E! Entertainment's "Party at the Palms" has a new party girl.

Jenny McCarthy steps into her role as "Party" hostess this week, filming at the Flamingo Road resort Wednesday through Friday. She'll be back next week as the reality series wraps up production.

The half-hour show, which premieres June 15, "gives viewers a VIP invitation to go behind the velvet ropes at Las Vegas' hippest resort and the destination of choice for the world's most sought-after young movers and shakers," according to the E! press-release hype.

Although McCarthy's the host, "we don't have to see her addressing the camera," explains executive producer Sean Olsen.

That's in tune with the show's goal to avoid a "standard look-into-the-camera feel," he adds.

On "Party at the Palms," anything and everything goes in vignettes from the Skin pool lounge to the top-of-the-tower ghostbar, from hidden-camera sequences to interviews with guests and employees, "finding out what their stories are," according to Olsen.

Another cable channel, AMC, checks into Las Vegas this week for "Date Night," a series of brief commercial-break segments featuring witty singles discussing themselves -- and the movies they're watching with the home audience.

Some 28 locals are participating in the shoot, which takes place Monday through Thursday.

AMC officials "were really happy with the local talent" they found at a recent audition, reports producer Jeff Lester of Las Vegas-based Big Picture Studios, which is producing the "Date Night" segments for AMC.

Part of the shoot takes place at Big Picture's home studio, where participants will stand in front of a white backdrop and introduce themselves.

The MGM Grand's Terrace Suites, meanwhile, provides a picture-perfect Strip panorama as a background for "Date Night's" trademark red couch, site of the show's cinematic repartee.

Two of the featured movies have definite made-in-Vegas connections: "Honeymoon in Vegas" and "Indecent Proposal." Rounding out the discussion topics: "Fatal Attraction" and "National Lampoon's Animal House."

Previously, "Date Night" has filmed in New York, Los Angeles, Miami and San Francisco. With this shoot, "Vegas is on the map of major cities" serving as filming locations, Lester comments.

Andrea Beckerman, who has helmed previous "Date Night" segments, will direct the spots.

Continuing this week's cable connection, MTV enters the second week of its "Summer on the Strip" residency.

After last week's live kick-off at the Hard Rock Hotel, this week's "Total Request Live" features taped-in-advance segments featuring Jesse McCartney and "Honeymooners" stars Cedric the Entertainer and Gabrille Union (today) and the Pussycat Dolls (Thursday).

But the MTV cameras keep right on rolling, with "Direct Effect" featuring Pretty Ricky at Caesars Palace's Pure nightclub today, with La La as host. Pretty Ricky returns Tuesday for "MTV Hits" (the location hadn't yet been determined by press time), with hosts Susie and Mario. And on Thursday, "DFX" returns to Pure, with host DJ Clue welcoming Common & Boyz N Da Hood.

Taking the MTV shows on the road is "an exciting thing for our viewers," comments Tony DiBari, MTV's vice president of production. When viewers see the shows "in a new background, it adds a little bit more excitement."

Especially when "the content within the shows will definitely have a Vegas feel," DiBari adds.

Also on a musical note, country singer Jeff Bates is in town today to shoot the video for his song "Good People," with planned locations stretching from Apex Road north of town to the heart of the Strip, according to Las Vegas-based location scout Kim Houser-Amaral.

Another music video, this one from locally based Encore Productions, is scheduled to shoot Monday through Thursday at locations ranging from downtown's Fremont Street Experience and Neonopolis to the Strip, plus a private residence.

Turning to overseas projects, Global Vision's "Easy Driver" plans to cruise into town -- following a Death Valley road trip -- for an Italian TV show devoted to "beautiful cars in beautiful places," according to production manager Christina Emma. The beautiful cars are the Lexus RH 400h and the Nissan Frontier, she reports. As for the beautiful place, where else but the Strip?

Local informercial maven Ben Kalb, meanwhile, launches another shoot this week, this one focusing on a flexible ladder capable of three different configurations. Action Sound Stage and a Green Valley residence turn up on this week's itinerary, Kalb reports; Los Angeles-based Matt Lattimore and Anne Marie Howard host the informercial, which features the acrobatic troupe Fuzion.

Filming continues next week in Southern Nevada. Rounding out the list of locations: Monterey, Calif., where the star attraction will be 400-pound bear climbing the ladder.

Shifting from current to completed productions, Henderson-based producer George Ciccarone's HBO documentary "Cathouse" -- and its sequel, "Cathouse II: Back in the Saddle" -- have spawned a weekly series that begins a 10-week HBO run June 16. A former "Current Affair" reporter, Ciccarone produced a $300 pilot at the Moonlight Bunny Ranch brothel in Carson City -- which broke ratings records when it aired on HBO's "America Undercover," becoming HBO's highest-rated reality series, according to Ciccarone.