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!
