Like most reality fare, “Armed & Famous” (7 p.m., CBS) is amusing, cheesy and disturbing.

According to CBS, minor celebrities Erik Estrada (“Chips”), Jack Osbourne (“The Osbournes”), La Toya Jackson, Jason Acuna (“Jackass”) and former WWE performer Trish Stratus all volunteered to become real members of the Muncie, Ind., police force. We see them undergo training (for about 10 minutes) and emerge fully uniformed, armed with Tasers and handguns. They are then each teamed with a Muncie police veteran and sent out on patrol.

In the logic of reality hybridizing, this is “Surreal Life” meets “Cops,” and, as such, it seems to work. Estrada goes on a drug bust at a squalid house and helps apprehend a cocaine dealer who happens to be a 75-year-old woman. The toothless perpetrator seems tickled to be seen in the company of “Ponch.”

We’re made to believe that these are real criminals and real victims of real tragedies. At the same time, we’re supposed to chuckle at the notion of La Toya Jackson wielding a weapon and of Stratus being shocked by a Taser. Now clean and sober, Osbourne is one heck of a marksman. The mind reels.

Let’s hope Muncie got a big fat check for selling out the dignity of its police force. And let’s not even think about the civil-liberties implication of rogue actors being deputized for our amusement. Have we reached the point at which celebrities can do anything?

We live in an era with no distinctions between entertainment and reality. As long as it appears on screen, it’s fair game. “Fake news” is more trusted than journalism. Once a feared and controversial figure, Henry Kissinger now delivers punch lines on “The Colbert Report.” We’re supposed to laugh when “real” people don’t know how to react properly to the contrived outrages of Tom Green, Ali G or Borat. Is anything “real” anymore? How can we be entertained when media short-circuits our genuine reactions to events?

I half expect CBS to reveal that this is all a spoof and that everybody, cops and criminals alike, are really actors playing along. In which case, my review is only an indignant residue of my having been “Punk’d.” I would prefer that outcome. Then, only CBS would have surrendered its credibility, and the citizens of Muncie could still sleep at night knowing their officers are not employed to entertain, but to serve and protect.

¢ And while we’re on the subject of truth and fiction, did “Leave it to Beaver” star Jerry Mathers die in Vietnam? Did Johnny Carson shock Zsa Zsa Gabor with a crack about her cat? These and other tall tales are explored and dissected on the six-part series “Myths and Legends” (9 p.m., TV Land).

Tonight’s other highlights

¢ Out-of-town games loom large on “Friday Night Lights” (7 p.m., NBC).

¢ A young girl fights for time on “Bones” (7 p.m., Fox).

¢ Presidential address (8 p.m., ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC).

¢ A shopping-cart drag strip proves fatal on “CSI: NY” (9:30 p.m., CBS).

¢ During the hunt for a missing congressman, Alison is distracted by the vision of a boy trapped in a well on “Medium” (9 p.m., NBC).

¢ Scheduled on “Primetime” (9 p.m., ABC): medical mysteries.