Syndication Files 09.23.09: King of the Hill

Posted by Porfirio Diaz on 09.23.2009

Has there even been a show more underappreciated than King of the Hill? This animated show has quietly been one of the best comedies on television but constantly gets overshadowed by the other big animated shows. Not this week. Prepare to be served a Texas-sized serving of meaty goodness on this week’s propane filled edition of the Syndication Files…Yup.

Dear Porfirio,

You have a fantastic article man. I'm really happy for everyone here at 411mania but I kept telling them that your Syndication Files columns is way better than any other column on this site.

Keeping it real,

Kanye

What an honor.

I know what you're thinking. This can't really be from Kanye. The letter is well organized and the words are not all in CAPS. Shame on me. I'll get to Kanye in a little while later.

This next piece is another personal favorite of mine and it really doesn't receive as much credit as it deserves.


Syndication Files #14

King of the Hill


Can you believe this was the best King of the Hill introduction video I could find?

Yup...Yup...Yup...Mmhmm... Well that's an appropriate way to start this feature.

King of the Hill was created by none other than Mike Judge, the same man who ruined an entire generation (citation needed) thanks to his previous television show, Breavis and Butt-head. Judge enjoyed a successful four year run of Beavis and Butt-head on MTV. Afterwards, he was ready to tackle on his next project. He teamed up with former Simpsons writer and King of the Hill co-creator Greg Daniels to think up the basis for their next series. After setting on the characters, script, and using a fictional suburb of Dallas, Texas known as Arlen as the location for the series, Judge set up the pilot and showed it to Fox. Several more rewrites and characterization later, King of the Hill was ready to be shown to the world. The show premiered on January 12, 1997.

The show was an instant critic hit. Various publications called King of the Hill one of the best new shows to come out of that year. They noticed how this show was a breath of fresh air in comparison to The Simpsons, Fox's other popular animated show. During the years that The Simpsons were on the air, they never had a legitimate competitor that rivaled the same hilarity as they did. Shows like The Critic, Beavis and Butt-head, and Ren and Stimpy were close, but The Simpsons ultimately came out in front every time. King of the Hill was their next major threat to their throne of animation and they would not go down lightly.



King of the Hill depicts an average American middle-class family living in an average American suburb. That's where about the average standard ends. The main character is Hank Hill (Mike Judge), assistant manager of Stickland Propane where he "sells propane and propane accessories". Of course if you watch the show you would know that. He only says it at every frequent opportunity where he sees fit. He loves his job to a point where he proclaimed it to be the best job in the world. He also thinks that it's one of the manliest things a man could do ("GAY! I'm not gay! I sell propane and propane accessories!"), alongside with barbecuing, mowing the lawn and working on your truck.

That's the thing about Hank. He's a very dedicated hardworking football-loving man whose principles automatically run on traditional values. That may have been the cool thing back when family and traditional values were at its peak during Hank's young adult years. Unfortunately for Hank, placing those same practices within today's modern world is only viewed as ridiculous by his friends, family, and fellow Arlen natives. Hank's dead-set approach to his life forces him to become ignorant to the current world of pop-culture, entertainment, and pretty much everything fun. But Hank doesn't care. He will always stand pat to his ideals no matter what others say. Sometimes it's that same traditional values that gets his friends and family out of numerous jams, so at least he has that. He also firmly and blindly believes in all of the letters and law of the United States of America, even with their numerous shortcomings ("You can't just pick and choose which laws to follow. Sure I'd like to tape a baseball game without the express written consent of major league baseball, but that's just not the way it works"). For Hank, loyalty goes above everything but God I tell you what.


He'll do it too

Of course we can't forgot about his infamous surprised reaction of "BWAAAH!".

Hank lives with his wife Peggy (Kathy Najimy), his son Bobby (Pamela Seagall), and his niece Luanne (Brittany Murphy). Peggy is the ideal woman of how every woman should act and look…at least that's how she likes to tell herself every so often. Her display of intelligence is most of the time overshadowed by her display of arrogance. Her huge ego prevents her from realizing the actions of better judgment and is most of time only looking out for Peggy Hill. She's has had various jobs, with her most favorite being a substitute Spanish teacher. She loves that position, despite having a terrible grasp of the language ("es-puh-nole"). Of course, she thinks she's an excellent Spanish speaker. No one has the heart to tell her otherwise. Because of those characteristics, I find her very annoying but there's no denying that she is the most elusive character.

