Mottola, Pegg and Frost assembling A-list comedy

After the pure disaster that was Mitch Hurwitz's "Sit Down, Shut Up" (though out of loyalty, I did watch every episode that made it to air, hoping against all evidence that it would somehow get better ... it didn't), I could certainly use a smart and funny animated offering for my summer viewing slate. And I have a feeling Mike Judge has just the right thing with "The Goode Family," coming to ABC at 9 tonight.

According to Variety: What "King of the Hill" did for Texas rednecks, Mike Judge and crew accomplish with Prius-driving tree-huggers in "The Goode Family" -- a smart, wryly funny animated comedy that's going to need a strong word-of-mouth campaign to flourish.

Sounds great to me, and it also features wannabe freak Lindsay Weir, a k a Linda Cardellini, so I'm definitely in.

But the coolest news I saw this morning is about what Greg Mottola, who's quickly becoming one of my favorite directors, is cooking up starting very soon.

But first a look at his track record. As for this year, I'd say there have already been a surprising amount of good-to-great movies, with my list so far being: "Coraline," "The International," "Watchmen," "Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail," "Duplicity," "Sin Nombre," "Moon" and "Tyson," with the best two of all being "Star Trek" and Mottola's "Adventureland." Though it thoroughly tanked at the box office, that flick starring Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart and a very funny Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig was just a real charmer that moved at a naturally entertaining pace.

And before that, of course, he made for my money the best comedy of 2007 with "Superbad." I just watched that one again with that instant "play" feature on Netflix (man, is that addictive), and I have to say the B story about the cops played by Hader and Seth Rogen, which I initially thought was the far weaker of the two, has really grown on me. And, coincidentally enough given what's to follow here, I'm now waiting for "Spaced," starring Simon Pegg, to arrive in my Netflix mail, hopefully today.

Now to finally get to the main course, Mottola is next directing veryfunnyguys Pegg and Nick Frost in something called "Paul," from a Pegg/Frost script. The road trip flick is about two British geeks (Pegg and Frost, natch) who set out on a road trip from Comic Con to Area 51 and manage to encounter an actual alien named "Paul." And the flick, set to start shooting in June, is quickly attracting an A-list cast.

Rogen will provide the voice of Paul, and he'll be joined by Wiig, Hader, Jason Bateman and the seemingly ubiquitous Jane Lynch. As I said earlier, Mottola is rapidly becoming one of my favorites, and with this crew I don't see how this can be anything but extremely funny, so keep your eyes on it. And with that, I have to get ready for the job that still actually pays me a little scratch each week. Peace out.