King of the hill appreciation thread - Yup.
- Thread starter horrorfan89
- Start date
If my ass is going to be kicked
Then it will be kicked
Then it will be kicked
"You're talking like a song from The Lion King."
Oh god..... I just had phone sex!
Bwahhaaaa!
Bwahhaaaa!
Warms my heart that they made Hank Hill look like Guts from Berserk
Honka Honka Burning Love
kiwifarms.net
I..want to buy Miitopia now just to make Hank Hill a cook.
I love how Dale looks like D.B. Cooper with a hat.
Bill looks like what Eric Cartman would be as an adult. And I don't know how I should feel about that.
So, I want to talk about a legitimately bad episode of King of the Hill so that we can learn what went wrong with it. First of all, just because it's in season 11 does not make the entire season inherently bad or even zombie, so let's get rid of that prejudice. Season 11 also has the Grand Theft Auto episode, Bill getting completely jacked, and Peggy getting mistaken for a drag queen. That being said, Hank gets Dusted is a bad episode. The short answer is The Man Who Shot Cane Skretteburg does the job better in every way.
The long answer is that protagonist-antagonist relationship is more or less inverted. In the Green Day episode, Hank is of higher rank than Cane, so it's fun watching Cane take Hank down a peg. He even asserts his dubious authority of block captain for good measure. That's why "I like Tony Danza" is funny. It's also cathartic to watch Hank finally nail Cane after getting shot up the entire episode. "That punk kid finally got what's coming to him!"
Now compare to ZZ Top. Dusty the character is already a celebrity and thus, outranks Hank by a significant margin. So to watch them infuriate Hank is just bullying. Moreover, Hank can never retaliate against Dusty because of ZZ Top's celebrity status. Even when Cotton's old Caddy gets totaled, Hank just gives up in the end because the entire ordeal is exhausting. I'm exhausted too, but for the wrong reasons.
Now onto Dusty the character; he's inconsistent. Cane Skretteburg is consistently a rebel without a cause. He's mean to Hank because it's funny. He will never stop being a threat to Hank and his friends until they beat him at his own game. Dusty also clowns Hank, but when the reality TV producer asks how they can antagonize Hank even more, Dusty is the one that says that they're going too far. Why? What's his motivation? Because Dusty can't be too evil of a character. Even though he messed with Hank's lawn. "But my lawn! You don't mess with a man's lawn!" Halfway through the episode, the villain has to change to the TV producer because the story needs to have an antagonist, but Dusty gets bored of messing with Hank for no reason. ZZ Top has to berate the TV producer to save the day... even though they're just as much antagonists as the producer. As the show makes it abundantly clear, no one forced Dusty to drive in the demolition derby.
Which begs the question of why is Dusty inconsistent. Much like later Simpsons episodes, the show leans heavily on the celebrity appearance and the celebrities themselves have to protect their brand too. They don't want to be shown as complete jerks even though the episode requires them to be complete jerks. This was not the case with the Green Day episode because they were playing characters and they made sure that they were narratively removed from their celebrity. Green Day is playing the role of a garage band and swapped instruments so that they purposefully sucked at playing music.
On to theme. The Green Day episode was about old v. young. At the beginning of the episode, Hank and his friends are clowning the really old guy. Then after Cane shoots them, their fear is realized and they become the old man until they decide that to beat the young band, they have to understand them first. I don't even know the theme of the ZZ Top episode. "It's about family, and that's what makes it so powerful"???
So, what we have is a decent premise that gets ruined because they couldn't commit to the bit the entire way.
Now compare to ZZ Top. Dusty the character is already a celebrity and thus, outranks Hank by a significant margin. So to watch them infuriate Hank is just bullying. Moreover, Hank can never retaliate against Dusty because of ZZ Top's celebrity status. Even when Cotton's old Caddy gets totaled, Hank just gives up in the end because the entire ordeal is exhausting. I'm exhausted too, but for the wrong reasons.
