I am not one for celebrity roasts, but I am looking forward to this Comedy Central skewering of Charlie Sheen.

Since his character was killed off on the hit television series “Two and a Half Men,” Sheen has been making himself roastworthy.

Enjoy this clip of the Sept. 19 show, featuring “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane:

But Hulu Plus can’t show subscribers all of the episodes of all the shows in Hulu’s catalog. Rights issues mean that certain shows will flit on and off the service, and it’s up to subscribers to figure that out for themselves.

Example: “Modern Family,” ABC’s award-winning hit sitcom, disappeared from both Hulu and Hulu Plus this summer after its first season. Now it’s back. But both services are only offering shows from the current season–there’s no way to go back and catch up on last year’s shows, even if you’re paying.

I think, but haven’t been able to confirm, that this has to do with DVD sales for the show, which is produced by News Corp.’s (NWS) 20th Century Fox. I’ve got queries into both Fox and Disney’s (DIS) ABC to try to confirm.

Meantime, here’s what Hulu has to say:

Yes, the first season of Modern Family is no longer on Hulu Plus. We acknowledge this can sometimes be confusing for TV fans, so we do all we can to provide as much advance notice as possible when shows are slated to come down. Below is an example from our Saturday Night Live show page on Hulu Plus. You’ll notice it says “New episodes are posted Sunday afternoons and are available for 17 days.” This is consistent across all our content.

Of course, we keep content on Hulu and Hulu Plus for as long as possible. We can’t offer a specific reasons why a particular video may be taken down, as streaming clearances differ from show to show.

And sure enough, if you head to each show’s Hulu page, you’ll find a different set of availabilities.

Regular Hulu users can only see the last five episodes of “The Family Guy,” for instance, while Hulu Plus subscribers can see all nine seasons. But even if you’re a paying customer, Hulu can only show you five episodes of “The Simpsons,” period.

Meanwhile, the last season of “Lost” fell off both the free and paid services last month, and the other five seasons will go away at the end of the year. Etc.

To be fair to Hulu, it’s certainly not the only service negotiating the frustrating rights/windows patchwork. Everyone who deals with digital media has to navigate this stuff. And none of it makes sense to viewers who just want to watch their shows, when they want to watch them.

But the patchwork is a bigger deal for Hulu, because the service’s primary pitch is that it’s a one-stop shop for all your TV viewing (or at least your broadcast TV viewing). Instead it’s really closer to a half-stocked Super Target: There’s a lot of stuff in there, but you still may not find what you need.

Hulu competitor Netflix (NFLX) offers lots of TV shows via its paid streaming service, too. But it pointedly doesn’t play up the presence of any particular show–Reed Hastings and company simply tell consumers that they’ll find shows they like.

But if you’ve ponied up $10 a month for Hulu Plus and find that you still can’t watch a show that aired a few months ago, you may not be cool with that at all.

Gaps in Hulu’s free service may not be as frustrating for users, because they’re not out any cash. But it is a problem for the joint venture as it ponders a public offering, premised on the notion that its TV partners/owners–ABC, Fox and GE/Comcast’s NBC–are in it for the long haul.

But if Hulu can’t tell users that it has all the rights it needs, how can it convince investors?

Meanwhile, a similarly confusing story:

Perhaps both.

The Web video site is getting ready to roll out its much discussed subscription offering of $9.95 a month, the Los Angeles Times reports. That jibes with chatter I heard earlier this week, though I’m not yet convinced this is a done deal.

But for argument’s sake, let’s say the report is correct, and the joint venture between GE’s (GE) NBC, Disney’s (DIS) ABC and News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox is about to test a premium plan. If they are doing so at $9.95 a month, it’s possible they’ve ended up with a price that will make both consumers and network TV guys unhappy.

How’s that?

$9.95 a month–$120 a year–is an awful lot to pay for free TV. Industry sources expect the initial plans for “Hulu Plus” to focus on access to a deep catalog from its broadcast TV owners. So instead of just getting the most recent five episodes of, say, “Family Guy”–those will still be available for free on regular Hulu–you’ll get an entire season or more.

If you’re really, really into a couple shows that run on ABC, NBC or Fox, then perhaps a Hulu subscription makes more sense than buying the shows on DVD or downloading them from iTunes.

But if you’re really into “Mad Men” on AMC or “Justified” on FX (which is great), or anything else on cable, Hulu Plus may not do much for you. And at the same time…

$9.95 a month doesn’t go that far once Hulu pays the bills. TV executives expect that Hulu will need to hand over something like $1 to $1.50 per subscriber to each of its network owners. Because that’s the same price the broadcast networks are trying to extract from cable TV operators in “retransmission” fights (see: ABC vs. Cablevision). And that money is worth a whole lot more to them than Hulu subscriptions. Which means the TV guys can’t undercut themselves on the Web.

