The Nevada Sagebrush

Gerald, Helen, Ubuntu and Bliss Goode are the title characters in Mike Judge’s newest cartoon, “The Goode Family.” Photo courtesy of Blue Water Productions/Media Rights Capital.

Last week, I was fortunate enough to receive a phone call from John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky, the comedy duo responsible for much of the hilarity in the cartoon “King of the Hill” and movies such as “Blades of Glory.” In the midst of a push for their latest cartoon, “The Goode Family,” to be granted a second season, the pair spoke with me about comedy in college, the current political climate and writing a successful animated series.

Q: You first worked together on a student-run cable network in college. Could you tell me more about that experience?

Altschuler: Dave and I met at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, and, when we first got there in the ‘80s, they didn’t have any student television. Some people we knew who were enterprising and forward-thinking got together to raise money and awareness, and they got a student channel. So, Dave and I, being opportunists, just took the opportunity and decided, “Let’s put on our own cable comedy show.” We just used all their equipment and put some really stupid stuff together that we found very entertaining, and it allowed us to sort of get a rudimentary reel together before coming out to California.

Krinsky: Now it’s a lot easier to get hands-on experience than it was back then, but there really is no substitute for that kind of experience. Until you really see it and record it, you won’t know it works. Also, especially in this business, it’s so collaborative, and that’s sort of the first step in learning how to collaborate.

Altschuler: It’s interesting because those are the first steps of realizing that it may be perfect in your head, and then, when it’s realized, it sometimes just doesn’t work. That never changes. There’s this interesting gulf between what is in your imagination and what is the physical reality and how it’s connecting. You can only learn that by doing.

Q: How did you end up using animation as the vehicle for your comedy?

Altschuler: You know, very non-determinedly. Dave and I had never worked in animation, we had never intended to work in animation and we were working on a live-action HBO TV show. We came off that show and Mike Judge, who we were big fans of, had just started this show nobody really knew about, “King of the Hill,” and we thought it was great and we said, “We want to work on that.” We got hired, and it was simply that we loved the show. Then, Dave and I took over the show, and we ran it for seven years. Now, sadly to say, we’re kind of animation experts.

Q: Do you feel pressure for “The Goode Family” to live up to “King of the Hill”?

Altschuler: The situation is so radically different. On a quality level, yes. The reason why we’re doing “The Goode Family” is because we just love dealing with the world around us and very few shows do. We try very hard to do what we did on “King of the Hill,” which is to make fun but not mock. When you watch “The Goode Family,” you’re not going to find anything that we haven’t experienced directly or indirectly. It’s all just about people’s real-life experiences filtered comedically. The pressure is to maintain the level of quality, but it’s such a different world these days. Thirteen years ago, there wasn’t the Internet, so if you put a show on TV, you had a good chance of getting a lot of eyeballs, and now it’s a lot harder.

Q: What was the goal that you set when you set out to work on “The Goode Family”?

Altschuler: I think it’s fair to say that we just wanted to be entertained. Most shows, unfortunately, pretty much just do sex jokes over and over and over and over. It gets a little tedious. We wanted to do something that was more interesting and fun and exciting, a little more challenging, a little more cutting-edge. That’s what we get out of “The Goode Family.”

Q: Why do you think that people didn’t latch onto “The Goode Family” right away?

Altschuler: We know the sad answer to that is that we made a big tactical error in that we went with ABC instead of FOX, and we aired in the summer. That was so awful. We were warned not to do this. People’s heads aren’t into watching a new show, and ABC just did not get the word out. There are some people who think that our show is new to Comedy Central. They don’t know that we were ever even on ABC. The good thing is we have a pretty loyal viewership that’s building when loyal viewership that’s building when people see it.

Q: If the show gets a second season, what kinds of things do you hope to develop more?

Altschuler: I think it’s mostly digging into the characters. One thing that people seem to notice is that, every episode, they got a little fuller. They got a little more interesting. We just want to have this great family who are trying to do a good deal with everything from terrorism to global warming to political correctness and also their personal lives.

Q: You compared Helen Goode to Harry Reid regarding the “What do you call minorities?” question. Is that an example of the kind of social climate you hope to poke fun at with the show?

Altschuler: Exactly! I’m not from Nevada; we’re not particularly partisan, but the poor man! I don’t believe he’s a racist. He doesn’t seem like a sharp cookie, but what’s funny is that, for him to say that, you can tell that he didn’t know what to say. Nobody knows what to say. It’s just funny.

Q: How do you feel that this show differs from other cartoons on the air right now?

Krinsky: I think it differs in a lot of ways. “King of the Hill” and “The Goode Family” are similar in that a lot of people think, “Wow, these could almost be live-action shows.” We find that a big advantage, being animated, in that we can go anywhere and do anything, but we still keep it real.

Altschuler: We’re not as jokey, but when people watch a few episodes, they start to really get into the inherent humor and character humor. I guess we’re not as scatological, but what are you gonna do?

Q: How does the work put into a cartoon compare to working in other genres?

Altschuler: It is the most horrifyingly terrible grind you can imagine. Animation is so labor-intensive. Everything is hard work, but with an animated series, every episode takes nine to ten months. I think it’s the hardest thing we’ve ever done.

Krinsky: It really is. It’s strange because all the things you can control in animation, they’re all really difficult. We’ve always said it’s the curse and the blessing. You have nine months to beat a joke, but that means you’re looking at the same joke for nine months.

Q: What do you think are some of your biggest strengths as writers?

Altschuler: The one thing I’ll say is that we try not to bore ourselves. We always try to turn things on their head. We try to look at things differently. It’s a very sad period in comedy because there is such sameness. For better or worse, at least we try to deal with different things.

Q: Do you ever worry about censorship?

Altschuler: None of us like to offend for the sake of offending. If you watched “King of the Hill,” and, actually, if you watched “Beavis and Butt-head,” it’s not wantonly offensive. We actually try never to offend, but we feel it’s important to deal with very touchy material.

Casey O’Lear can be reached at colear@nevadasagebrush.com.

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