Comedy Central’s newest original program is foul, grotesque and, more often than not, hilarious.

“Shorties Watchin’ Shorties” will premier at 10:30 p.m. tonight on the cable channel in the enviable spot between “South Park” and “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”

The basic premise of the show is that two cartoon infants – played by comedians Nick DiPaolo and Patrice O’Neal – watch short, stand-up comedy routines and make rude comments. The routines are animated, and the cartoons act out the basic narrative of the joke.

The show is somewhat of a messy conglomeration of successful cartoon comedies, using the “Beavis and Butthead” format, as well as the gross-out animation style of “Ren and Stimpy.”

Conceptually, this is fairly brilliant. Comedians are often hampered by either ineffective or distracting stage mannerisms, which can become tedious – especially to the “PlayStation generation.” The cartoons have a welcome visual appeal and stylistically seem to fit the show well.

However, the show succeeds solely on the merits of its all-star cast of comedians – Denis Leary, Janeane Garofalo, and Gilbert Gottfried, among many others. Their bits justify both their fame and the series.

Comedy Central will likely run into some heat regarding the relative grossness of the cartoons (expect blood, guts, poop and vomit), and this seems somewhat reasonable. Although there is a certain power in scatological humor, the focus of the show should be the comics themselves, and in this vein, the network would be well advised to rein in the artistic freedoms of animator Eric Brown.

That being said, “Shorties Watchin’ Shorties” has the look of a longtime fixture on Comedy Central as the network continues its expansion into original programming following the success of “Crank Yankers,” “Chappelle’s Show,” “South Park” and most of all “The Daily Show …”