Bobby is pretty much the opposite of what Hank envisioned his boy to be. All the activities that Hank enjoys (sports, work, obeying the law) seems to put Bobby off, while all the activities Bobby enjoys (prop comedy, high fashion designs, sitting in front of the TV) just seems to disappoint Hank ever more. Bobby has often dreamed of becoming a famous prop comic when he's older and often displays his comic stand-up in front of friends and family, much to Hank's chagrin. Bobby is not as naïve as Hank is when it comes to pop-culture, but even worse Bobby is naïve to common sense. I want you to see everything that Bobby does in this show that is deemed nerdy or stupid and see if you are willing to duplicate some of those his actions. Crazy, right? But his excellent sense of self-esteem allows him to not be ashamed of his body or his terrible performances in sports, school, and other activities, which can be a fault (see previous sentence). Hank often finds discomfort in most of the things Bobby does, especially when it comes to feminine activities (cooking, sowing, dancing, etc.) but Hank learns to overcome those problems and love Bobby for who he is.


Ironically, this is the one time Hank is actually proud of Bobby's femininity

Luanne is the most naïve and unintelligent of the bunch but she still gets through life in her own little ways. The simplest words can outright stump her but dang can she give out a good hair cut. To her credit, she is always pure in heart and constantly finding the good in people. She even become a born again Christian during the series. Of course, she later got knocked up by future husband Lucky, who came in late into the series. Speaking of Lucky, I thought he blended in quite well with the rest of the characters, especially since he came in so late into the series.

Then there are Hank's best friends and with friends like those, who needs enemies? Dale Gribble (Johnny Hardwick) is the guiltiest of the party. One minute he would be your best friend, the next he'll back stab you in the back or rat you out to the government in order to save his own skin. Bah, just trying to describe Dale will cost me an extra 1500 words. So here's some Dale clips instead!


"Sh-ha-shaa!"

Bill Dauterive was once a fit and athletic guy with a bundle of confidence. Somehow he turned into a fat, creepy, suicidally depressed human being. Bill is the definition of failure, as everything he does turns into teh fail. He often fantasizes about being in Hank's shoe and living with his family, which only adds to his creepiness. Jeff Boomhauer (Mike Judge) is actually the normal one in the bunch in terms of personality…well most of the time anyway. He's also the most recognize character in the show thanks to his deep, unique speaking style. No one but his friends seems to understand his quick-worded mumbles. That's quite a feat. Here's one of his quotes:

"Yeah man I tell ya what...Did one of them snipe hunts last night man with them sticks and bags and Whack! Whack! man, go Woooo-loo-loo-loo! ... Talk about big mistake y'all... It's right there in that cooler."

In text form, that's easy enough to understand. Now say it 5 times fast without stumbling, and you have Boomhauer!


Yeah man, I tell you what, man, that's a good clip, man, laugh out loud moment there man.

This is just the surface. I haven't even mentioned the Souphanousinphones (Kahn: "Oh no, I don't know how that feels. My real name is Smith. I just changed it to Soupanousinphone when I moved to Texas. You dumb redneck."), Cotton Hill ("That's a good one, Hank's wife. A woman fixing a car, that's like a pig trying to read!"), Nancy Gribble ("Oh sugar! We're outta sugar, sugg.) or Buck Strickland ("Hell, I'd kill for a big fat blind gay guy if we could just get some work done around here."). There are just tons more unique characters found on this show that you will grow to like and love.

King of the Hill is not an animated comedy in the same venue as their brothers in animation (The Simpsons, American Dad, and Family Guy). This show is more in the setting of a serious comedy. Whereas other animated shows rely on slapstick and silliness, King of the Hill relies on genuine situations, strong characterization, and real sincere moments. The ingredient of funny is still found but this time it's in a mixture of seriousness with vivid settings. This is one of the few animated shows where you could point out social and political observations, and still have a serious discussion about it while the laughter plays out. You can call it an "adult oriented" show in that it doesn't need sex or violence to make a joke funny. The show uses actual mature storylines that exist within the world we live in, such as relationship conflicts, racism, stereotypes, and other various real-life dilemmas.

