Mitch Haddad, NBC Earl, played by Jason Lee, gets a real job on the May 3 episode of "My Name Is Earl," running on a night of other supersized comedies. Click photo for larger image.

NBC will be super-sizing its Thursday comedies for much of May sweeps, but the network isn't stopping its novel promotional efforts there.

The folks at the Peacock are aiming to engage viewers' noses as well as their eyes with a breakthrough it's calling "Laugh 'n' Sniff." During the May 3 episode of "My Name Is Earl," people equipped with special scratch-and-sniff cards will be able to smell the world of Camden County as well as watch it.

The cards will be inserted into issues of TV Guide that week.

Giving viewers smells as well as sights has been tried in the past, notably in John Waters' 1981 movie "Polyester." That movie was presented in "Odorama," and Waters being Waters, a number of the scents were not exactly pleasant.

In the "Earl" episode, which kicks off a night of super-sized shows, Earl (Jason Lee) takes his first real job, at an appliance store, and Joy (Jaime Pressly) makes another in a string of questionable decisions regarding her upcoming trial.

The show will run 35 minutes, followed by a 44-minute installment of "The Office," a 34-minute "Scrubs" and a longer "ER," which will start at 9:53 p.m. ET.

NBC will super-size its comedies again the following week, with the "Earl" season finale, "The Office" and "Scrubs" each running 40 minutes. "The Office" and "Scrubs" will each have one-hour season finales May 17. (Zap2it.com)

ABC FAMILY PLANS

ABC Family is adding new originals this year to join its slate of returning favorites.

The cable channel is planning to premiere the comedy series "Greek" and the animated series "Slacker Cats" along with 10 new original movies for the year, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

"Greek," set to premiere in July, centers on college freshman Rusty (Jacob Zachar), who's determined not to continue on his bookish geekiness from his high school days. His solution is to enter the Greek system, but his older sister Casey (Spencer Grammer), a sorority siren, isn't too thrilled to have her little brother encroaching on her territory.

A month later, "Slacker Cats" will premiere. The channel's first animated series centers on two rather dim tabbies named Buckley and Eddie.

For its original movies, three have already been planned. "Holiday in Handcuffs" stars Melissa Joan Hart and Mario Lopez, "Snow Globe" revolves around a woman who enters the world of her grandmother's snow globe, and "Nature of the Beast" is a Halloween-planned werewolf movie starring "Ugly Betty's" Eric Mabius and "American Pie's" Eddie Kaye Thomas.

Also on tap for the channel is the return of "Kyle XY" (June 11), "Lincoln Heights" (September), "Wildfire" (January 2008) and "Fallen" (Aug. 3-5). ABC Family also acquired more recent episodes of "That '70s Show" and "America's Funniest Home Videos" and will host the basic cable premiere of "The Incredibles." (Zap2it.com)

Channel surfing

NBC canceled "Passions," but DirecTV has picked up the show, committing to air new episodes at 2 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays on its own channel, The 101, starting Sept. 17, 10 days after the show's NBC run ends. In a joint statement, NBC and DirecTV said most of the cast and crew are expected to stay with the series. ... HBO's 10-hour World War II-set "Band of Brothers" follow-up, "The Pacific," executive-produced again by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, begins production this summer to air in 2009. ... Sci Fi Channel will air the third season of the new "Doctor Who" beginning in July. (Rob Owen, Post-Gazette TV editor)