MIKE JUDGE TOONS UP FOR ABC

By Jeremy Smith
Published Today

If Mike Judge can't be a success on the big screen, he'll just go back to the small one and make a ton of money for whatever network is lucky enough to have him. And while King of the Hill enjoys its twelfth season on Fox, ABC will has wisely elected to hook up with Judge for a thirteen-episode order of his latest animated comedy, The Goode Family.

I'm wary of taking Variety's word on anything (they've apparently laid off their fact checkers), but I'm pretty sure they're correct in stating that The Goode Family will be ABC's first animated series since Kevin Smith's Clerks. Hopefully, they treat Judge's show better than they did Smith's. There isn't much out there in the way of details on Goode; all we know thus far is that the show centers on a family of do-gooders "that tries to do the right thing in all facets of life". Sounds like a scenario ripe for sociopolitical satire. And, if handled poorly by ABC, something that should be canceled within four episodes.

Judge is teaming with the ubiquitous Media Rights Capital (MRC) and two of his executive producers from King of the Hill, John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky. MRC signed one of those handy interim agreements with the WGA, so scripts for The Goode Family are already being written. The company is also prepping a half-hour sitcom for David Koechner, which makes me very happy (even though I just saw him completely wasted in yet another studio comedy this evening).

For Judge's sake, I hope The Goode Family is yet another small screen success. Anything that gets his confidence back up for another stab at the movie business. And if all else fails, he can always fall back on inducing farts out of Wee Man.