ABC's 'The Goode Family' is just plain bad

The Goode Family" (8 p.m., Ch. 4) certainly believes in truth in advertising.

The first line of dialogue in ABC's new animated series is, "Look who's got elephant dung!"

That pretty much sums up the show.

"Being good is so hard," says the Goode family matriarch, Helen, while she's wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the motto, "Meat is Murder."

Oh, and she lives by the motto WWAGD — What would Al Gore do?

The concept behind "Goode" isn't bad. The idea is to lampoon all things politically correct — and the Goodes are certainly all things politically correct.

But this new series from "King of the Hill" and "Beavis & Butt-head" creator Mike Judge has all the subtlety of a bulldozer. If the Goodes weren't vegans, we could call it ham-fisted.

And the show's great flaw is it's just not funny. It's not even mildly amusing.

Funny makes up for a lot of other shortcomings; not being funny makes all those shortcomings more obvious.

Gerald Goode (voiced by Judge) is a college administrator; his wife, Helen (Nancy Carell), is a community activist. They're so politically correct that they went out of their way to adopt an African baby — and were shocked when they discovered the infant was South African (and white).

They name him Ubuntu (Dave Herman) nonetheless, and he's kind of a monosyllabic moron who just got his driver's license and would rather drag race than erase his carbon footprint.

Teenage daughter Bliss (Linda Cardellini) is a more typical teen — she's constantly embarrassed by her parents.

And there's plenty to be embarrassed about. In tonight's premiere, Helen worries that her daughter is sexually active — and she's panicked by comments from a couple of catty women at the organic food store who tell her she needs to be having intimate conversations with her daughter.

"Otherwise, who is she going to learn about sex from? The Internet? The Pussycat Dolls? Oh, it's skanky out there, Helen," says one.

"Or the other extreme is even worse. She could be influenced by some sexually repressed religious fanatics," says the other.