Adam Carolla can talk about anything. It’s a little scary, really, how good he’s gotten at it.

He’s been on a standup tour that most people call untraditional because he “doesn’t have a set.” Topics come up and he has things to say about them. It sounds too easy, too unsophisticated. But if you listen to Carolla for a while, you start to understand that it’s unfair to say he doesn’t have a set.

Really, Adam Carolla has crafted something funny in his head for almost everything. He just lets you pick the order.

That’s why his new show, “The Car Show,” works. It’s usually about cars, but its focus is on being funny and getting you to relate, even if you don’t care about cars.

You probably know Carolla from “The Man Show,” but here’s a little background for the unacquainted: His podcasts dominate the iTunes chart right now. They’re No. 1, No. 3 and No. 7 respectively. He spent years on “Loveline” before that where he became sort of a magician of identifying deviant sexual behavior. He started to be able to pin listeners’ sexual problems within seconds of a call by the sound of their voice alone. (This has nothing to do with “The Car Show,” it’s just really impressive.)

We talked to him on the phone early yesterday morning—about being funny at that hour, how keeping shows on the air is like a bad ex, and why “The Car Show” is different—and we felt slightly crazy. It seemed like we were talking directly to the radio.

Hulu: First of all, I want to thank you for getting up at this ungodly hour. I remember you talking about how it’s impossible to be funny early in the morning.

Adam Carolla: Yeah, you can’t do it. In the morning, after you’ve woken up—no matter who you’re talking to—first, you’re in shock. Then you’re angry. But funny is way the f–k down the road. You don’t even think it’s possible to get there.

So are you shooting the show right now?

We’ve completed seven. We have a first run of, like, 12. You do 12 and if they like the first 12, then maybe you do another 12. But most places need to see a pilot. There used to be a pretty straight way of doing this. They picked you up, or they didn’t. Now, sometimes, they have you do a couple, or put you in the middle of the season. It used to be just this one way. Poor Paul Reiser found out, it doesn’t always work that way.

You’d never date a girl like this.

No, absolutely not. If you dated a girl like this, it’d be like, “Look, I’ll come over to your house at noon or 4 a.m. I’ll have sex with you—or i’ll hit you in the head with a cinderblock. Maybe I’ll have sex with you; maybe I’ll try to kill you.”

But this doesn’t seem like a crazy girlfriend situation.

I know. At first I was like, “Ah, yeah right, the SPEED Channel. Blah blah blah. Whatever.” I used to be very involved in everything. I used to want to see the finished piece. You get kids. You get busy. You get a podcast. Now, I’m more like, “When the check clears, just tell me where you want me to go.” I’m not going into the edit bay. I’ll be as funny as I can be when I’m on camera. It might work a lot better that way.

All of a sudden, I’m not thinking about The Car Show at all. I’ve become jaded and burnt out about these things. I’ve just become philosophical about it. Next thing you know, I’m watching ESPN and I’m seeing spots for this everywhere. During the All-Star Game, SportsCenter. Now, I’m thinking, “Damn, maybe I should’ve cared more!” I didn’t know it was going to be this sort of thing. I didn’t know they were going to get into it. I’m like, “Maybe I should’ve gotten paranoid about this.”

Actually, I think the show works because it’s so hands-off. The best parts, I think, are just you guys shooting the s–t about cars.

It’s funny that you say that, because we’ve got really good stuff. And the first show we did, if I remember correctly, I think we were running some of the weaker stuff. Remind me of what’s in there?

You race a ’94 Nissan Z in that lemon race. You test out a Rolls Royce…

Oh, man, no, we’ve got better stuff. But, the thing is, the cast is good, the chemistry is good. It might be best when we sit around and argue about cars.

The hardest part—the part that people don’t realize about television—is when you’re being judged the most harshly or critically is when you’re at your worst. It’s hard to be what you are with so many people judging you.

Watch the first season of “The Simpsons.” They didn’t even sound the same. They didn’t look the same. That show took a few seasons to find its footing. If you took a look at the first season of “The Simpsons,” you’d be like, “What the f–k is this?” It’s like factory equipment: You might have all the pieces, but if you don’t know how to set it up, where to set it up, it won’t work. If you do a good enough job—if you worked your ass off—you could be pretty good.

