King of the Hill

Well, my Tivo listed last night's episode of King of the Hill as "Hank FIRES Everything" which didn't sound quite right to me. TV.com has the episode name listed as "Hank FIXES Everything," so I'm going with that, since I don't recall Hank doing any firing during last night's episode, although one of his workers, Joe Jack, is fired by Mr. Strickland when a price war with other propane and fuel salesmen in the area gets out of hand. Mr. Strickland figures firing Joe Jack will save about $400 a week.

I've come back to this time and again in my other KOTH reviews, but I like how the show has a "human" element other primetime cartoons don't have. However, once in a while a show, animated or otherwise, will have to bend the rules of what makes sense in order to move the plot along. The idea of a price war was a great idea for a show, but why would Arlen, a small town, need not one, but FOUR propane dealers?

All in all, a good episode, and the subplot featuring Tom Petty as Luanne's philosophical redneck boyfriend convincing her and Bobby to camp out for Brownsville Station tickets (seats in front of the speakers on the left side of the stage, to be exact) was pretty funny, especially when, after eating nothing but bread for five days, Luanne fears she may have contracted "bread poisoning." And let's not forget an appearance by the American Chopper guys, who incite a mass riot at the propane expo. My only minor disappointment was a lack of Peggy, who, if she isn't my favorite character, is the one I find most intriguing. It's as if her mind receives the same information as everyone else, but is then sent through some bizarre filter only she has, which results in her tossing out little gems like, "more people would rather see someone killed on TV than watch real people make love."

You know, they toss up new episodes of King of the Hill so randomly, it's like I have to constantly remind myself such a show exists. I guess that's why God invented DVRs.

Last night's episode may have been my favorite of this season so far. Typically, a show will focus on one character, building a story around both them and Hank, who's usually brought in unwittingly to set things right. In last night's episode it's Hank's neighbor Kahn who screws up, mortgaging his home and purchasing the local car wash "Scrubby's" in order to make a quick buck. Kahn's master plan involves rigging the spray system so a person only receives about a minute of spray for one quarter. Also, they only get three quarters for a dollar. This scheme doesn't last long, and eventually people split.  This angers Hank's boss, Mr. Strickland, who depends on the car wash as his main source of picking up young girls. While Kahn was pretty much the main focus of the episode, I also liked the three-way dynamic between Hank, Mr. Strickland and Kahn as they all try to figure out the best way to deal with the car wash. In the end, Hank is the only one who's actually thinking about the customers.

Al in all, a solid episode, and the kind that could only be done this far down the road when all the characters have been well-established. This leads me, however, to one minor problem I had with this episode. Kahn falls for a "get rich quick" scheme and ultimately loses everything by being greedy. The "being greedy" part I understand, but Kahn is typically portrayed as a wise and financially shrewed person, it seemed really out of character for him to fall into such an obvious scheme.

When this season kicked off, there was some speculation that it might be the show's last, so it's nice to hear that it will return for at least one more season. For a show buried in a forgettable timeslot that's preempted half the time by football and auto racing, it's amazing it's lasted this long.

Last night's episode was decent, though it was the same "Hank and Bobby" episode we've seen many times already: Bobby becomes interested in something Hank doesn't feel right about, and Hank spends the episode trying to steer Bobby in the right direction. The writers come back to this story quite often, which makes perfect sense, since Hank's old fashioned outlook and Bobby's desire to be hip and cutting edge creates one of the show's best dynamics.

In this instance, it's Bobby's desire not to shadow his father at Strickland Propane, but to instead clean up dog waste with a handsome entrepreneur that gets Hank riled up. When Bobby decides he can make a load of cash going into business himself cleaning up vomit for drunk college students, Hank finally decides to put the kibosh on it. It's a plot that King of the Hill knows well, but I don't call it being lazy. The Simpsons and Family Guy are comparable to one another in several significant ways, but King of the Hill, as weird and irreverent as it can be at times, has a human element to it neither of those other shows can touch. That isn't to say there can't be moments of humanity in The Simpsons, but King of the Hill has always been about "real people," and even "real people" have to re-learn the same lessons again and again.

Among the myriad challenges immigrants face in this country is keeping a balance between assimilating and maintaining their ethnic heritage. This episode focused on Hank's neighbor Kahn, who insults his Laotian contemporaries with his interest in material possessions (unlike his friend, who owns a flatscreen TV, but the TV "doesn't own him").

When Adam Sandler first began making movies, I avoided them like the plague. I didn't see how this insipid monkey-man's films could be even remotely humorous. Then I watched Happy Gilmore and cracked up all the way through. Was the humor as subtle and sophisticated as other comedies I enjoyed? No, not at all. It was just funny, and I enjoyed it thoroughly in spite of myself.

It's been said that comedy is not something that can be taught. You either have the gift or you don't. You'd be hard pressed to find any comedian or comedy writer who doesn't agree with that sentiment, and Mike Judge is clearly one of those people.

Hank Hill is an extremely boring character. You can't blame Hank for that, though, as he was created to be the eye of the hurricane, the calm, reasonable center of it all. It's a credit to Mike Judge that he was able to take such a simple man and make him the focus of a show which has lasted ten years. While Family Guy is a natural extension of The Simpsons, King of the Hill has existed in its own "down home" world where the head of the household must maintain order and civility, not add to the damage. Both Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin are hilarious characters because they're spontaneous and free to pretty much do anything or have anything done to them. Hank, however, is ruled by an ethos that tells him to always do the right thing, or at least what he feels is right. Mike Judge created a series which showed just how difficult it can be to maintain that simple kind of life, and he made it both engaging and hysterical. When Judge created Beavis and Butthead neither those who loved it nor those who rallied against it seemed to really understand that it was a satire of our throw-away popular culture and not, as it appeared on the surface, a celebration of rudeness and decadence. King of the Hill gave Judge the chance to refine his point of view, and for those of us who have stuck with the series despite it never having the kind of push or choice timeslots shared by other animated fare, it still continues to impress. While the sun is no doubt setting on the series, I think as time passes people will realize that King of the Hill, despite being about country bumpkins living in a small Texas town, had much more to say than people realized.

"I heard male crying." -Hank Hill

Finally, the sports stuff is over and we can get back to what Sunday nights are all about: primetime animated shows. In last night's episode, the entire Hill family gets sick, but neighbor Bill swoops in to take care of them. As is to be expected however, Bill becomes attached to the idea of feeling needed and doesn't want to leave. He tries to taint their soup with epicac but Hank discovers him and suggests something less extreme: Bill should volunteer.

Last night's King of the Hill took an amusing look at the small town newspaper business that was especially hysterical to anyone who has ever written for one, or read one for that matter.

When Family Guy first came on the air it was inevitably compared to The Simpsons, something I thought was more than a little unfair. I've always maintained that Family Guy was grounded in a cartoon world, whereas The Simpsons was a sitcom that just happened to be animated. It can't be denied, however, that both shows have their ladles in the gravy boat of pop culture, which makes them, if not comparable, at least two sides of the same weird coin.