Last night I caught the premiere of The Goode Family, the lastest animated sitcom from Mike Judge (Beavis and Butt-Head, King of the Hill, Office Space, Idiocracy). The show has some growing to do, but it’s very, very promising.

The Goodes are a Stuff White People Like kind of family. A lot of the jokes, unsurprisingly, come from stereotypes — they’re vegan, eat organic food, fret over the proper names for minority groups, avoid driving (and, when they have to, cruise around in a car labeled HYBRID in huge letters across the side), etc. — but many are considerably more clever. The couple adopted an African baby, but were dismayed to end up with a white South African kid. Then, they decided it wasn’t so bad: They could demonstrate their right-mindedness by raising the child of racist Afrikaners into a “socially conscious” soul. Also, their “vegan” dog makes a habit of eating the neighborhood pets.

One of the subplots involved the couple’s daughter rebelling by attending a purity ball. This led to my favorite bit of dialogue, in which the father (who sounds a lot like the counselor from Beavis) and mother discuss the type of people who participate in such things. Transcribed from memory:

Mother: They wear flag pins! Father: But I thought, since the election, everyone can wear flag pins. Mother: So you’d wear a flag pin. Father: [Pause] No.

The only problem with the premiere was that it felt like every joke had to relate in some way to the family’s yuppie-ishness — not many laughs stemmed from the simple interplay between characters’ personalities. It will be both a blessing and a test when the writers run out of environmentalist gags.

Judge certainly has a track record of keeping his shows fresh, though, so hopefully we can expect many entertaining seasons of The Goode Family.