“King of the Hill” Goes Out with Class

The final episode of King of the Hill aired recently.

Hulu’s got it right now, but don’t expect a dramatic ending filled with emotional goodbyes or major revelations. Much like the previous thirteen years, Hank Hill played the straight-man to his odd little neighborhood of friends and family until the final moments. Right down to the end it was the little show that somehow survived years in the shadow of NFL football, The Simpsons, and Family Guy.

There was always something about King of the Hill that put it in a different world than its contemporaries. Since the mid 90s, sitcoms seem to have been a bastion of 30 and 40-somethings desperately clinging to youth and fearing commitment. On the other hand the world of animated comedies have been dominated by pop-culture references and random jokes on Family Guy (and its clones), and the once unstoppable Simpsons trying to play catch-up. In a sense, King of the Hill had a hard time fitting in either world since much of the show relied on oddball characters that could have been played by live actors.

Much of what made the show work was Hank Hill: the stoic, straight-laced man who kept his family, friends, and suburban Texas town in line. The man would not be seen crying in front of his son, would not leave work 5 minutes early on a sleepy Friday afternoon, and never saw a new trend that didn’t make him grouse a little. He’s a boring man and he doesn’t care — a little routine and work ethic can go a long way and he knows it. But like classic shows such as Newhart, Hank was the normal person stuck in a world of crazy people. His best friends from high school seemed to be adult-children, his wife was arguably intelligent and intuitive yet egotistical, and his son looked and acted nothing like him.

Meanwhile Hank seems to see himself as the last sane man in a changing world and would never let his opinion go to waste. (Hank Hill on Christian rock music: “Can’t you see you’re not making Christianity better, you’re just making rock n’ roll worse?”) Many episodes would start with someone introducing a new trend Hank would immediately scoff at, but would either come around to other people’s way of thinking or convince enough of them that the trend was worthless. MySpace, novelty-themed restaurants, ice cream shops with singing clerks, WalMart, and even megachurches weren’t all that impressive to Hank:

In a sense Hank is a stand-in for a midwestern conservative: someone whose boring life and obsessive integrity is played for laughs, but when things go bad he’s the first one people look to for advice or a hand. For a show that was a spinoff of sorts to Beavis and Butthead, King of the Hill played itself with a much softer touch and the laughs were more subtle. It could make fun of Hank’s stoicism or Peggy’s ego, but it could never turn them into unsympathetic characters. Few shows have been able to keep this up for 13 years without seeing a serious dip in quality, yet King of the Hill, much like Hank himself, didn’t seem to see any point in changing with the times.

The New York Times once said that “there is more reality about American life in five minutes of ‘King of the Hill‘ than in a full season of watching Paris Hilton prance around a farm in high heels.” Since King of the Hill debuted, reality television has taken over the networks and sitcoms starring adults acting like adults have faded. In the 60s The Munsters and Bewitched stood apart as the most “normal” sitcom families on TV among an overkill of shows featuring widowed parents played by veteran comedians. In that light, a cartoon about a propane salesman and his small family seems to stand out as both unique and traditional at the same time.

(On a related note, now that I’m done with this and Reading Rainbow, I promise not to do too many more depressing posts about canceled TV shows.)