Tonight Fox will run the series finale of King of the Hill, the saga of Hank and his gang of associates living in their exurb paradise of Arlen, Texas.  King has a helluva a pedigree.  It was created by fellow UC San Diego grad Mike Judge, who also developed the criminally under-appreciated Beavis and Butt-Head.  The co-creator was Greg Daniels, who previously worked on The Simpsons  and wrote the classic Lisa’s Wedding episode.  Together, they made King the most subversive comedy on television.

Hank is the archetypal anti-free spirit, an assistant manager at a local company selling “propane and propane accessories” with a wife, Peggy, who thinks she speaks fluent es-pan-nole, and a son, Bobby, who looks like a bag of potatoes with two feet and a head.  Hank loves his quiet life, and the mere idea that someone might consider him “cool” would terrify him – Hank likes routine, calm and the occasional Alamo beer.   And he’s perhaps the fussiest heterosexual character in television history – about his lawn, about his tools, about his abnormally narrow urethra.

But the true glory of Hank is his eternal conflict with those who somehow feel morally empowered to stick their noses into his life.  All Hank wants is to be left alone, but a never-ending stream of know-it-all petty fascist bureaucrats, nanny-state meddlers and smarmy government twerps with more authority than common sense are determined to get in his face.  Hank, you see, doesn’t understand his immense need to be changed and modified and improved by the forces of enlightenment. 

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The beauty of King is that while it pokes fun at Hank’s myriad foibles, it understands the creepy nature of those who dedicate their lives to interfering in the lives of others, always claiming the moral high ground yet inevitably maximizing their own personal power and advantage.  From snooty school guidance counselors to pompous college professors to lazy municipal clerks, Hank is constantly beset by nimrods trying to force him to conform to their personal vision of how he should be.  He usually responds as any good American would – with an exasperated threat to “kick your ass.”  There were probably more than a few Hank Hills at Lexington and Concord.

Hank also embodies a kind of glorious naïveté, the shameless love and admiration for our country and its principles that would make a goateed hipster snigger.  Hank is the type of guy who would show up at a town hall meeting about health care and ask where the Constitution says the federal government has any business at all getting involved with him and his doctor.  The politician would roll his eyes – what kind of hick thinks the fact that the Constitution doesn’t empower the feds to take over health care is an argument against doing so?  You know, kind of like in real life.

The beauty of King is that it made no apologies for the Hanks of the world.  Liberals with a wide range of life experience living on the coast tend to think of those parts of America that stretch between Manhattan and Manhattan Beach as a sinister breeding ground of banjo-strumming inbreds aching to drag their terrified meterosexual victims off to a revival meeting.  Not quite – if you really want to take a risk, hang with a liberal icon.  Hank Hill wouldn’t have left a passenger in his truck at the bottom of a pond – but he wouldn’t have been heading to the beach with a gal pal for a personal pork barrel project in the first place.  If your daughter’s car broke down on the side of the road at night, you’d pray for one of the Hank Hills of this country to be the one to pull up beside her.

While King of the Hill will now be reside in syndication, Judge is continuing his campaign of subversion with the new film Extract and – assuming it gets revived on a new network – the conservative-friendly series The Goode Family, while Greg Daniels continues to work on the American version of The Office.  King never got the kind of street credit that the more surreal The Simpsons received.  A show where the husband was usually the wisest guy in the family and where traditional values seem to lead to happiness just doesn’t cut it with the hip crowd. 

King was never cool, which was kind of the point.  It had to get by on doing its job, which was being funny.  “Doing its job” – that kind of sums up Hank Hill, and the rest of the folks like him who make this country work.

Proving once again its claim to the hotly contested title of Stupidest Television Network, ABC has canceled “The Goode Family” and “Surviving Suburbia,” continuing their business strategy of desperately trying new things and failing to give them a chance to succeed.

