"Dilbert" is based on the ridiculously popular comic strip from Scott Adams about a hapless computer engineer. I'm sure there's some sort of ironic message in the fact that stifling office cubicles all across America are adorned with little "Dilbert" strips joking about stifling office cubicles. I'll leave it to Norman Solomon and other pundits to contemplate that one. All I can say is it makes me laugh sometimes. If the first episode of UPN's animated version is any indication, then there are plenty more laughs on the way.

In turning the comic strip into an animated series, producers have opened up the premise quite a bit. Although there are a few jokes stolen from the daily strip, the show doesn't feel like a choppy collection of three-panel jokes strung together. Instead of sticking to the rather limited computer-oriented jokes in the daily strip, Dilbert now finds himself working for a company that manufactures all sorts of questionable products (like an "all natural" anthrax-based throat lozenge). The initial plot features an exasperated Dilbert trying to come up with a name for a product that hasn't been invented yet. The animation allows for more physical humor, and there are some juicy bits on display in "The Name." An all-out office riot in the wake of announced budget cuts, for example, features some very funny background images (such as salarymen dueling with staplers amid the raging inferno).