"Kick Butt” Started

Disney's new animated show "Kick Buttowski" is for kids who already understand things their parents wish they didn't and yes, there probably was a time when a show aimed at 6- or 7-year-olds didn't assume that audience knew the phrase "kick butt."

Kick looks to be about 6 or 7 himself, though, like many kid action heroes, he talks like a 30-year-old. He fancies himself the world's greatest stunt man and daredevil, which means he does all sorts of crazy and totally unsafe things.

“Kick is very self-aware,” he said. “He’s very confident and aspires to do big things. What I hope kids walk away with is that he’s funny and almost indestructible, but he sets goals. And kids can do that. They don’t have to be enormous goals, they can be small goals.

In a good way, His posse starts with Gunther, who is occasionally called his "wing man" but is more like the loyal Tonto to Kick's Lone Ranger. Gunther probably has more personality than Kick, and if this show ever hits big, Gunther could probably lobby for his own spinoff. They get periodic support from their teenage slacker friend Wade, who refers to Kick as "Daredevil Dude."

Kick's adversaries include his older brother, Brad, his spoiled sister, Brad's dim-witted friends and his clueless parents.

His adventures are compact, with two 11-minute stories in each half-hour, and he has some endearing quirks, like reciting vowels as he hurtles through space after some misguided stunt has gone awry.