You watch the MTV2 kiddie show satire "Wonder Showzen" and the first thing that comes to mind is, "Somebody made a terrible mistake. This can't really be on TV." And yet there it is in all of its family values-trashing, FCC-baiting glory, airing smack in the middle of primetime (Friday nights at 9:30, having kicked off Season 2 last week).

While our government content overlords and self-appointed conservative watchdogs work themselves into a lather over simulated sex scenes airing on broadcast network procedurals like CBS' "Without a Trace," on "Showzen" you've got puppets engaging in fellatio, cartoons featuring a canine ob/gyn who performs Caesarian sections with his teeth, and 9-year-old kid reporters in trenchcoats asking grownups things like, "Would you kick a pony in the face to end world hunger?"

This, in short, is kind of what "Fraggle Rock" might look like in Hell. But because the FCC has no authority to police indecency or obscenity on nonbroadcast TV channels (aka cable/satellite-delivered channels), "Wonder" can gleefully and ironically thumb its nose at the content cops. Considering what's going down on those channels, the FCC's crackdown on "Trace" is sort of like slapping handcuffs on a jaywalker while ignoring the aggravated assault happening a few yards away.

Not that I'm advocating that federal regulation extend to cable. Hardly. But the absurdity of the separate standard for free broadcast TV because it's the "public airwaves" grows dumber by the day.

I caught up last week with John Lee and Vernon Chatman, both 34, the twisted writer-director-producers of "Wonder Showzen." Their creation emerged out of an anarchic seven-minute demo tape originally pitched to USA Network for a show to be called "Kids Show" that made it to pilot. "It didn't go over well," Chatman recalls.

However, a version of the "Kids Show" pilot grew into a cult darling on the Internet, leading to its ultimate reinvention as "Wonder Showzen," a nonsense title they took because it "sounded vaguely Japanese," according to Lee.

MTV2 more or less sneaked the series on the air nearly a year ago and it slowly built into an underground institution thanks in part to some influential raves. But to say that "Wonder Showzen" isn't everyone's cup of tea is like noting that arsenic may not be universally viewed as a nutritious snack.

A puppet gets liposuction, leading to picketers protesting the anti-fat movement. A mini educational cartoon shows a kid having his lungs torn from his chest and suffocating. A kid reporter is made to look like Hitler while prowling Wall Street.

"We are experts at pissing people off, which can be an art form in itself," Lee admits.

Lee and Chatman have had knives pulled on them and been otherwise threatened with bodily harm a number of times while prowling the streets of Manhattan with Clarence, the disrespectful, contemptuous, altogether annoying blue puppet who harasses people into hostility. It's hardly a surprise that their show often runs afoul of MTV2's standards department.

But the stuff that makes it through the network censors here is in itself astonishing. In "Sesame Street" style, little kids will answer a query like "what is Heaven?" with, "That's where drunk daddies drive to."

Where are the parents? I mean, have these people no decency?

"Actually, very little," Chatman replies. "But then again, we consider 10-year-olds our peers."