"It's in Memphis"

Ever since I watched Bugs Bunny on Saturday mornings and Tom and Jerry after school during the week, I've long been a fan of cartoons.

And since King of the Hill, I've been a fan of Mike Judge's cartoons. Hank Hill, and especially Bobby Hill, have always felt to me to be two of the most real and believable cartoon characters ever conceived. And Judge is always willing to reverently skewer everybody, but in that kinder, gentler way that George Bush Sr. would be proud of.

Now, he (Mike Judge, not George Bush Sr.) is bringing us "The Goode Family." Here's a clip:



Now it would be very easy for Judge and company to turn this into a politically correct skewerfest, but from what I've seen they're making their a more complex satire in that not only do we recognize the Goode family as someone we know, but that we recognize the Goode family as part of ourselves. Every one of us believes or adheres to something patently silly, and only rarely do we get climpses of our own silliness. It's in those glimpses that comedy arises, and Judge and crew have proved that they're capable of magnifying these instances to great effect.