on fire; Household Hints -- a how-to guide presented by female porn stars -- and Man-O-Vations that include party favourite Midget-in-a-Keg and rectal pop-out snakes, might not play too well on network prime time.

However, the network's loss is cable's gain. The Man Show enters its third season in the United States this fall as the second-highest rated show on Comedy Central.

Kimmel and Carolla take on the rude and crude with unapologetic bravado. And they mean business -- monkey business -- where bikini-clad "Juggie" girls cavort in counterpoint to elaborately costumed chimpanzees.

Is this funny? My husband, whom I greatly respect, thinks so. I think it makes Saturday Night Live look like an evening with Noel Coward. Kimmel simply feels that, "Men are more interested in comedy, interested in laughing."

"It's like how many whoopie cushions were sold to females as opposed to men?" asks Carolla. "It's gotta be 95 per cent male."

The Man Show unarguably gives guys the quick comedy fix they're after. "Guys are into immediate gratification," explains Carolla. "Women will knit a sweater and guys will buy a sweater."

Men watching The Man Show will be buying plenty of advice too. On and off camera, Kimmel and Carolla are adamant about the dos and don'ts of male deportment. "I don't like any guy that frosts his hair," snaps Carolla, sipping on a Coke at the rooftop bar of Toronto's Hyatt Plaza. "If Jesus came down with a frosted beard I'd punch him in the stomach."

"Music is a big thing," adds Kimmel. "Any guy that goes along to a Barbra Streisand concert -- I don't even understand why his wife would want to be with him in the first place. I think dancing of any kind, with the possible exception of break dancing, you really shouldn't be involved in. If you're drunk and you're out on the dance floor, that's fine. But dance classes . . . I'm more likely to travel into space than to take a ballroom-dance class. Maybe it's okay to when you're old and your penis doesn't work any more to take square dancing, but that's it."

So what's a poor guy to do? Stake out your territory -- a territory that, they insist, is being increasingly trod upon by female feet. "Women have taken over the golf course and now they're sitting in cigar bars," complains Kimmel.

"They're playing basketball. They're at the racetrack," moans Carolla. "You don't see us at ceramics classes. Men rarely attempt to invade women's territory."

Kimmel defines women's territory as, "what men didn't feel like doing. You never hear about guys wanting to paint their own pottery. Some guys are getting into yoga and these bizarre fitness fads, but I think these are gay men."

Well, make no mistake gals -- The Man Show is men's territory and the creators are proud of it. "Men don't think in terms of what they want to do -- they think in terms of what women don't want to do and therefore, by process of elimination, it becomes something they want to do," explains Carolla.

Ladies would be well-advised to leave the remote in your man's hand and head downtown for a few smart cocktails with your gal pals. The Man Show is an activity the wise woman will spare herself from sharing with her mate because, as Carolla says, females, "have a certain Morse code that we don't understand, and to be honest, we're not really paying close attention."

That being said, you've got to wonder -- how much of all this is fact, fantasy or farce?

Kimmel smiles smugly and answers, "We would never tell you." The Man Show debuts in Canada on Thursday at 9 p.m., on The Comedy Network.