Tuning

Kennedy’s in your face

People will do — or submit to — just about anything to be on television.

The star of the eponymously named “The Jamie Kennedy Experiment” says his show proves that every Thursday night.

The WB’s take on the venerable “Candid Camera” format begins its third season tonight at 8:30, with Mr. Kennedy serving as the merry prankster/host who tweaks ordinary citizens with extraordinary gags.

And they love every minute of it, Mr. Kennedy says.

“Oh, my God, thank you so much,” he says is a common refrain from people once they find out they’ve been “X’ed.”

“People always wanna be on TV … they’re really happy about it.”

The new season promises a passel of cross-promotional guest stars, including the WB’s Amanda Bynes (“What I Like About You”) and Anthony Anderson (“All About the Andersons”), plus former MTV personality Pauly Shore and professional bombshell Carmen Electra.

Tonight’s episode features Miss Bynes, Mr. Anderson and Holly Robinson Peete (The WB’s “Like Family”) joining Mr. Kennedy for his latest pranks.

For Mr. Kennedy, upping the ante each season is priority number one.

Good thing the comic actor’s fame isn’t enough to get him recognized wherever he goes.

Of course, it helps that he often wears a ton of prosthetics to fool his targets.

Mr. Kennedy makes do with the help of face putty and makeup.

The rest is his innate gift for imitation.

“I think of myself more as a mimic than an actor,” Mr. Kennedy says.

“I look at people and mimic and imitate them. People bust me all the time: ’You did my phrase,’” he adds.

Before “Experiment,” the actor was best known as the “Scream” trilogy’s resident geek.

That gig never would have happened had he not sold himself to Hollywood years ago using the skills that come in so handy on “Experiment.”

He concocted a fictional agent, tough tawkin’ New Yorker Marty Power, and started selling himself via his alter ego.

It worked.

“I feel like Hollywood is the ultimate taboo,” he says.

Once you can get over on them, Mr. Kennedy learned, tricking the man on the street doesn’t seem quite so daunting.

Vanity fare on ABC

Happiness, according to ABC’s “Extreme Makeover,” is only a nip, tuck, implant and recontouring session away.

Tonight’s second season debut of the plastic surgery reality show trots out two ideal subjects for the show’s chilling premise — more extensive cosmetic surgery than what Cher and Joan Rivers have endured combined.

Dan, a lonely radio personality wants the uber-makeover so he can woo his attractive co-worker, who isn’t smitten with his current look.

The other subjects are 32-year-old identical twins whose looks headed in opposite directions in their teens. Their parents could only afford to put braces on one twin’s teeth, leaving the other with a horrendously crooked smile.

So why do both sisters get breast implants as part of their makeover? Whatever good the show’s surgeons perform, and re-creating the twin’s smile surely counts as a positive change, is tainted by the less important “touch-up” work done.

“Makeover” wisely exercises some restraint in its presentation and doesn’t soft pedal the grueling recovery needed for all the surgical tinkering.

The results are truly dramatic, but one senses that Dan might have emerged nearly as attractive if he just cut his hair and threw himself at the mercy of a good stylist. A few years of therapy wouldn’t hurt, either.

The show would have us believe all the plastic surgery healed the emotional wounds left by the people’s less than beautiful looks.

If that were the case, Michael Jackson would be the most well-adjusted fellow in pop music.

What might make a better show would be documenting the first year of each participants’ life post-surgery without the romanticized notion that fixing our outer appearances instantly changes our inner selves.

“Extreme Makeover” airs tonight at 9.

Paul rocks in Russia

Ex-Beatle Paul McCartney’s visit to Russia earlier this year is the heart of a new, two-hour special on A&E tonight.

“Paul McCartney in Red Square” chronicles the singer’s first-ever visit to Russia despite his music’s massive popularity in the former communist country.

The documentary features plenty of concert footage from a live show attended by nearly 100,000 people, including President Vladimir Putin and former President Mikhail Gorbachev.

Classic songs included in the special are “Hello, Goodbye” “Band on the Run,” “Hey Jude” and, of course, “Back in the USSR.”

“Paul McCartney in Red Square” airs at 9 tonight.

A ’Threat’ to ’Friends’

Are we ready for a series showing Homeland Security officials thwarting terrorists this close to creating mass panic?

ABC’s new “Threat Matrix” should answer that question, starting tonight at 8.

The show follows a crack security squad assembled to prevent the next terrorist attack on our soil.

As if that weren’t dramatic enough, two of the team members (James Denton and Kelly Rutherford of “Melrose Place” fame) are a divorced couple who have some residual passion for each other.

The latter makes for some cloying moments, but it’s the intricate way in which the team battles back against terrorists which should sell the program.

Our heroes are far from desk bound. They traipse all over the country, or even the globe in some cases, to stop the terrorists’ schemes.

The opener involves a plot to blow up the Chicago Stock Exchange, but viewers will be more impressed by the slick, high-tech look of the proceedings.

“Threat Matrix” resembles a feature film, at times, with its high-tech gear and pseudo-exotic locales.

The show also can’t help but push our collective buttons given its provocative setting.

And it isn’t afraid of making a statement or two. One scene has the show’s stars busting a would-be suicide bomber just yards away from an anti-war protest.

Civil libertarians won’t like how freely the squad is able to act against potential threats, and the rest of us will be chilled to see our worst nightmares played out each week.

“Threat Matrix” centers on Asian terrorists in the opening episode, but will it have the courage to routinely feature Arabs in such roles, given that Arab countries disproportionately produce terrorists?

And if so, will Muslims resent the parade of Islamic names attached to villains each week?

The show already hasbought some limited immunity by including a loyal Arab-American character (actor Anthony Azizi) on the team.

“Threat Matrix” will have to step lightly over some tricky terrain if it wants to gain a mass audience at a time when it could prove too real for the public’s appetite.

Compiled by Christian Toto from staff and wire reports.