In Showtime's "Jamie Foxx Presents Laffapalooza," the very funny Foxx provides national exposure to "up-and-coming," street-wise stand-up comics who may not be ready for primetime -- or even a late-night cable showcase. The new half-hour series on Showtime, taped at the Urban Comedy Arts Festival in Atlanta, comes across as a raging poetry jam rather than a laugh-provoking group of comic routines. The material is blue, with explicit language pounded out as continual punctuation, and loses impact because curse words are used so frequently and in place of real punch lines.

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