King of the Hill

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King of the Hill
"Ah tell ya what..."
Genre: Animated sitcom
Slice-of-life
Running Time: 22 Minutes
Country: United States
Release Date: January 12, 1997 - May 6, 2010 (Original Run)
2023 - present (Revival)
Network(s): Fox (1997-2009, US)
Adult Swim (2010, US)
Hulu (revival)
Seven Network (1997-2010, Australia)
Created by: Mike Judge
Greg Daniels
Distributed by: Disney-ABC Domestic Television
Starring: Mike Judge
Kathy Najimy
Pamela Segall Adlon
Brittany Murphy
Johnny Hardwick
Stephen Root
Toby Huss
Ashley Gardner
Lauren Tom
Tom Petty
Breckin Meyer
Seasons: 13
Episodes: 259

King of the Hill is an American animated sitcom created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels that ran from January 12, 1997, to September 13, 2009, on Fox (May 3−6, 2010 on Adult Swim for the remaining unaired four episodes, before the final episode). It centers on the Hills, a middle-class American family in the fictional city of Arlen, Texas. It attempts to maintain a realistic approach, seeking humor in the conventional and mundane aspects of everyday life. A revival of the series was set to premiere on Hulu in 2023 but was delayed to at least 2025.

Why It's King, I Tell Ya What

  1. Amazing animation from Plus One Animation and Rough Draft Studios that improves every season, especially in later seasons (Seasons 8-13, when it started using digital ink and paint).
  2. Great voice acting from the cast.
  3. Catchy theme song by The Refreshments.
  4. Likable, memorable and relatable characters, such as:
    • Hank Hill
    • Peggy Hill (Seasons 1-10)
    • Bobby Hill
    • Luanne Platter
    • Dale Gribble
    • Nancy Gribble
    • Joseph Gribble
    • John Redcorn
    • Bill Dauterive
    • Jeff Boomhauer
    • Kahn Souphanousinphone
    • Minh Souphanousinphone
    • Connie Souphanousinphone
  5. The satirical portrayal of American conservatism and lesser extent right-wing libertarianism works excellently throughout the whole show. It's one of the very few shows that portray them with respect and not revolving around the most basic stereotypes of conservatives and right-wingers. However, that does NOT mean that the show is afraid to criticize right-wingers when it is justified (especially in the first seven seasons).
  6. Usually does a good job of providing nuanced situations where Hank's traditional ways are somewhat flawed, but so are many of the supposedly progressive alternatives.
  7. Memorable episodes such as:
    • "Pilot" (AKA "Bobby the Baseball Phenom")
    • "Keeping Up with Our Joneses"
    • "Meet the Manger Babies"
    • "Hank's Dirty Laundry"
    • "A Fire Fighting We Will Go"
    • "A Bear Can Named Desire"
    • "Aisle 8-A"
    • "Bobby Goes Nuts"
    • "Ho Yeah!"
    • "Jumpin' Crack Bass (It's a Gas, Gas, Gas)"
    • "Square Peg"
    • "I Don't Want to Wait for Our Lives to Be Over"
    • "Beer and Loathing"
    • Nine Pretty Darn Angry Men"
    • "The Exterminator"
    • "Dog Dale Afternoon"
    • "Soldier of Misfortune"
    • "Tankin' It to the Streets"
    • "Raise the Steaks"
    • "Hank's Back (The Unbearable Lightness of Being Hank)
    • "Life in the Fast Lane, Bobby's Saga"
    • "Returning Japanese (Parts 1 & 2)"
    • "Jon Vitti Presents: Return to La Grunta"
    • "Propane Boom"/"Death of a Propane Salesman"
    • "Hanky Panky"/"High Anxiety"
  8. The final episode of the original series (in production order), "To Sirloin with Love", shows Hank and Bobby finally get along as a father and son should due to Bobby finally having a shared interest with his father, ending in a very good note and was also a massive improvement from the rest of the later episodes. The final episode to air, Just Another Manic Kahn-Day (listed as the last episode on Hulu), is also pretty good as it shows Hank and Kahn getting along and working together
  9. "That's my purse! I don't know you!"
  10. Unlike most adult animated sitcoms, it features more slice of life elements that makes it feel unique when compared to The Simpsons, which was the only adult animated sitcom before King of the Hill was made and had a more wackier and cartoony tone, and it utilizes less cartoony elements and more realistic moments that make the show feel relaxing and wholesome, giving off similar vibes to a majority of live action sitcoms, as every episodes showcases the Hill family going through the struggles of everyday life and the evolution of their years together, whereas other adult animated sitcoms like Family Guy featured wacky plots about fictional events that were very cartoony and surreal. This approach makes King of the Hill one of the most unique shows in animation history, alongside South Park and Adventure Time.
  11. It deals with serious topics such as pregnancy problems in the episode Pregnant Paws, where Hank is revealed to have a narrow urethra and a low sperm count, which ends up being the reason why Bobby is an only child and the show handles the topic very well in a mature manner.

