Los Angeles - US viewers turning to their televisions for comfort and distraction from economic distress might not get what they're looking for these days.

From comedy shows to dramas and reality TV programmes, the traditional haven of fluffy entertainment has veered from the path of mindless escapism to offer recession-hit viewers plenty of sympathy, relevance and righteous indignation.

In the upscale enclave of Wisteria Lane, the glamorous Desperate Housewives are taking part-time jobs to help pay school fees and sympathizing with the owner of the local pizza parlour, who complains about how diners are cutting back.

"When times get tough, people do without things like pizza," says pizzeria owner Lynette Scavo, portrayed by Felicity Huffman.

The new CBS show Flashpoint had an even stronger allusion to the impact of the economic fallout. One recent episode featured a mortgage company executive who received a 22-million-dollar bonus before embarking on a ruthless foreclosure campaign on hundreds of mortgage holders. Three former homeowners then kidnap the executive, and one even douses himself with petrol and threatens self-immolation to join his wife, who has already committed suicide over the financial crisis.

Then there's the uncanny ability of the Simpsons to sum up the absurd realities of everyday life in a single, 25-minute episode. In one recent instalment, the iconic American family lost its home to foreclosure after Homer took out a line of credit to fund a Mardi Gras party. It seemed like a good idea to Homer at the time - because, as he explained, "The house gets stuck with the bill."

The Fox drama Lie To Me even featured a Bernard Madoff-like character in one of its recent episodes, centered on a disgraced financier who swindles investors out of huge fortunes in a Ponzi- scheme.

Even the advertising spots are tapping into the recession genre - from car companies that promise to take your car back if you lose your job to insurers who stress the need to save every penny. In New York, a local TV ad touts a funeral parlour as the only institution you can rely on any more.

Plenty more recession-tinged entertainment fodder is coming down the pipeline.

An ABC series, called Canned, follows what happens when several 20-something friends get fired from an investment bank, while another series will star Kelsey Grammer as a fired Wall Street executive who ditches the world of finance to play "manny" to the family he neglected for years.

The Millionaires Club will focus on a group of average joes who pool their cash for various get-rich-quick schemes, while Waiting to Die will focus on two unemployed friends and the novel ways they fill their days.

But don't go looking for a reprise of such wealth-flaunting shows as Dallas or Dynasty, as the conventional wisdom preaches that the last things Americans want to do at the moment is ogle other people's fabulous lives.

That could be a mistake, says popular culture professor Bob Thompson, who notes that both Dallas and Dynasty debuted during the late 1970s, when the US was suffering from stagflation.

"This assumption that an economic collapse is going to change what people want to see is over-exaggerated," he says. "While we are suffering, we still like to see the vicarious fantasy lives of fabulously wealthy people. People's taste in entertainment doesn't change when they get a pink slip."