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Sneak Peek: Mike Judge's The Goode Family
[via The Live Feed]
King of the Hill survives to 250 with barely a mention
One of TV's most underrated animated shows reached a milestone that has been more ignored than the girl with face herpes at the high school prom.
Mike Judge's brilliant King of the Hill surpassed 250 episodes this past week with barely a mention from the network that kept on the air for 13 seasons.
And it seems a little mean, even for Fox, a network so mean that they run their cars on the tears of crying babies.
ABC vows to bring funny back
The network that brought you Family Matters, Cavemen and is still bringing you the parade of unfunny that is According to Jim wants to bring the sitcom back to its rightful throne on the airwaves. ABC made a solemn vow to bring back more hit, half-hour sitcoms to the airwaves starting with the new TV season, according to Variety.
The network's heads made their announcement at last week's Television Critics Association gathering.
ABC cuts episode order for two NYPD-based shows
Question: how many shows can ABC have that are set in the world of the NYPD?The network already has Life on Mars, and now comes news that ABC has cut the episode order for two other NYPD-based shows. One is Castle, which stars Nathan Fillion as a horror writer who helps the cops solve crimes (yes, another one of those shows). The other show is The Unusuals, which stars Amber Tamblyn and is a comedy about a police station. Maybe it's the new Barney Miller.
Both shows have had the order cut from 13 episodes to 10. They say it's not a quality reasons, it's just that they already have too many shows on the shelf, including Courteney Cox's new show with the horrible title Cougar Town and Mike Judge's new cartoon The Goode Family. They are also interested in picking up King of the Hill, which was just canceled by FOX.
ABC has already said no to a new Alyssa Milano sitcom, which Allison told you about earlier. I'm still kinda ticked they never gave Marlowe a chance.
Still more King of the Hill news
Geez, for a show that was recently canceled there is sure a lot of news about it. First, we heard that King of the Hill was being canceled by FOX at the end of this season (though it will probably remain on the schedule through 2010 because of long-term production of episodes). Then, the lovely and talented Bob Sassone reported that the show could be picked up by ABC, who seems to be in the market for other network programs as of late. Now comes word that repeats (is that term now taboo?) of the Mike Judge series will be heading to Adult Swim's lineup.
That's right. Cartoon Network's older brother will be picking up the 11-year-old program, making it the next-to-last FOX animated series to air on its program schedule (The Simpsons would be the last, and I have no idea if it will ever make it to Adult Swim).
King of the Hill could come back - on ABC
Jason told you about FOX's decision to cancel King of the Hill after 13 years. Now the Hollywood Reporter is, well, reporting that the show could come back on another network.A source at ABC says that the network is interested in picking up the show for another season. And this isn't one of those wacky rumors that doesn't have any basis in reality. A spokesperson for 20th Century Fox has confirmed that another network is interested in the show, though they won't say which one.
This could work out well for show creator Mike Judge. He already has another animated show on ABC at mid-season titled The Goode Family. Hey, if Seth MacFarlane can have a bunch of animated shows on at the same time, why not Judge? Beavis & Butthead could come back!
Maybe NBC should pick up the show, and actually have a half hour comedy that has a track record and a fan base. Or maybe Cartoon Network would be interested in the show?
King of the Hill to end, American Dad renewed
It looks like the Fox "Animation Domination" lineup will be changing. It took FOX long enough to put together a solid two hour block of animated cartoons on Sunday, but now comes word that the tides are a-changing. After thirteen years on the air, King of the Hill will wrap production at the end of this season. Of course, there will be new episodes in the can for airing even into next season. Not to mention that this isn't the first time Hill has been canceled, and ratings now are better than they were then. In fact, executive producer John Altschuler said, "It would be very odd for King of the Hill to not keep going."
At the same time, Seth MacFarlane's "other" show American Dad, has just been picked up for a fifth season. It makes sense for FOX to let King of the Hill go at this time, considering that Family Guy spin-off The Cleveland Show is waiting in the wings. On the other side, though, shouldn't they wait to see if that's going to work before they dump a solid perennial performer like Hill? The way they're going, Seth MacFarlane is going to own Sunday nights.
FOX Sunday animation panel: The Simpsons is still the king - TCA Report
As usual, FOX leaves the best press conference (at least as far as I was concerned) for last. I sat through Karl Rove and Chris Wallace getting contentious with the critics near the end of the FOX News panel (more on that later), Jerry O'Connell and the cast of Do Not Disturb strain to answer questions about a show whose clip reel wasn't all that funny, and the millionaires from Secret Millionaire talk about being poor for a week. All of it was made worth it (and, really, seeing Rove start to get annoyed near the end was fun to watch) so we could see the final panel: all the producers of all FOX's Sunday animated shows.
