Kathy Griffin's sixth Bravo stand-up special "Kathy Griffin: Straight to Hell" (9 p.m. Thursday) was taped after the imbroglio over her remarks after winning an Emmy for her reality show, "Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List." She recounts the controversy with glee, noting that her acceptance speech was conceived by a writer for Nickelodeon's "Zoey 101."

For those who missed it, Griffin got in hot water from some Christian groups after saying, "a lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus."

Then she held her award aloft, added fuel to the fire with an off-color remark about Christ and said, "This award is my god now!"

It should have been fairly obvious that Griffin was mocking celebrity culture, not religion, and doing her best to draw attention to herself. But crusaders and rabble rousers missed the point, which Griffin notes in "Straight to Hell."

"I was parodying people who thank Jesus," she said, giving a clue to the clueless. "Like Jesus doesn't have better things to do than give people awards."

When a Christian theater company from Tennessee bought a $90,000, full-page ad in USA Today decrying her outburst, Griffin was thrilled.

"I couldn't get Bravo to take out a 10th of this in 30 years," she says.

Griffin remains at her best when bashing celebs, from William Shatner ("My favorite, red-faced, bloated booze bag") to Paris Hilton ("retarded") to Dr. Phil (she says he hit on Jane Fonda at a Larry King roast).

But if there's one thing that differentiates this Griffin special from those of the past is that it's more about her and a little less about other celebrities. With her own star on the rise, she induldges in being a little more me-centric. She's still funny, if you like her take-no-prisoners style, but the more profanity she adds, somehow the less hilarious it all is. It's as if you can start to see the seams in her whole "I'm-an-outsider" routine.