With shows like “The Osbournes” and “Newlyweds,” MTV successfully married the reality series with the sitcom. Now, the network once known for music videos debuts a self-styled sitcom shot with the low production values of a home video. “Rob & Big” (9:30 p.m., MTV) debuted on an Internet provider, and that’s fitting, since it looks like the kind of cheap, grainy, thrown-together homemade material you can catch on YouTube and elsewhere. Except a lot of stuff on YouTube is funny. This is very far from funny. And that’s the least of my problems with “Rob & Big.”

Rob is Rob Dyrdek, a professional skateboarder made rich from selling his name and likeness and attaching his sporting reputation to a line of ancillary products. As Tom Wolfe once described producer Phil Spector, Rob is a kind of teenage tycoon. But, as “Rob” makes clear, he may be rich, but he’s still just a dude. Big is his friend and bodyguard, Christopher “Big Black” Boykin. The Big Black moniker is not made in jest. He is a black man who tilts the scales at 419 pounds. His job is to protect Rob from life-threatening situations at skateboarding demonstrations and to keep him from being harassed by police and security guards when Rob feels the need to trespass and skate in prohibited areas.

While we’re assured that Rob and Big are “best friends,” Rob sure looks like the boss to me. So it’s disturbing when Big, an older black man, is continually the butt of degrading sight gags and humiliating stunts set up by Rob, the younger white dude who signs the paychecks. Early on, Rob bets Big he can’t run for five minutes and then, when the 400-pound man loses, he is forced to sleep outside in the backyard.

There may be nothing new under the sun in sitcoms, but you have to go back at least 50 years to the era of “Amos & Andy” or Jack Benny and Rochester to recall this crude level of minstrel humor passing for “comedy.”

Tonight’s other highlights

¢ Roseanne Barr guest stars as a former neighbor once fooled by Earl’s power of suggestion on “My Name is Earl” (7 p.m., NBC).

¢ Daniel swoons for a beautiful stranger (series producer Salma Hayek) on “Ugly Betty” (7 p.m., ABC).

¢ Concerned citizens investigate the accuracy and vulnerability of electronic voting machines in the documentary “Hacking Democracy” (8 p.m., HBO).

¢ Michael brings diversity to the holiday calendar on “The Office” (7:30 p.m., NBC).

¢ Two boys go missing in a predator’s neighborhood on “CSI” (8 p.m., CBS).

¢ Christina inspires envy in her colleagues on “Grey’s Anatomy” (8 p.m., ABC).

¢ “Science of Brick” (8 p.m., National Geographic) looks at the history of one of mankind’s earliest and most durable building materials.

¢ “The Daily Show” (10 p.m., Comedy Central) goes into campaign mode with a trip to Ohio and the show’s “Midwest Midterm Midtacular.”