So Hulu will need to pay out something like $3 to $5.50 off the top for every $10 it brings in. And then it has to shoulder the streaming costs, billing costs, customer service costs, etc.–figure a couple bucks a month more for that stuff. That gets you something like a 30 percent gross margin, which is nothing to brag about.

And what happens if Hulu wants to expand the service and add shows from other providers? It will either have to cut into its thin margin to pay for the programming or raise its rate above $10 a month. Which is already a lot to pay for free TV.

There are a few things Hulu and its owners can do to make Hulu Plus more attractive. Offer the service on more platforms, for one, like Apple’s iPad. And tinker with “windows,” so that Hulu subscribers get to see stuff before the freeloaders.

But moving windows is a good way to confuse/piss off most users, who don’t have any interest in digital/analog TV economics and just want to watch shows.

Also, access to Hulu on the iPad seems a bit less valuable given that Disney’s ABC, one of Hulu’s owners, is already giving away free access to its shows via a very popular app. Industry sources says Hulu CEO Jason Kilar tried desperately to get ABC not to introduce its free app for this very reason.

But while Disney is a minority owner in Hulu, Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs is the largest individual shareholder in Disney. If you want to connect the dots on that one, you’ll be doing the same thing everyone else in TV Land is doing.

BoomTown’s week began onstage in front of thousands of chanting women. No, Kara wasn’t filling in for Oprah; she was doing something much cooler. She got snagged to moderate a panel entitled “Changing the World Through the Web” at Maria Shriver’s six-year-strong Women’s Conference. Kara’s panel included a group of VIPs from Facebook, Kiva, Blue State Digital–and the Twitterific Ashton Kutcher. With “Mission: Kutcher” accomplished, Kara followed up with the complicated world of MicroHoo and offered analysis on the still-pending search deal. Moral of the story: Commentators should give it time, and Carol Bartz should quit with the Jerry Yang jabs. BoomTown rounded out the week at TEDMED. The conference covered the scalpel’s edge of med tech. And yes, in case you were wondering, synthetic skin feels gross.

Digital Daily covered the real-time search war early in the week when Microsoft’s Bing search folks announced a nonexclusive deal with Twitter to feed on its data stream. The deal did put Bing out front for once, but no one knows if the new info source will turn into profits for either search group. In a post foreshadowing a grisly murder, John reported results from a ChangeWave research study that placed the iPhone within striking distance of overtaking the Blackberry from Research in Motion (RIMM) in the smart-phone market. Okay, maybe it wasn’t that grisly, but it’s Halloween. Digital Daily rounded out the week by adding the iPhone to the pantheon of cat, dragon, rat and rooster that occupies the rim of your Chinese restaurant placemat. Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone officially made it to China this week, though without its signature Wi-Fi, and at a much heftier price point.

Peter Kafka lives at the crossroads of media and tech, and that’s exactly where he was almost run down by the Windows 7 “Family Guy” episode. Microsoft (MSFT) apparently bailed out of the deal when it took a closer look at what was actually inside. From the “not so fast” files, Peter covered a report from Interpublic Group (IPG) noting that ad revenue isn’t quite as sunny as some have suggested. Grim economic times caught up to AllThingsD’s big brother late in the week when The Wall Street Journal closed its Boston bureau. The move resulted in nine job losses, despite significant resources being poured into the paper by parent News Corp. (NWS).

The leaves are changing color over at Personal Technology, and Walt sensed that chill in the air meant it was time for his annual fall computer-buying guide. Operating-system choice was a big discussion; but he also touched on the latest must-haves in the memory, graphics, processor and form-factor categories. With a cup of Earl Grey tea to fend off the autumn chill, Walt trudged out to Mossberg’s Mailbox this week and came back with a fistful of letters. He dutifully replied to a question about migrating Microsoft files to a Mac running windows, offered clarification on the Windows 7 upgrade process, and weighed in on the rumor of a pending Apple device below a laptop but above an iPhone.

Katie finished it all off with a deep dive on the two latest netbooks. The HP (HP) Mini 31 and the Nokia (NOK) Booklet 3G both offer high style compared with their competitors, and each boast much higher screen resolutions than previous models. Though she came down on the side of the Nokia, Katie remarked that neither option would disappoint.

Bundle up as you head out for tricking and treating, and learn from Weekend Update’s mistakes. Remember to check and make sure that scary face is actually a mask before you bring that new friend home.