The first person who spoke up, not surprisingly, was Seth MacFarlane. "Is this where Karl Rove sat? Because I don't want to get AIDS." Wow. Unfortunately, no line that was said after that was as shocking or funny. But it was all still pretty good.
ABC obtains rights to new Mike Judge animated series
Mike Judge has not created a new animated series since 1997. I guess 10-plus years is long enough because he's entered a deal with ABC to create a new series called The Goode Family.The series has a 13 episode order and is being produced by indie studio Media Rights Capital. It is the result of an independent deal between the studio and the writers so it's not affected by the WGA Strike.
King of the Hill: Hank Gets Dusted
(S11E05) In this episode, we learn that Hank's cousin is none other than Dusty Hill, bass player for ZZ Top. If any other show had attempted to do this kind of celebrity crossover, it would have seemed trite, but this episode wasn't so much about Dusty's celebrity status as it was about Hank wanting to keep his family as far away from the glitz and shallowness of the rock and roll lifestyle (Bobby especially).
Since the reality TV genre began, the term "reality" has been given an extra meaning. The truth is, if "reality" shows were actually "real" they'd be some of the most uninteresting shows on television: entire episodes would consist of nothing but people sitting around doing absolutely nothing, people would wonder in and out of frame, and sometimes conversations would be completely inaudible, because in reality, nobody feels the need to project for an invisible audience. I also imagine there would be a lot more nose picking and butt scratching.
King of the Hill gets a decent time slot
Fox is giving King of the Hill a great lead-in: The Simpsons. The network announced that Hank and the gang are sliding back to the 8:30 pm timeslot on Sunday nights starting with the season premiere on January 28. The season premiere sounds pretty goofy. It's called "The Peggy Horror Picture Show" where Peggy befriends a woman with whom she can talk about her girl issues, such as not feeling feminine enough. Little does she know, her new friend has some issues of her own.I often watch King of the Hill reruns on FX in the evenings as I'm making dinner, but I forgot that it's actually still on. When it resumes next month, it will be season 11 for the animated series.
The move from 7:30 to 8:30 bumps War at Home to Thursdays with unfunny 'Til Death. American Dad slides into possible oblivion at 9:30 pm.
A fast Q&A with Ron Livingston and Rosemarie DeWitt of Standoff
On the new FOX drama Standoff, Ron Livingston and Rosemarie DeWitt play Matt Flannery and Emily Lehman, who are partners on one of the FBI's finest crisis negotiaton teams. They also happen to be sleeping together. The show examines how the personal aspect of their relationship mixes in with the high-stakes nature of their jobs. I was able to get a few minutes with the pair before the screening of the show's pilot at the New York Television Festival. Of course, no Ron Livingston interview could go by without my sneaking in an Office Space question or two, which I did at the end:King of the Hill reaches the big 200
I hate to admit it, but if I weren't writing weekly reflections on King of the Hill I don't think I would be watching it. Don't get me wrong, I love King of the Hill, but the show has always been in the most forgettable timeslot imaginable. Despite being essentially tossed aside while shows like The Simpsons and Family Guy are hyped out the wazoo, King of the Hill has remained consistently clever and funny, and May 14 will mark both the end of the season and the show's 200th episode. Thankfully, though, it won't be the end of the series. When this season opened their were rumors it might be the last, but apparently FOX had a change of heart and King of the Hill will be sticking around after all. Executive producer John Altschuler had this to say: "To be blunt, there's not too much that's good on TV. So if you're working on something good, you want to do more." I would say it's that approach that has kept what USA Today calls King of the Hill's "dedicated if small audience" coming back every week. You know, when the show isn't constantly being bumped for NASCAR events.
Another Beavis and Butthead DVD coming in June
Once again, Mike Judge has picked more episodes of Beavis and Butthead for another DVD release,
this time for Beavis and Butthead: The Mike Judge Collection Volume 2, which will hit stores on June 13
(pushed back from June 6, which was previously announced). The set will include forty episodes, including seventeen
never before released on DVD. While there's a million animated shows on DVD I love, I'm especially glad to see
Beavis and Butthead getting the digital versatile treatment. I think Judge's satire of lowbrow youth
culture is one of the most misunderstood cartoons in years. King of the Hill may have seemed like a huge
leap, and it was in many ways, but Judge's knack for creating moments that reveal more than what appears on the
surface was also evident in these seemingly vacuous animated shorts. Oh yeah, and they're freakin'
hysterical, too. King of the Hill: You Gotta Believe (In Moderation)
Damn, I almost missed this episode. Thanks to all these football games I had
almost forgotten they sometimes show actually TV programs on FOX on Sunday nights. I was happy to catch a new episode,
though it wasn't the best episode of the season.TV Squad Hot Topics
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