No wonder the cab/sat USA Network actually beat ABC (and the CW network) in the national ratings last week. USA’s formula of original series with unusual but likable characters and sound values carries consistently impressive audience appeal.

Although the ABC cancellations were expected–given the fact that the network had brilliantly moved both series to Friday night, a network television Dead Zone, thus guaranteeing that the shows would not be able to generate an audience over time–they nonetheless prove that ABC hates anything with decent values and ideas and cannot appreciate good, solid entertainment with real sense (Castle being the rare exception).

Expertly produced by Mike Judge (“Beavis and Butthead,” “King of the Hill,” “Office Space”), the animated sitcom “The Goode Family” expertly satirized the conformist, braindead nature of much Green thinking and brilliantly identified the movement’s evolution into a commercialized lifestyle. Judge and co. also made merciless fun of countless other aspects of lefty conventional thinking, such as the passion for being seen as encouraging homosexuality and supporting public radio and other big-government nonsense.

They accomplished all this, moreover, while managing to make the central characters likable in spite of the silliness of their pursuits, by emphasizing their good intentions.

Naturally, Disney-owned ABC, widely known as the “gayest” network and a tireless promoter of statist hedonism, couldn’t tolerate the program once it realized what Judge and co. were actually delivering.

Given the high expense of animated shows, it’s unlikely that “The Goode Family” will be picked up by a cable network. It would seem perfect for Fox, of course, but that network seems committed to destroying the last semblances of taste and common sense in this society through its presentation of Seth McFarlane animated shows such as “Family Guy” and “American Dad.”

Like “The Goode Family,” the Bob Saget sitcom “Surviving Surburbia” was a sprightly, often satirical comedy which promoted sound values. Naturally, it couldn’t last on the network that has long promoted itself as the youthful, innovative, clever alternative but has in fact become a stagnant, boring bastion of statist hedonism.

Coming after the cancellation of the interesting and appealingly unconventional police comedy-drama “The Unusuals,” the jettisoning of “The Goode Family” and “Surviving Suburbia” show that even as it plunges ever-further into the ratings basement, ABC refuses to deviate from its evident mission of pushing modern liberalism instead of providing good, appealing television.

Review, debate, discuss back-to-back episodes of ABC’s “The Goode Family”: “Pleatherheads” (9/8c) and “Goodes Gone Wild” (9:30/8:30c).

My interest was piqued even more after reading John Nolte’s post about the New York Times review of the show. Apparently, reviewer Ginia Bellafante had a hard time appreciating the foibles of a family who try so hard to be perfect in how they live and how they relate to their black neighbors that their lives become highly stressful.  To quote The Times:

But the show feels aggressively off-zeitgeist, as if it had been incubated in the early to mid-’90s when it was still possible to find global-warming skeptics among even the reasonable and informed. But who really thinks of wind power – an allusion to which is a running visual gag in the show – as mindless, left-wing nonsense anymore?

I guess Ginia didn’t read about the increasing numbers of Americans who believe that the global warming hype is exaggerated. And regardless of whether they believe it’s true, global warming is currently at the bottom of the list of Americans’ priorities. Poor Al Gore – time for another documentary to hype the masses.

That statement also made me think of the now famous quote by elite Manhattanite and New Yorker columnist Pauline Kael after Richard Nixon’s sweeping presidential victory in 1972: “I don’t know how Richard Nixon could have won. I don’t know anybody who voted for him.” Maybe like Pauline, Ginia needs to get out a little more.

As my husband and I watched the show with our 16-year-old daughter, he told her, “Your mom and I were like that back in the ’90s.” To a certain extent, it was true. We used cloth grocery bags, we were vegetarians (but not vegans), we voted Democrat and saw Republicans as evil incarnate, and drove a Geo Metro, all the while patting ourselves on the back for being so caring and progressive. I even had Greenpeace checks, with a portion of the fee to buy them going toward the organization (shudder). My husband mowed the lawn with a no-gas lawnmower, huffing and puffing as he pushed. One of our neighbors, often when he’d been enjoying a beer or two, would hop on his rider mower and mow our lawn for us, laughing at us – in a good-natured fashion, of course. (When we returned to hilly New England from the flat Midwest, that people-powered mower went the way of the dodo pretty quickly.)

