“Starved”

Tonight at 10 on FX

(one garbage can)

WHEN actor/writer Eric Schaeffer went to pitch “Starved” to FX, the meeting should have gone something like this:

Studio boss: “OK, you have one minute to pitch your sitcom.”

Schaeffer: “It’s like ‘Seinfeld’ for the bowels. See, there are these four friends in Brooklyn, three guys and a woman, who all have eating disorders – and feelings of self-loathing.

“When they get together, they discuss how they eat from garbage pails, as well as the, er, ins and outs of anal sex. And how to get an orgasm from a high colonic.

“When they aren’t discussing that, they actually have colonics so they can experience and hear in detail from the technician what food excrement is being extracted. And get this (pause for a huge laugh), the audience gets to see the tubes coming out of their anuses! (He stops to catch his breath and wipe the tears of laughter).

“We bash the NYPD, too – but in a funny way. Right?

“The cop, he’s a bulimic who loves to scare hapless Chinese delivery men off their bikes and force them to hand over their food deliveries so he can steal them and binge out on moo shoo pork.

“After the binge? Hahaha! He throws up all over a pathetic homeless man – and we show it!

“For extra laughs, I have the pals attend this hilarious eating-disorders group where they are called disgusting names.

“And just to guarantee endless laughs, the ‘girl’ is a bisexual bulimic with a verbally abusive gay father who is a repulsive drunk!

“The dialogue is peppered – get it? ‘Peppered’? – with lots of excrement talk, and you’ve got my …”

Studio Boss: “Stop! I said ‘sitcom’!”

Schaeffer: “Sitcom?” I though you said … oh God, I’m so embarrassed!”

Head bent, writer leaves in shame and disgust. Fade to black.

Unfortunately, the meeting didn’t go that way.

Instead, FX gave this sit-no-com the green light. So hide the kids because everything written above will hit your TV screens tonight.

FX, which is always looking to push the envelope, seems to have pushed the plunger on this one instead.

As for the characters? To know them is to loathe them.

There’s Billie (Laura Benanti), a recovering bulimic/anorexic entertainer; Sam, a Wall Streeter and recovering anorexic (played by series creator Schaeffer); Adam (Sterling K. Brown), a not very recovered bulimic cop; and Dan (Del Pentecost), an obsessive over-eater and writer.

Mostly the friends meet at the diner (haven’t we seen that before?), where the guys take their penises out and weigh them on Billie’s food scale. Why, it’s as funny as a case of the runs.

One thing is for sure: If you’re looking for another “Seinfeld,” I’m afraid that “Seinfeld” has left the diner.