Steve Carell, Steve Buscemi, Olivia
Wilde, Jim Carrey, James Gandolfini

Don Scardino

In a nutshell, “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone” is “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby” with magicians, but whatever your feelings may be about “Talladega Nights” (this writer, for one, was not impressed), keep in mind that that description serves solely as a comparison to the story structure. Each features an underdog becoming wildly successful at his craft, only to turn ridiculously spoiled and contemptuous, and then losing everything he ever held dear. The big difference is that the jokes in “Talladega Nights” are born from abuse, while “Burt Wonderstone” takes the high road. Well, for the most part.

Burt Wonderstone (Steve Carell) and Anton Marvelton (Steve Buscemi) have been doing magic tricks together since they were kids, and 30 years after they first met, they have become a premiere act in Las Vegas. Unfortunately, they can’t stand each other anymore, and their box office is starting to wane due to both their lack of chemistry on stage and the fact that they haven’t changed their act (or clothes) in 10 years. The duo is also feeling the heat from Steve Gray (Jim Carrey), a self-mutilating street magician who’s attracting the younger audience that Burt and Anton’s employer Doug Munny (James Gandolfini) desperately covets. After an attempt at an image makeover goes horribly wrong, Burt and Anton split up. Doug then shuts down their show, after which Burt quickly finds himself on skid row, but he finds redemption in the form of the person who inspired him to choose his path in the first place.

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Hey, kids, remember “The Goode Family”? You don’t…? Boy, that’s funny. You’d think you’d remember an animated series created under the watchful eye of Mike Judge, the man behind “Beavis & Butthead” and “King of the Hill,” not to mention such cult-classic films as “Office Space,” “Idiocracy,” and “Extract.”

Oh, wait, I know why you don’t remember it: because it only ran for 13 episodes in the summer of 2009 before ABC axed it.

Thankfully, however, the fine folks at Shout Factory have come through for “Goode Family” fans in the same way they’ve come through for fans of so many other too-quickly-canceled series over the years, offering up a complete-series set which features all of the episodes, including audio commentary from executive producers John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky on several of them, as well as deleted scenes and premises for unproduced episodes. Even better, the aforementioned Mr. Altschuler was kind enough to spend a few minutes on the phone with Bullz-Eye to discuss the series, not to mention some of the other projects he’s worked on over the course of his career.

John Altschuler: So, Will, what can I do you for?

Bullz-Eye: Well, sir, I do this TV column for Bullz-Eye, I’ve more or less got carte blanche to cover what I want, and, dammit, I want to cover the DVD release of The Goode Family: The Complete Series.

JA: [Laughs.] Well, great…I hope!

BE: It is absolutely great. I was a fan for the all-too-few episodes that aired, so it’s been nice not only to revisit the series as a whole but also to listen to the commentaries that you and Dave recorded for the set.

JA: Excellent, excellent. Well, I can’t stand the sound of my own voice, personally, but I hope it wasn’t too bad for you.

BE: No, no, not painful at all.

JA: Well, good!

BE: So to begin at the beginning, as it were, you and Dave actually knew each other well before you first met up with Mike Judge on “King of the Hill.”

JA: That’s right. Dave Krinsky and I go back to…we went to the University of North Carolina together and moved out to L.A…wow, back in ’87! And we just did movies and TV for, y’know, forever, and got hired on “King of the Hill” in its first season, and that’s how we met Mike Judge.

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