was as good as King of the Hill sucked. I probably won't watch the Goode show...

Mike Judge sure has made the most of what started off as an MTV stunt (Beavis & Butt-head).

The Beavis & Butt-head movie had one of his earliest takes on liberalism, the therapy/hippie style teacher who leads the kids in an acoustic-guitar song called "Lesbian Seagull."

I'm surprised it took so long for this kind of show to come around... talk about ripe pickin's ! I'll be tuning in.

TOC

I'm surprised it took so long for this kind of show to come around... talk about ripe pickin's ! I'll be tuning in.

TOC

After the past eight years the whole "liberals are the real fascists" thing just doesn't fly anymore. It's all he's turned "King" into.

Agreed. The last King of the Hill was so insulting to Canadians it was beyond gratuitous flag waving. Judge can shove it - I'm done with him. He's turned into someone he should be parodying.

but, i get tired of anti-political folk telling anyone who cares about anything that they are "uptight".

...If the formula is as basic as 'King of the Hill' (Every week Hank's feeble(but not hyperbole funny like Homer's) mind is challenged with a relatively mainstream, yet new to him, idea which we then watch him come to terms with.*YAWN*) then I probably won't find it too enjoyable, which is a shame because lets face it, a whole family driven to be PC and earth-friendly, which given our free-market economy and lets face it, pure laziness is a monumental chore, is absolute comedy gold. The shame part is if it fails it'll be blamed on libs not having a sense of humor.

If they didn't sandwich 'King of the Hill' between the 'Simpsons' and 'Family Guy' it would never be watched.

the letters prove that salon readers have no sense of humor

The only reason people still embrace The Simpsons is that they came to love the characters. There was, at one time, some love for King of the Hill because Hank Hill showed some personal integrity and love.

On the other hand, the only reason people watch Family Guy is the outrageous jokes. The jokes come fast and thick and they don't mean a thing. It embodies one of Seth McFarlane's few consistent things; his treatment of Meg as an ugly, unloveable (even by her parents) thing is the emblem of his misogyny.

Judge apparently felt that making fun of the politically correct crowd, and taking a Limbaugh line, is the way to success. If you can't like the characters, this show will die an early death.

I must agree with mjwalker. Not everything has to be a political manifesto. Sometimes we need to get over ourselves!

I'm one of those liberals that could be made fun of, and yes, I've noticed MJ does a lot of that on KOTH. But I have a feeling that if I were conservative, I'd feel the same way. I think he's just as hard on both sides. I mean, remember the now deceased Cotton! Maybe it's just that we expect that from a (once)hip cartoon, so it doesn't stand out as much.

One of the things I've always liked about the show is that the guy is on the inside - he hits the nail on the head so often that it reveals he really knows what this stuff is all about, whether it's the Christian "hell house" back in season whatever, or the environmentally intense teacher. To be able to make fun of anything this well, you need to be pretty familiar with it and understand why it matters to people. And usually, you have to admit, the solution in the end is compromise.

I suspect I'll feel the same about this show - from what Heather says, it sounds like it's basically a sympathetic portrait of people trying to live by their ideals but not always knowing how. That's true of all of us, I think, and as somebody before me hinted, we probably all need to have a finger pointed at us from time to time to keep us from taking ourselves too seriously.

not funny.

The Goode's sound a bit like the Hill's Asian neighbors, the Khans. Sucked into a dream they don't really understand, they constantly go bust. (I recently picked up a New Yorker and every cartoon is a joke about the economy). This one should be a joke on the economy, made in Judge-like terms, perhaps. Liberals have very different ideas about how they spend their money, free range chickens, etc. The rub is how do you keep yourself eco-friendly during a recession.

You'll be correspondingly furious that you believe that everyone besides you will think this is real

And I LOVE shows that cleverly skewer my own demographic. "The Birdbot of Ice-Catraz" Futurama episode is one of my all-time favorite animated cartoon episodes, like ever. If you haven't seen it, you must go watch it. Right now.

HH's description SOUNDS funny (Che the Vegan Dog? "The important thing is that you feel guilty about it"? Farm-raised catfish in a constant ethical limbo?) but I have mixed feelings about Mike Judge. He's pretty much right-on hit, or else craperific miss.

Guess I'll have to watch and see...

Come on, this started back in the 80s with Alex P Keaton. It's been done to death. I'll bet there are Prius jokes! Ha ha, Prius jokes have only been around since... since the Prius came on the market. And these jokes will show the owner as being self-satified. They won't show the Prius zooming off in the HOV lane while people sit stuck in traffic in the other lanes, because that isn't stereotypical.

Television eventually tired of shows making fun of conservatives (Maude, All in the Family, All's Fair, etc). Because the jokes weren't funny anymore. They'd been beaten to death. And we're still getting new shows making fun of environmentalists, people who want to save gas and who don't want to eat hormoned-up chickens?

Puh-leeze. It's been beaten to death.