Qualities That Ain't Right

  1. Peggy can be a pretty unlikable character sometimes, especially in later seasons. She's pretty much infamous for being a huge hypocrite.
    • From season 10 until the show's end, she was horribly flanderized from a sweet and caring wife and mother into a very annoying and ungrateful woman who acts just as bad as (if not worse than) Lois Griffin.
    • The unnecessary retcon with her birthplace being changed from Arlen to somewhere in Montana and her mother's personality also being changed from rather strict but well-meaning to a stereotypical abusive mother to try and justify her behavior.
  2. Whereas early seasons tended to have Hank and his opponents be partially in the wrong, seasons 8 to 9 onwards increasingly presented Hank as being in the right even in moments when this didn't fit.
  3. Like most animated Fox shows at the time, the show wasn't safe from losing quality in its final seasons. At least it didn't get as bad as Family Guy and The Simpsons did.
    • A lot of the political jokes turned pretty dark, especially in "Uh-Oh, Canada".
  4. Lucky, a character introduced late in the series, is extremely unlikeable and caused the series to go downhill.
  5. Some of the more cartoonish satire feels out of place in the usually realistic show.
  6. Dale can be very unlikable as well, likely because of his cruel and rather petty actions towards others.
    • In "King of the Ant Hill", he spreads fire ants all over Hank's lawn to get revenge on Hank refusing his services before Cinco de Mayo.
    • In "Now Who's The Dummy?", he shoves Chip Block through a wood chipper all because of his childhood flashbacks of him receiving a replica of Chip.
    • In "Manger Baby Einstein", he destroys 3 of the Manger Babies to get revenge on Luanne copying one of his ideas.
    • In "The Texas Skillsaw Massacre", he claimed that Hank cut his finger off on purpose when he slid his finger under the blade causing Hank to cut it off.
  7. Has its fair share of bad or mediocre episodes such as:
    • "Church Hopping"
    • "Goodbye Normal Jeans"
    • "Hank's Choice"
    • "Husky Bobby"
    • "The Petriot Act"
    • "What Makes Bobby Run?"
    • "Apres Hank, le Deluge"
    • "Pretty, Pretty Dresses"
    • "Lupe's Revenge"
    • "Get Your Freak Off"
    • "Three Coaches and a Bobby"
    • "Hank's Bully"
    • "Racist Dawg"
    • "The Texas Skilsaw Massacre"
    • "Ms. Wakefield"
    • "Life: A Loser's Manual"
    • "New Cowboy on the Block"
    • "Now Who's the Dummy?"
    • "Uh-Oh, Canada" (the worst episode of the series by fans, as well as the lowest-rated episode of the show)
    • "No Bobby Left Behind"
    • While not bad, "Pigmalion" had a violent ending that caused it to be banned in syndication

Reception

King of the Hill received critical acclaim over its 13-year run. Early reviews of the show were positive. Diane Holloway at the Chicago Tribune considered it the "most Texan television series since Dallas", and praised the show's "sly sense of humor and subversive sensibility". At the Los Angeles Times, writer Howard Rosenberg suggested that the show "totes a few smiles, but [there's] little to bowl you over, and it takes a spell getting used to". The show's first season received an approval rating of 81% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on sixteen reviews. Its consensus reads "King of the Hill's mild yet extremely funny depiction of small-town Texas life is refreshingly worlds away from conventional prime-time animation". The fifth and thirteenth seasons received more critical praise with a 100% approval rating.

At the show's conclusion, James Poniewozik at Time opined that it had "quietly been the best family comedy on TV", calling the show's ending "one of the most moving things I've seen on TV this year". Alan Sepinwall of The Star-Ledger described it as "sweeter and more human than the great majority of live-action sitcoms that overlapped its run". Genevieve Koski of The A.V. Club described the program as a "steadfast, down-to-earth series", while noting "the show saw its fair share of silly conceits and contrived setups — and got fairly repetitive in the final seasons".

Writers have examined the show through a political lens. "It's not a political show", said Mike Judge in 1997, "It's more a populist, common sense point of view". In 2005, Matt Bai of The New York Times Magazine called it "the most subtle and complex portrayal of small-town voters on television". A 2016 reappraisal from The Atlantic dubbed it the "last bipartisan TV comedy", with writer Bert Clere noting the program "imbued all of its characters with a rich humanity that made their foibles deeply sympathetic. In this, King of the Hill was far ahead of its time, and the broader TV landscape has yet to catch up".

King of the Hill is currently ranked No. 27 on IGN's "Top 100 Animated TV Series". In 2013, TV Guide ranked King of the Hill as one of the top 60 Greatest TV Cartoons of All Time.

Videos

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Trivia

  • The theme song music is played and referenced in The Simpsons episode, "Helter Shelter" when they tried to live life outside for a bit.
  • Mike Judge and Greg Daniels confirmed a revival is in the works, and will be produced by their newly-formed animation studio, Bandera Entertainment. And it will air on Hulu in 2025.

Videos

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Comments

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