The Goode Family

I only discovered "The Goode Family" (TGF) this past week and have been gobbling up past episodes with abandon through YouTube. What a hoot they are.

Nobody remembers that the term "political correctness" was actually coined by the Left before it was hijacked by the GOP and the right-wing in the late '80's. Originally it was meant as a humorous check on ourselves and a term of endearment and self-mocking rather than the derisive put-down of others it mutated into. I like to think that TGF is a continuation of that gentle spirit of PC which softens the edges of political rhetoric that can cut deeply and easily alienate.

Episodes around the politics of being a "football family," public radio, One Earth food stores (a stand in for Whole Foods), eco-terrorism, graffiti tagging and cult icons of frugality and consumer waste hit many of the right spots. For someone who has spent the majority of his adult life in Madison, WI, New York City and Seattle, WA while visiting Portland/Eugene, OR and Berkeley, CA, these shows really do touch on life in these communities no less in need of skewering than people in suburbia or Texas.

While I wouldn't say that the series is yet a subcultural must-see, it bears watching and deserves getting picked up and given more time to develop. TGF reminds me of the first season of Seinfeld where they were just getting characters and themes established. While not as out-and-out shocking and stupid (in a funny way) as Beavis & Butthead, TGF is clever and there is some potential here for very good humor.

To start off, this show is no King of the Hill. After watching the first four episodes consecutively, I am left with sadness and a feeling that the legacy and comedy of King of the Hill will not be coming back into this show. It is true that all good things must come to an end at some point, but that is not to say that The Goode Family isn't a good thing. It does have it's high points, such as poking fun at what is now considered to be the good American mentality, has characters that resemble King of the Hill characters (i.e. their neighbor who resembles Hank Hill in almost all ways except he's black), realistic animation such as that in King, as well as some plain old funny moments. But it's not laugh out loud funny. There's no crazy moments or situations that drive the episodes, and the characters are hard to get into.

I know I've compared this show to King of the Hill a lot, but quite frankly it's all I can think of. Even if I had never seen King I'd still probably say the same stuff as mentioned above. The show isn't genius. It had a wonderful idea and when I heard about the characters' personalities I thought that the show had a great chance. But it's just not that good. But at this point in the game it's a little to early to tell,

Shame on FOX for getting rid of one of the, if not the greatest animated comedy of all time.

This show did not get enough time on the air to catch everyones attention. One season does not give this show justice. I felt I was just getting to know all of the characters and now I can only imagine who they would have become. It was a unique show working with ideas I haven't seen in any animated show before. Mike Judge is always doing good work and I hope this show can get picked up on another station someday. But for now we can all catch the reruns on Comedy Central! I mean doesn't everyone remember when Family Guy was cancelled and how big of a following it received while it was off the air? It was too bad that King of the Hill ended in 2009, but then this show comes on and I felt a little better because it was still the same animation and some of the same humor.

Witty,erudite,scathing and very very funny. Anyone who has seen Idiocracy,Office Space or King Of The Hill will know Mike Judge as a satirical iconoclast of the highest stripe.

In this,his new series he once again hits societal taboos square on, scoring bull's eyes everwhere he aims!

The Goode family are a painfully earnest PC family striving to accommodate every "right on" trend that rears its pompous head in modern America. From the side splittingly creepy father/daughter abstinence mock marriage plot line to the harpy like eco-moms backbiting in the local one world market to 'Che' the long suffering forced vegan of the family(it's the dog!)Judge once again shows that he is one of the most underrated of comic writers working today,

All of the Judge trademark touches are here as well as the real beating heart of all his work namely the realism(broadly speaking)of his characters,sure the family are precious and trendy wannabe hipsters but Judge invests them with real warmth and treats them with the same sympathy and understanding that made Hank Hill and the rest of the Arlen citizens so accessible and likable.

Like KOTH the characters in this show are all grounded in the real world(unlike almost every other cartoon series out there)and as a result the situations the family finds itself embroiled in are all too familiar and all the funnier for it.

Style wise the animation is close to KOTH and is all the better for it,the pilot shows great promise and i have my fingers crossed that the summer debut and the Wednesday night slot do not portend an early demise for this show that already has so much potential.

UPDATE:6/12/09 Well it seems i was unfortunately prescient when i mentioned the possibility that the networks would not give this show a decent runout and it seems they have shifted the show to a Friday night and the start time to a half hour earlier,one can only hope this is not the beginning of the end for this very tasty show,only time will tell. I urge everyone to put the word out about this show or its gonna be this years Stroker and Hoop!

Satirically making fun of the far left. Not in anyway that's too tasteless. I'd say the characters are a bit over the top, it needed more time to lush itself out. The comedy is just far too obvious at times. Unlike King of the Hill the characters are sort of two dimensional. When you lean this far into the satirical side it just feels like a takedown. The characters just aren't very likable as a whole. The main characters feel more like they should be over the top side characters. It's almost the opposite of King of the Hill, but if King of the Hill was only Dale. I wouldn't recommend it, but if you feel like throwing some background thing on go for it.