So as my husband and I laughed at the Goode Family, we were also laughing at ourselves and how self-absorbed we were at one time about being “good.” The reason for our “transformation” is fodder for another article at another time.

But The Goode Family has laughs for libs too:  In the premiere episode, mother Helen tries too hard to bond with daughter Bliss by being cool and hip when talking about sex. Creeped out, in an act of rebellion, Bliss invites father Gerald to a father-daughter “purity ball,” where daughters pledge to their fathers that they will keep their virginity until marriage. When they realize what they’ve gotten themselves into, Bliss and Gerald make their escape and Bliss admits to her mother that she didn’t belong with “those people” (Christian goody-goodies).

But libs, like reviewers at the New York Times, just can’t get past the fact that one of their core beliefs – global warming – has been snubbed.

And maybe, just maybe, they have a problem with the fact that while both Gerald and Helen Goode are both bleeding heart liberal weenies, Gerald seems to be the more reasonable one: he mentions the importance of tolerance of others’ beliefs and would rather shop at the less-expensive WalMart-like store than the Whole Foods knockoff, while Helen is much more militant about everything. This flies straight in the face of Hollywood sitcom couples today: the husband is a boorish buffoon, often overweight, who couldn’t tie his shoes much less hold down a job were it not for his wonderful, bright, sexy, witty wife who almost always manages to save the day.

How dare they make a woman look bad?

Overall, the show was fun, and I plan to give it another shot next week.

When Bush and Cheney left office, they became old news. Mocking them now is like making Eisenhower jokes, but that doesn’t stop the occasional hack like Wanda Sykes trotting out tired material. And Obama seems off limits lest anyone wants to look like a buzz kill during the ever-lengthening, forced-fed honeymoon. In fact, the only show that really dared effectively to venture into political mockery consistently this season was South Park.

Mike Judge

And spare me any mention of The Daily Show or The Colbert Report. Both shows kiss the Democratic ass (the donkey, I mean) all week until they realize how biased they’ve become. Then they scramble around to make fun of some minor Dem Congressman for 30 seconds and applaud their own objectivity. Meanwhile, Stewart rages at every conservative cause he can find with the furor (not the wit) of Murrow until he’s called on it. Then he scrambles back into his hole screaming, “I’m only a comic!”

Fortunately, The Goode Family levels the satirical skills of Judge (creator of Beavis and Butthead and King of the Hill) at the taboo supporters of global warming, racial hypersensitivity, animal rights and any other cause over-hyped by self-righteous busybodies.

When critics say it’s the wrong time to make such jokes, it’s exactly the time to make such jokes.

The Goodes live an obsessively “green” existence while obsessing over political correctness until they’re tied in knots. In other words, Judge isn’t attacking cleaning up the environment or treating others with respect. That’s all well and “goode.” He’s teasing those who over-think such choices so much and devote themselves to such thinking so blindly they lose sight of their own well-being and why they were doing it all in the first place.

It’ll be interesting to see how well a show does that deliberately ribs people who often lack a sense of humor. If the reviews we’re seeing so far are any indication, the hard left media had its nose turned up with a collective “You dare to offend me, sir…” before they even saw a screener.

Let’s hope this new show is a success because those same smug critics don’t dare touch a show like South Park because it’s too big for such a tussle. Only decent ratings will get the whiny pundits off Judge’s back now.

Review, debate, discuss ABC’s “The Goode Family” series premiere.  Is it funny?  Is it sharp?  Does it have a future?  Have it out…

A new television animation show will be debuting tonight on ABC, and it has the potential to be really “Goode.”

