Tigers, tarantulas and an extremely cranky goat, oh, my!

"Malcolm in the Middle" goes amusingly animal crackers when it returns with a freewheeling fourth season premiere at 9 p.m. Sunday.

Lois, hapless hubby Hal and their three youngest boys, Malcolm, Reese and Dewey, decide to spend a day with the exotic wildlife and frisky critters at the local zoo. As usual, everything goes a little haywire, including Hal's painful encounter with Mr. Tarantula.

The colorful, playfully surreal "Malcolm" -- a sort of human cartoon variation on "The Simpsons" -- is moving into the spotlight position in Fox's revamped, all-comedy Sunday night lineup.

And the marvelous cast -- particularly Jane Kaczmarek as combustible, no-nonsense mother, Lois, and Bryan Cranston as screwloose Hal -- continues to deliver a lesson in good funny-bone chemistry each week.

A clever comic book come to life, dizzy "Malcolm in the Middle" consistently delights in a very basic way. It makes you laugh. And that can't be bad.