My dream is… well, we’ll never be as good as “Top Gear UK” right away. I love that show, but I want to see what the first episode of that looks like. It’s a completely different show. The catch-22 is if you can hang around long enough, you can find what works. But that rarely happens. It’s like if a player coming into the NFL said, “If you could just let me start at quarterback for a couple of seasons, I’ll probably end up very good.” But that never happens. If you have one game where you throw three picks, it’s over.

And this is the first time since “The Man Show” that you’ve had a real chance to be given a shot to go more than one season. It seems like they’re really invested in making this work.

Well, we had “Crank Yankers” but that was a little different. Places like Comedy Central or NBC, they just cut you and that’s it. But it’s nice, like I said, to have the support on network. With SPEED, they’re like, “You’ve got a good young prospect here. Let’s start nurturing this guy.” We just started, but we know what we’re doing. I’ve known John Salley for a little bit. It’s the chemistry usually takes three seasons.

The other thing about this show is that it doesn’t look like it’s trying to be Top Gear. It seems like there’s two different kinds of car shows: NASCAR-related, inside-baseball stuff or shows trying to be like “Top Gear.” This isn’t really either of them. It’s about cars, but it’s fun on its own, and it’s not trying to be British.

Yep, it’s very non-British. Well, (Pulitzer Prize-winner) Dan (Neil) may have a little of that in him, but you’re not gonna fool anybody. I love cars and I have strong opinions. We’re arguing about cars and with each other. We have strong opinions. We do need that dynamic.

My last question, I suppose, is if you realize how many times a day you’re starting a sentence with the phrase, “Now that I’m on SPEED?”

Oh, I never really thought of that. I’ll be sure to gain 50 pounds so people don’t get the wrong idea.

Yep, it’s summer. Time to start hating yourself for accidentally falling asleep while watching TV like an elderly person.

It’s inevitable, but it poses the question: Which shows will you watch the first 15 minutes of this summer?

We’ve narrowed down the summer premieres. Nice little microcosm of America we’ve got right here: Badass doctors, terrible lawyers, too-dolled-up children singing “I Will Always Love You,” our country’s mascot/ambassador of hotness (Jennifer Love Hewitt), and a teenage girl who descended from cats that must protect her kind from a group of assassins that is trying to murder all catpeople.

This sounds, basically, like the 4th of July barbecue we were at last week. It’s also some of the 12 Best, Most Summery Shows on TV.

12 – America’s Got Talent (NBC):

The gist: America is back to juggle fire on stilts, or whatever!

Follow it if: You don’t have a child but you still love talent shows and would like to go to one without getting questioned by the authorities. Also, sometimes they do cool things like this:

But, usually, it’s cute children singing 20-year-old songs by Celine Dion.

Wins for: Tron Guy.

11 – Happily Divorced (TV Land):

The gist: Fran, a Los Angeles florist, is shocked when her husband of 18 years suddenly announces that he is gay. She rebounds astoundingly quickly and within days is cheerfully hitting on strange men and going on awkward dates. Her husband, played by the hilarious John Michael Higgins, must continue to live with her because of financial reasons, a tricky situation that exists mainly to fuel the show’s relentless torrent of gay jokes. Fran’s parents contribute: “We always knew he was gay…he had very nice cuticles.”

Fran Drescher’s iconic shrill voice, which most remember from her six seasons starring in “The Nanny,” is intact, along with her tight-fitting outfits and unlikely romantic interests.

Follow it if: You’re tired of hiding your longing for old-fashioned sitcoms and your yearning for canned laugh tracks. You’re ready to reveal your deviant desires to the world, and to hell with what people think.

Best quote: Fran: “But we just had sex during Leno..how gay can you be?”

Wins for: Best re-purposing of a personal tragedy. In real life, Fran Drescher did actually divorce her gay husband after a couple of decades of marriage. We assume it went pretty much like this:

10 – The Closer (TNT):

The Gist: We don’t know and we refuse to find out because we haven’t been able to watch a sporting event on TNT without seeing Kyra Sedgwick since 1998.

Follow it if: You like stern women from Kentucky who, at midnight, turn into poisonous snakes and murder deviant children for cash then, oh, who are we kidding, we have no idea.

Best Quote: “Oh my God! I grew an extra hand! Out of nowhere! Somebody please call the police. Or am I the police? I don’t even know. I don’t read the scripts. Yeehaw.” –Kyra Sedgwick

Wins for: This Sesame Street parody, which is almost definitely better than the show.

