While most products of the entertainment industry are created to highlight the pearly grins and nubile bodies of Hollywood's toothsome youth, television has always loved a grumpy old crank. From Archie Bunker to Martin Crane, there is a long and proud tradition of planting a curmudgeon in an easy chair and filling him to the brim with bitter one-liners. This season, even Brian Dennehy tried his hand (and barrel chest) at a gig playing the irascible patriarch of a rollicking Irish clan in The Fighting Fitzgeralds, and just because the show won't be back for fall 2001 doesn't mean the following five aging grouches shouldn't feel bullish about their own sitcom prospects for the 2004-05 season, as outlined in a press release Fametracker has been sent from the future.

Little Italy, starring James Caan, Wednesdays at 8 on NBC

In the delightful family comedy Little Italy, James Caan -- of the legendary Godfather trilogy of films -- returns to the colourful New York neighbourhood of his most famous and beloved role. Caan plays Tony Napoli, the head of a large, loud, lovable Italian family. Although some of his seven children -- Marie (Marisa Tomei), Tony Jr. (Matt LeBlanc), Davy (Glenn Fitzgerald), fraternal twins Paulie (Jason Schwartzman) and Petey (Paulo Costanzo), Elizabeth (Lisa Jakub), and baby Gino (role yet to be cast) -- have left the family nest, you'd never know it by the way they keep hanging around the family homestead, appealing to Tony's long-suffering wife Theresa (Patti LuPone) to help them solve problems in their daily lives. Should Marie break it off with her boyfriend Matt (Jon Favreau) since he hasn't proposed to her after three years of dating? Should Tony Jr. volunteer as a Big Brother in order to impress his boss? Does Paulie have an obligation to help Petey to study for his Calculus exam just because the brothers are both in the same class at City College? While these situations may seem flat on the page, you can't predict the energy with which Tony Sr. injects them, deflating Theresa's reasoned and considered advice with a well-placed pinprick of withering sarcasm! And as if Tony didn't have enough annoyances at home, in his biological family, there's also the extended family of characters Tony employs at his restaurant, Tony's. It is only due to Tony's rigorous regimen of eye-rolling and huffing that he's able to tolerate the antics of chef Luigi (Tony Shalhoub), hostess Gabriela (Sofia Milos), and busboy Vinnie (Robert Iler). Even if the put-upon Tony has a hard time expressing it, and even if nearly his every utterance is a putdown of one or another of the people close to him, he really does love his families like a father should; what seems like emotional abuse to an outsider is actually the purest form of affection anyone can expect from a middle-aged, Mediterranean man. If you were offended by the negative Italian stereotypes of The Sopranos, Little Italy will be a breath of positive, fresh, basil-scented air! Eat it up!

Cash and Carrie, starring Barry Corbin, Mondays at 8:30 on CBS

Northern Exposure's Barry Corbin is Bobby Cash, a hard-boiled, misanthropic detective on the verge of retirement. When Cash puts the last collar of his career -- recidivist felon Max Turner (Fisher Stevens) -- away for life, Turner's precocious daughter Carrie (Hallie Kate Eisenberg) is left behind. The overloaded DCFS doesn't have a foster home for her, so Cash's social worker friend (and maybe, someday, more?) Janet Little (Cindy Pickett) begs Cash to be Carrie's foster father. Cash agrees, but only on the condition that Janet will find Carrie a more permanent home within a month. In the meantime, Cash has to change his solitary life in order to accommodate a pre-adolescent girl. How will Cash cope when Carrie ties up his phone line for hours on end? What happens when Carrie uses up all the bathroom towels? When Carrie's school holds a Hallowe'en dance, will the overprotective Cash insist upon acting as a chaperone? And, for Carrie's part, how will she deal with her own conflicted feelings about living with the man who put her father away for life? Of course, maybe none of these questions will pose that much of a problem; after all, Cash and Carrie will only be living together for a month. Or will they?

Gray Matter, starring Peter Fonda, Fridays at 10 on Showtime

Peter Fonda is Harold "Falcon" Gray, a '60s relic living the free-love dream with his wife Skye (Priscilla Barnes), Skye's girlfriend Brandy (Lauren Holly), Brandy's life partner Steve (Dave "Gruber" Allen), Steve's boyfriend Stu (Chris Tucker), Steve's third cousin Eloise (Lela Rochon) and the eleven children they've produced among them. But as Gray approaches his sixty-fifth birthday, he's shocked to hear himself espousing viewpoints and endorsing ideas further and further to the right of the political spectrum. Has the time come for the Grays' co-operative marijuana ranch to expand into a factory farm that also produces green beans and canola? Would Gray's daughter Daisy (Kimberly J. Brown) be better off attending a prestigious private school or continue to be home-schooled in Buddhist principles and tantra? And speaking of the tantra, has Gray finally had enough of rotating sex partners -- is he ready to settle down, at last, with just one woman? If so, which one will it be? This is the high-quality, risk-taking programming you've come to expect from Showtime.You won't want to miss a minute of Gray's hilarious mid-mid-life crisis -- particularly when the women in his life help him to make his monogamous choice by walking around topless throughout an entire episode.

Let It Ride, starring Howard Hesseman, Thursdays at 8 on UPN

Amid the glitz and glamour of Atlantic City, gruff blackjack dealer Tom Garrett sticks out like a very sore thumb. When we meet Garrett -- a recovered gambling addict -- he's just learned that his ex-wife Sondra (Téa Leoni) has landed a job as a showgirl at the same hotel where Garrett works. His co-workers -- baccarat dealer Donny (Michael J. Pollard), pit boss Lou (Dennis Farina), and cocktail waitress Margot (Sharon Lawrence) -- won't let him hear the end of it, which only fuels Garrett's usual slow-burning coals. As the endless parade of gamers rotate among the gaming tables, Garrett makes them the objects of his increasingly bitter bile. But will the dealer's bad mojo result in better hands for the gamblers? Will Sondra's luscious proximity lead to Garrett's sliding back into his addict's behaviours? Or will the resumption of their familiar bickering lead Sondra to rethink their relationship and take Garrett back? Will Garrett hit the love jackpot, or quit while he's behind? Place your bets!

Stormy Weathers, starring Carl Weathers, Tuesdays at 9:30 on Fox

TV weatherman Bill Dickinson makes his living predicting meterological events of the future...but he possesses no such powers when it comes to his baffling family at home. In addition to his second wife Deborah (Phylicia Rashad), there are his kids Fiona (Jaimee Foxworth) and Tucker (Tahj Mowry) from his fractious first marriage to Germaine (Loretta Devine). The wounds from the divorce are still fresh as everyone settles into the new, complicated, blended-family arrangement, and the bitter insults Bill and Germaine keep hurling at each other aren't helping the healing process much...but they sure are funny to watch! Still, the situation leaves Bill with no port in a storm, so to speak, and the Doppler radar is no help in determining how he should proceed. With three working parents, who should Fiona accompany on "Take Our Daughters to Work" Day? Who gets the kids for the holidays? Will Bill ever be able to stop reading Germaine's newspaper column for not-so-veiled (and not-so-complimentary) references to himself? The forecast calls for assorted chuckles with a 100% chance of hilarity!