Animal Instincts Overload Two WB Shows

Sunday night is mating season on the WB when it premieres two lowly comedies about babe-watching single men in their 20s with soaring libidos. The target audience is the MTV crowd.

The jokes walk on all fours in “Men, Women & Dogs,” in which Jeremiah (Bill Bellamy), Clay (Daniel Pino), Eric (Niklaus Lange) and Royce (Mike Damus) hang out in a dog-walking park with their canines and schmooze about “chicks.” In other words, sex, “chicks” existing here as little more than sexual abstractions.

Airing “Men, Women & Dogs” at 8:30 ensures its easy accessibility to young kids.

The idiot males here are either under the sheets or talking about it, the most proficient being Jeremiah, a chef who uses his gourmet creations to seduce females who patronize the posh cafe where he works and ogles the field obsessively from behind a counter. “Look at him go,” Clay marvels. “Another dessert, another one-night stand.” The laugh track loves it.

Because they’re cute, some of the dogs in effect become procurers for their owners. The scene stealer, though, is Eric’s female pooch, who gazes at his girlfriend and him as they get chummy in bed. Not that stealing scenes is a challenge in this dim series. Watching it makes you feel like a fireplug.

The swinging continues in “Off Centre,” where former Oxford roommates Mike (Eddie Kaye Thomas), who’s a bit stodgy, and Euan (Sean Maguire), a Brit whose appetite for women is ravenous, are moving into a spacious New York pad.

Although Mike falls all apart in the presence of a good-looking female stranger, he assures Euan there’s nothing monotonous about having sex with someone he cares about--his steady girlfriend, Liz (Lauren Stamile). Replies Euan: “What’s really not monotonous? Having sex with a different girl every night.”

That’s the tone here. Panicking when Liz wants to move into the apartment he shares with Euan, Mike is warned by their friend, Chau (John Cho), that he’s “hit three of the dreaded five ‘Ms’: You meet, you mate, you get married, she gets fat.”

Mike: “Your last one started with an f.”

Chau: “Mooooo.”

The glint of humor threading this vulgar half-hour is the roommates’ new friend, Status Quo (Jason George), a successful black rapper who fears being seen as out of touch with the street. He’s a very funny character.

Otherwise, return this cow to the barn.

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“Men, Women & Dogs” premieres Sunday night at 8:30 and “Off Centre”at 9:30 on WB. The network has rated each TV-14-DL (may be unsuitable for children younger than 14, with special advisories for suggestive dialogue and coarse language).