Last night they re-aired the “My Name Is Earl” pilot in place of a new episode. But there was at least one scene deleted - the explanation of Kenny’s habit of smacking someone on the arm and calling “Dibs” on an attractive haunch. They show him doing it to the “gay’s” father, but not the scene where Earl turns down Catalina’s advances because Kenny called “dibs” on her. It blew a good joke, and it couldn’t have given them more than one extra commercial. I think they cut other parts as well, but I’ll have to re-watch the real pilot to verify. But what was the advantage of taking out an important plot point?
They did cut other jokes. I notied that they cut the flashback of the Homosexual-American meeting the cop outside of the gay bar.
More commercials is my guess.