9 – The 9 Lives of Chloe King (ABC Family):

The gist: Another self-involved, sarcastic teenager discovers she has superpowers. This time it’s cute, conservative Chloe King, who reaches age 16 and begins to exhibit cat-like traits such as super-hearing, parcour expertise, extendable claws, and for some reason, drastically increased libido. Dogs start hating her and cute boys/homeless men start really liking her.

In the pilot, she is stalked by a creepy tattooed guy who pushes her out of a building. In this way, with the help of some other good-looking cat-people who go to her high school, she discovers that not only is she a descendent of a race of ancient semi-feline demigods, but she is also their savior.

Watch it if: You need something to do while waiting for the next episode of “Teen Wolf”, you are too young to have heard of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer,” and you have finished all the Twilight books.

Best quote: Amy: “So you’re telling me, like, what? Now you have all these superpowers?”

Wins for: Perkiest treatment of the themes of death, resurrection, lust, genocide, and loss of innocence.

8 – Love Bites (NBC):

The gist: As a sort of anthology, “Love Bites” is a new take on a romcom series for a generation without an attention span. Plot lines are introduced and then abandoned without clear resolution, and we’re not always sure what city we’re in. The cast of characters rotates, and a few of them reappear consistently and a little arbitrarily. The cute dialogue is sprinkled heavily with current pop culture references, and everything is in snack-sized morsels. It’s an undemanding and modern escape, and it’s ok if some of the stories kind of suck because they’re over pretty quickly and hey – how long has it been since I checked Facebook?

Follow it if: You have trouble following anything at all, ever.

Best quote: “Eyegasm? You know what we should be focusing on? Ourgasm. Huh? Huh?”

Wins for: Most prolonged and questionable celebrity cameo. Jennifer Love Hewitt plays a version of herself that would willingly have sex with an overweight stranger in an airplane bathroom.

7 – Franklin & Bash (TNT):

The Gist: Zach from the Saved by the Bell and one of the boys in the Jeep in “Clueless” get law degrees and talk out of the sides of their mouths.

Follow it if: You like the idea of watching something that is best described as a Brocedural. Maybe that’s unfair, though. Sure, they’re ambulance-chasing chauvinists, but Franklin & Bash are sort of stupidly charming.

Best Quote: “We’re Franklin & Bash.” — Franklin & Bash. They say this roughly twice an episode.

Wins for: Look, it’s the summer. You secretly want to watch a procedural where Mark-Paul Gosselaar gets drunk and makes out with someone in court. It’s the exact thing you want on in the background while you sort out the recycling.

6 – Switched At Birth (ABC Family):

The gist: Adolescent angst pours forth when two families discover that their daughters, now teenagers, were accidentally switched at birth. Adding to the drama is the fact that the two families are from vastly different ends of the income gap, and the working-class daughter is deaf. The best moments of the show explore the implications of these class distinctions, and the worst moments explore the whiny, self-absorbed, boring character arc of the wealthy family’s spoiled daughter, Bay. Unfortunately, the members of the wealthier white family are oversimplified into a grating archetypes when there would otherwise be potential for nuance. Daphne (played by Katie Leclerc), as the deaf teenager, counterbalances by giving a great performance, and saves the show.

Follow it if: You love Lifetime movies, but often wish they could be drawn out over several months in periodically released installments.

Wins for: In all seriousness, for putting the deaf community in the spotlight and casting hearing-impaired actors in complex roles. Also, worst solution to an existing problem: Daphne’s family moves into Bay’s family’s guest house at the end of the first episode.

5 – Combat Hospital (ABC):

The gist: Canadian Major Rebecca Gordon, and American Captain Bobby Trang, a pair of attractive military doctors, pitch up at a Nato medical unit in Kandahar in 2006. They encounter the usual cast of medical drama characters – the casually brilliant lothario, the hard-ass boss with a sensitive, caring interior, the sassy but gentle nurse, and the wise, no-nonsense mother figure. Gordon hits the ground running, striving to prove her competence in a masochistic environment, despite the burden of a possible pregnancy and stalker behavior from a mysterious ex-fiancé. Every time she tries to relax, a new emergency situation throws the unit into a panic. Gordon invariably reacts with weary efficiency, keeping her features doe-eyed and completely deadpan. Only occasionally is there a glint of an inner resilience:

At the end of the episode, the non-stop suspense and melodrama prompt her to tell her boss: “You were right. Nothing prepared me for this place.” Apparently she never watched “Grey’s Anatomy.”

