Mike Judge’s “Tales From The Tour Bus” Is Coming Back, But It Won’t Be Country
Ever since the animated series Tales From The Tour Bus debuted on Cinemax in September of 2017, it’s been splitting sides and explaining the dark side of country music to appreciative audiences with its eight episodes. Created by Mike Judge of King of the Hill and Beavis & Butthead fame, the series took a deep dive into the often dysfunctional lives of country music artists such as Waylon Jennings, George Jones and Tammy Wynette, Johnny Paycheck, Jerry Lee Lewis, Billy Joe Shaver, and Blaze Foley.
Tales From The Tour Bus was beloved by country fans young and old, but there was no guarantee the series would be anything more than a short-run project. However now it’s been announced that the series will sustain. Cinemax has officially renewed Tales From The Tour Bus for a second season, but it won’t be covering country music, and least not for this tour. Instead, the series is about to get funky.
Parliament-Funkadelic frontman George Clinton and his long-time bass player Bootsy Collins have been enlisted by the Tales From The Tour Bus creative team to put together a deep dive into the funky world of funk for Season 2 of the series. The two musicians will work as consultants, as well as appear in the new series that takes humorous stories and sets them to animated reenactments. Right now there is no definitive date of when the new series will be delivered to viewers, but it is expected some time later in 2018.
It’s good news for fans of the series that the show will endure, and good news for funk fans that their favorite music will now get featured. But hopefully Tales From The Tour Bus will makes its way back to country music in future series since it did so well entertaining and informing fans about the music and artists they love.
Tales From The Tour Bus has yet to be made available via Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, or anywhere else online officially. It is only available through Cinemax.
May 28, 2018 @ 10:18 am
Mike Judge doing a series on modern Music Row would be amazing. Considering the nerves he is able to hit when parodying the ridiculousness of the American tech sector on Silicon Valley, just imagine him doing a somewhat similar series that pokes fun of the Sam Hunts of the world and the executives that behind them.
May 28, 2018 @ 12:47 pm
Well if they are going to be chronicling different genres each season, I think the 80’s heavy metal era would be an obvious choice. Ozzy and Mötley Crüe could each have an entire season by themselves.
May 28, 2018 @ 1:37 pm
I bet this is where it goes next. And if there are many season’s, I’m sure it gets back to country eventually. Too many good stories still out there to be told.
May 28, 2018 @ 2:53 pm
I really enjoyed the country season which somehow worked out to being aired within the only couple months I’ve ever had any movie channels like Cinemax. Hopefully they release the next season on another format since I’m sure it will be entertaining. As commented above, when I saw they were switching genres, I immediately thought they would move to rock next but I think blues would be awesome to cover. I think most people already know the stories behind rock and early heavy metal but blues would be a bit more obscure like the country musicians they focused on in Season 1.
May 28, 2018 @ 5:52 pm
+1 on covering Blues next. There’s gotta be some good stories about guys like Lighnin’ Hopkins.
May 28, 2018 @ 4:27 pm
A little birdy told me you could search for the title on google followed by “putlockers” and ya know, maybe find the whole series. Don’t ask me to identify the birdy, though. Wouldn’t be prudent.
May 28, 2018 @ 5:58 pm
Makes me think of the Pantera home videos from the mid 90s. What a gem.
May 29, 2018 @ 10:59 am
Bllaaaaccktooooth!
May 30, 2018 @ 9:03 am
I’m still running May Pop tires on my rig. Fingers crossed!
May 28, 2018 @ 6:17 pm
Who in god’s great fuck has Cinemax?
May 28, 2018 @ 9:07 pm
Skinamax became less relevant with the advent of the internet I guess.
May 29, 2018 @ 2:20 am
Well, HBO bought Cinemax and is trying to turn it legit by developing high quality original content for it. In my opinion they dropped the ball because Tales From the Tour bus was a masterpiece and only 17 people saw it. It should have aired on HBO.
May 29, 2018 @ 5:15 am
Here’s hoping it comes to a streaming outlet soon. That’s the only way I’ll see it.
May 29, 2018 @ 12:11 pm
HBO Nordic in Scandinavia ran the whole season 1, but not HBO in the US, weird.
May 30, 2018 @ 2:00 am
Is that the same HBO Nordic who aired the 6th episode/S7 of Game of Thrones 5 days early? But you gotta love ’em. Not only do they not know which day is Sunday they also don’t know which programming is supposed to air on which network. 😉
May 29, 2018 @ 4:12 am
This is a bit of topic But like that TV show the article was about. This is a part of the history of country music.
This is a TV appearance by Emmylou in 1970. Before she met Gram and still tried to sing (and play guitar) as Juan Baez does. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3IfU1b-kmY
And here, five years later, is “Boulder To Birmingham” you can really hear how her singing style changed after she met Gram. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9A48houSs0
To me this is really part of country music history. Because if she hadn’t met
Gram that history would have been different and there wouldn’t have been any Emmylou as we know her today. Yet another reason as to why Gram should be inducted to The Country Music Hall of Fame…
May 29, 2018 @ 4:41 am
You can get Cinemax through Amazon. I picked up the free trial long enough to get through free trial.
May 29, 2018 @ 9:46 am
We had free Cinemax for a weekend about a year ago and I was lucky enough to see the Jerry Lee Lewis episode. Was the only thing worth a crap on that channel all weekend. Would love to see the rest of them.
May 29, 2018 @ 2:47 pm
It’s available on iTunes guys.
May 29, 2018 @ 6:49 pm
Good news for funk fans, like you say. Not so much for me. I’m a little bummed by this. I was hoping for another season of country “tales”. At least we still have “Cocaine and Rhinestones”. The recent interview with Tyler Mahan Coe on Shiflett’s “Walking the Floor” podcast was brief, but interesting. Sounds like Coe is going to continue making more of those gems for us. He also said that he’s been given access to the Country Music Hall of Fame archives, so the next season should be pretty good.
May 31, 2018 @ 12:31 pm
They forgot Hank Williams Jr.
Tales from the Tour Bus is hilarious. Good show.
May 31, 2018 @ 8:18 pm
Figured David Allan Coe would be a shoo in for an episode!