“The Goode Family” is the story of a politically correct family of environmental zealots and there are two reasons I will give this show a chance. First of all, it is created by Mike Judge. While I did not take part in the “Beavis and Butthead” craze, I was an avid fan of “King of the Hill.”

I’m still disappointed that Hank Hill and his friends are leaving after 13 seasons. In the history of television, there will never be a character as cool and incomprehensible as Boomhauer. Grandpa Cotton was also a feisty one.

“King of the Hill” was about a group of Texans, but did not make fun of Southerners. It made fun of those who misunderstood them. When a Massachusetts client insisted on calling Hank “J.R.,” and asking him to wear a ten gallon hat, Hank coolly replied that “Texas has changed a lot in the last 150 years.” When a touchy-feely liberal wanted Hank to “bond with him,” and “meld their positive energies,” Hank responded for all of Middle America when he said to the do-gooder, “How ’bout I just kick your @ss?”

Hank was just a regular guy who believed in Jesus, the Dallas Cowboys, and propane over charcoal. He was at his best lamenting about his son, saying, “Well I want to hang out with Bobby, but the problem is the boy’s not really good at anything.”

All good things come to an end. Out of “King of the Hill” comes “The Goode Family.”

And here’s reason number two I’ll give “Goode” a chance: It’s hated by the bad and the ugly — that being the Jayson Blair Times. The Jayson Blair Times has become a despicable entity specifically because it treats anybody right of center as either being evil, or a complete imbecile. The examples are endless, but the bad and the ugly coming out of the JBT can be found most recently in their article knocking the Goode.

…the show feels aggressively off-zeitgeist, as if it had been incubated in the early to mid-’90s when it was still possible to find global-warming skeptics among even the reasonable and informed.

Oh, those off-zeitgeist people. Don’t you just hate them?

Being a skeptic is soooo 1990s. Only an unreasonable and ill-informed person could possibly question anything that Al Gore says. After all, he won an Academy Award and a Nobel Prize. He has to be right. Here’s some more pompous drivel from the JBT.

But who really thinks of wind power — an allusion to which is a running visual gag in the show — as mindless, left-wing nonsense anymore?

Apparently Ted Kennedy does. He refused to allow a wind farm in front of his home because it blocked the view off of his Nantucket paradise.

Mr. Judge, who remains obsessed with the insanities of political correctness, still has his head very much in the Clinton years, and it is possible to watch ‘The Goode Family’ feeling so thoroughly transported back to another time that you wonder where all the Monica Lewinsky jokes went. Sometimes you’ve just got to move on.

Move on? This coming from the newspaper that thinks that FDR is in his 20th term? This from the paper that wants to throw President Bush and all of his advisers in jail? This from the paper that still gets page one stories wrong and issues mealy-mouthed retractions on page 37?

This leftist paper not only wants to declare global warming skepticism passe, but political correctness as well.

While it is a shame that Hank Hill will no longer be fighting the good fight, Mike Judge still will be. I expect the show to succeed because Mike Judge understands that while the social message is important, the main goal is to be funny. “King of the Hill” did have mild political overtones, but it lasted 13 seasons because it was likable and funny.

Long live the Goode family. May they triumph over their bad, ugly critics.

eric aka the Tygrrrr Express – blacktygrrrr@earthlink.net

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This owned me at the six-second mark with the bumper sticker that reads, “Support Our Troops … And Their Opponents.”

What’s going on at ABC? First the miniseries “O” “V,” and now this…? Is it…

A. Our Manchurian Conservative Sleeper Agents throughout Hollywood really have been activated?  In case you’re curious, the code word is …  Eisenhower.

B. ABC discovered the sleeper agents and created these false promos to lure we righties in? And oh, the sinister chuckle they will enjoy while imagining our crushing disappointment after both programs are revealed for what they really are.

C. My wife’s correct about how I shouldn’t write about this stuff right after taking my back pills?

Debbie Schlussel has a whole lot more, including additional clips.