The Simspons and Family Guy may be a lot funnier but when it comes to being funny, smart and witty all at the same time, King of the Hill is "king".

The show battled numerous scheduled cancellations throughout their run but the show would always manage to be renewed thanks to their high ratings. But once the ratings started to decline, it was only going to be a matter of time. Honestly, it occurred to me that Fox didn't really care as much about this show than their other animated shows. Fox ignored to promote most of their milestone moments (did anyone even know they surpassed 250 episodes a few weeks ago?) and there are talks that they wanted to replace this show with The Cleveland Show. They canceled one of the best shows on television for a possibly terrible Family Guy spinoff? Shame on you, Fox Broadcasting Company.

It's hard to think that a show being on television for that long would eventually be canceled, especially when it's a show that people continued to love.



Indeed, Fox officially canceled King of the Hill during the summer and aired their one hour series finale on September 13, 2009, which was just a little over a week ago. I saw the finale (spoiler alert!) and thought it was a very fitting end to finish the series: Bobby finally making his dad deeply proud after years of inadequacy within the father-son relationship thanks to their love of beef. The ending of Hank and Bobby barbecuing side by side while the neighbors surround them is about as perfect an ending a show could ever have, animated or not.

The show enjoyed a successful 12+ year run on Fox, second only to The Simpsons and also was recognized by Time magazine as one of the top 100 greatest television shows of all time. King of the Hill sure didn't receive enough credit from Fox nor did Fox bother to promote it considering what an accomplishment all that is. But you're in luck because currently Adult Swim is syndicating the show on their network during the night. Yay for Adult Swim!

I realize that a large percentage of the viewing audience hates the show, whether it's because of the characters (with most of the hate pointing towards the direction of Peggy Hill), the animation, the peachiness, or because they happen live in Texas. There are some out there that just like their comedies to be a consistent sequence of comedic situations. That's fine. Even I wasn't very fond of this show at first. But after repeated viewings, I grew to love it as one of my favorite shows on television.

So like or not, you can't deny the impact that King of the Hill managed to accomplished, even within an era of animated television where there is no other show quite like this.

Yup.


Commercial Break


This is how to make news interesting

So it's not a commercial, but I thought I would go in a different direction this week. Really I could listen to that all day. Anytime you can make news interesting and have Katie Couric bust out mad rhymes, you're going to score big points with me.

Plus Katie Couric looks unquestionably hot.


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Ending Credits

So apparently a lot happened during my two weeks absence, but the most newsworthy story had to be Kanye West being Kanye West.

Say what you want about him, but he brought a whole nation together to unite as an entity. For the first time in the history of forever, everyone from the common folk to celebrities to even the President of the United States joined hands in a celebration of agreement over the actions of the same man that made all of this possible. Not even Martin Luther King Jr. could accomplish such a feat.

Actually, I just dressed up that statement with fancy terminology. Let me clarity. No one was holding any hands. Their hands were too busying typing nasty things about Kanye on message boards and Twitter. That "celebration of agreement" is everybody thinking Kanye is a douche for doing such a douche thing. Suddenly it doesn't sound as nice as I first described.

Yes, Kanye is a total douche and that was a total douche move but look at the positives. He got a nice young singer more spotlight than she could ever receive, filled the internet with tons of spoof and pictures of the incident, and got Obama to go on record and calling him a "jackass". What's not to like about any of that?

If we did learn one thing, it's that Taylor Swift is not very clutch. She stood there as white as Patrick Swayze (RIP).

Speaking of not clutch, Tony Romo and the Cowboys lose their first game in their shiny new stadium against the New York Giants. Too bad Kanye West wasn't there to interrupt Romo's awful game. I hope the record breaking 105,121 crowd enjoyed watching the Cowboys break their hearts once again. It's not even December yet! At least they have a great new scoreboard to watch the team fail on. Hank Hill must be rolling over in his grave.

Isn't it great to have football back? The Niners are 2-0, my fantasy team is 2-0, Patriots got exposed, and nobody vandalized anyone's lawn this week.

And with that, I'm out of time. Out like everybody's remaining respect for Kanye West.