#family-comedy

#family-comedy

Two decades after taking its final (and ever chaotic) bow, Malcolm in the Middle is returning with a revival series. And if you're wondering how the titular genius and his family are doing, the reboot's title, Life's Still Unfair - a nod to the original show's theme song - should give you an idea. But behind the scenes, things were much cheerier. "It was the first time in my entire life that, when I was done filming the reboot, I was happy to call myself an actor," Frankie Muniz recently told Peopleof reprising his role as Malcolm. He also said reuniting with his TV family felt like "not a single day went by."

Could the students who snickered their way through those first SpongeBob adventures have foreseen the franchise persisting 25 years on, even after metabolising the most lysergic pharmaceuticals? Such longevity is partly down to extra-commercial considerations, in that the series has a capacity for tickling adults' funny bones possibly even those now fully grown students as well as the very young. Though it can't claim anything quite as unexpected as the David Hasselhoff cameo in 2004's The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie not so much a high bar as an unforgettably wonky one feature four thinks nothing of making Clancy Brown talk like a pirate while handing royalty cheques to Barbra Streisand and Yello. Anything can still happen in Bikini Bottom.

For instance, the film contains arguably Bill Murray's best semi-dramatic performance in years, on a par with his melancholy, haunted and yet still droll-dry turns in Rushmore and Lost in Translation. Here he plays Leftie, an east coast mobster, once a bit of a capo but now semi-retired ever since he handed over the reins of the family business to his son Johnnie (Michael Angelo Covino). Something explained only later has brought Leftie back into the killing people business,