Follow it if: You liked ABC’s “Off The Map.” Really – it’s pretty much identical. Or, if you kind of liked “M*A*S*H,” but wished it was less funny.

Best quote: Trang : “Where were ya?”

Gordon: “I’m not allowed to pee?”

Wins for: Best casual integration of a Canadian as a major character. You almost can’t tell.

4 – Misfits (Hulu):

The Gist: It’s your typical superhero show to start. Bunch of delinquent kids get hit by lightning, obtain powers, remain delinquent. Here’s the twist: The show is absolutely, unquestionably badass. The writing is genuinely good. The characters are dynamic. It’s like “No Ordinary Family” if “No Ordinary Family” did every single thing differently.

Follow it if: You like good TV and sentences like…

Best Quote: “Have you ever tried to have sex with a piece of fruit?”

Wins for: Creative British swearing. Your vocabulary will increase tenfold and entirely in the wrong direction.

3 – Suits (USA):

The gist: Genius pot-head Mike Ross (Patrick Adams) stumbles into an interview for an entry-level position at a prestigious law firm while running from the cops during a drug deal. Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht) is the successful lawyer and notorious asshole who decides to give him a chance. Mike must quickly learn to stay afloat while keeping Harvey’s secrets and his own – Mike never actually went to law school, but his photographic memory allows him to conceal that detail.

The writers try hard to make Mike, who is a career criminal, likeable by giving him a dying grandma and a crush on his best friend’s girlfriend. Conveniently, all the people he screws over kind of deserve it – when he cheats a random stranger out of a law school tour, we first hear the guy making bigoted comments.

The stand out performance is from Rick Hoffman, who plays the show’s villain, another attorney in the firm who competes with Harvey for promotions. As Louis Litt, he is so utterly off-putting that you root for the duo of protagonists despite yourself.

Follow it if: This show combines a lot of character tropes that we’ve liked before – the quirky, misunderstood genius, the expertly manipulative charmer, and the pairing of opposites in a buddy comedy. If you like law-firm shows like Boston Legal, chances are you’ll like this.

Wins for: Most continuous justification of the show’s title. Every few minutes the dialogue is punctuated by a mention of suits – why to wear them, where to buy them, how much to spend on them, and what they should look like. Let’s see how long they can keep that up.

2 – Wilfred (FX):

The gist: Man dealt bad hand friends gem with hammy man’s best friend.

Hot damn that sentence was hard to write. Basically, in English, Elijah Wood is terminally depressed, so he tries to OD on some sleeping pills. Then, basically, in English, his neighbor’s dog talks to him and takes him to various different Venice Beach locales to sexually harass waitresses. Actually, let’s amend that: Australian. The dog is Australian. Speaks English, though.

Follow it if: Seriously? You’re having doubts about this show? It’s a man in a dog suit who chases after motorcycles. It’s the best show we’ve seen that’s premiered this summer.

Wins for: It’s basically an entire show with this clip as a premise.

We also like that we can unabashedly be a fan or Elijah Wood now. That makes life easier.

1 – Louie (FX):

The gist: The world’s best comedian gets a half-hour to explore whatever the hell he wants to talk about, as jokingly or seriously as he well feels. The last second-to-last episode of Season 1 punched us right in the heart; left us scrambling for tissues and our Dad’s phone number. The first episode of Season 2 climaxes in a 25-second fart joke. It’s an emotional, gastrointestinal rollercoaster, this one.

Follow it if: You like new forms of TV, sketch shows, saying things about your own children you’d usually reserve for a freshly-broken toaster, being about ten years ahead of how smart people will feel about stereotypes and language. If you have any rooting interest in brilliant people being given a chance on television, watch this show. There’s no talking dog and Jennifer Love Hewitt doesn’t have sex with a fat guy in a bathroom, but it still manages to be in contention for one of the best shows on TV.

Wins for: The little bits of Louis C.K.’s award-winning, life-affirming standup sprinkled throughout the show, like a filthy Seinfeld. We’ve never been persuaded to hate anything as much as we now hate milk cartons because of Louis C.K.

Naivasha D. and Ben Collins write and edit the Hulu Blog at hulu.com.