Do we love commercials or hate them? Many people buy DVRs and TiVos to zap right past those words from the sponsors, only to discover that sometimes the ads are more entertaining than the shows. We claim to disdain interrupting ads, yet glorify them every Super Bowl Sunday in the most watched event of the year.

Few ads are as reviled (or secretly adored) as cheap local advertising. You know the kind, where the owner of a mattress outlet shares a bed with his second wife and talks about low, low prices. The kind that uses garish out-of-the-box special effects. The kind that screams at you.

“Rhett & Link: Commercial Kings” (9 p.m., IFC) is a documentary series disguised as a show about making cheap local ads. In every show, professional filmmakers Rhett and Link make two memorably cheesy ads in keeping with their campy sense of irony and low-rent aesthetics. While the ads are the payoff of every segment, the real meat of “Kings” is when the lads do their research, visiting with the clients and their customers in the local environment.

The first show takes place in Los Angeles, where the Holiday Hotel for Cats needs new business just to stay in business. The hotel’s owner is straight out of central casting’s “Cat Lady” department. She claims to “speak” cat and shows us how. She also shares some secrets to cat relaxation, such as playing books on tape over loudspeakers. It seems to calm the felines.

Rhett and Link soak in her observations and even hire a local freelance animal communicator to double-check on the hotel owner’s “facts.” The result is a cheeky little film with more than a few nods to Errol Morris’ classic 1978 documentary “Gates of Heaven,” a groundbreaking movie about pet cemeteries and the peculiar bond between certain Californians and their pets.

The action, and the theme, continues when Rhett and Link are hired by Super Shmuttle, a combination shuttle van and doggy daycare center run by an effervescent tattooed woman who plays a mean harmonica. Here the guys explore the psychological dimensions of marketing. It’s not enough to make the Super Shmuttle seem fun, they conclude. They have to play on the guilt of everyday Angelenos who choose to leave their pets alone eight hours while they go to work. The resulting ad is an explosive combination of sad black-and-white footage and jarring, in-your-face salesmanship for Super Shmuttle, your lonely family member’s passport to fun and companionship.

In future installments, the guys’ clients will include Da’Spot Hair Salon, Make Me a Pro-Wrestler and Bury Me Naturally, a place best described as an eco-friendly funeral boutique. I can’t wait.

• Students and mentors compete on the season finale of “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution” (8 p.m., ABC).

Tonight’s other highlights

• A college tries to recruit Coach Taylor on “Friday Night Lights” (7 p.m., NBC).

• Equipment failure leads to a rough night on “Whale Wars” (8 p.m., Animal Planet).

• A beaver dam poses problems on “Swamp Loggers” (9 p.m., Discovery).