Now onto Dusty the character; he's inconsistent. Cane Skretteburg is consistently a rebel without a cause. He's mean to Hank because it's funny. He will never stop being a threat to Hank and his friends until they beat him at his own game. Dusty also clowns Hank, but when the reality TV producer asks how they can antagonize Hank even more, Dusty is the one that says that they're going too far. Why? What's his motivation? Because Dusty can't be too evil of a character. Even though he messed with Hank's lawn. "But my lawn! You don't mess with a man's lawn!" Halfway through the episode, the villain has to change to the TV producer because the story needs to have an antagonist, but Dusty gets bored of messing with Hank for no reason. ZZ Top has to berate the TV producer to save the day... even though they're just as much antagonists as the producer. As the show makes it abundantly clear, no one forced Dusty to drive in the demolition derby.
Which begs the question of why is Dusty inconsistent. Much like later Simpsons episodes, the show leans heavily on the celebrity appearance and the celebrities themselves have to protect their brand too. They don't want to be shown as complete jerks even though the episode requires them to be complete jerks. This was not the case with the Green Day episode because they were playing characters and they made sure that they were narratively removed from their celebrity. Green Day is playing the role of a garage band and swapped instruments so that they purposefully sucked at playing music.
On to theme. The Green Day episode was about old v. young. At the beginning of the episode, Hank and his friends are clowning the really old guy. Then after Cane shoots them, their fear is realized and they become the old man until they decide that to beat the young band, they have to understand them first. I don't even know the theme of the ZZ Top episode. "It's about family, and that's what makes it so powerful"???
So, what we have is a decent premise that gets ruined because they couldn't commit to the bit the entire way.
Apologies for the thread necromancy and double-post, but I've been recently rewatching the series from the beginning and it's kinda cool looking back at how the series evolved over the years.
And it got me wondering about something...
What would be your favorite episode from each season? These would be my picks...
Season 1: "The Order of the Straight Arrow"
Season 2: "Hilloween"
Season 3: "Escape From Party Island"
Season 4: "Naked Ambition"
Season 5: "It's Not Easy Being Green"
Season 6: "The Bluegrass Is Always Greener"
Season 7: "Pigmalion"
Season 8: "How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Alamo"
Season 9: "Smoking and The Bandit"
Season 10: "Hank Fixes Everything"
Season 11: "Lucky's Wedding Suit"
Season 12: "Strangeness on a Train"
Season 13: "To Sirloin With Love"
And it got me wondering about something...
What would be your favorite episode from each season? These would be my picks...
Season 1: "The Order of the Straight Arrow"
Season 2: "Hilloween"
Season 3: "Escape From Party Island"
Season 4: "Naked Ambition"
Season 5: "It's Not Easy Being Green"
Season 6: "The Bluegrass Is Always Greener"
Season 7: "Pigmalion"
Season 8: "How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Alamo"
Season 9: "Smoking and The Bandit"
Season 10: "Hank Fixes Everything"
Season 11: "Lucky's Wedding Suit"
Season 12: "Strangeness on a Train"
Season 13: "To Sirloin With Love"
Zombie KOTH and Zombie Simpsons were one in the same in that they had completely pointless celebrity cameos that added no weight to the episodes and merely acted as an excuse to boost ratings. In earlier KOTH, celebrities didn't always play themselves -- but rather played new characters, such as the Cane Skretteburg episode which had the members of Green Day playing unknown people. Then in Zombie episodes they had unnecessary cameos like Henry Winkler living on a ranch in Montana near Peggy's parents.
At least "Zombie KOTH" didn't last nearly as long as Zombie Simpsons and a lot of the more questionable elements from Season 10 onward were due to Fox fucking around with the show's budget.
Weren't most of the later seasons rejected scripts from the earlier seasons like the MySpace one? I thought I read that somewhere.
Season 1: The Order of the Straight Arrow
Season 2: Junkie Business
Season 3: Nine Pretty Darn Angry Men
Season 4: A Beer Can Named Desire
Season 5: The Exterminator
Season 6: Joust Like a Woman
Season 7: The Witches of East Arlen
Season 8: Phish and Wild Life
Season 9: Death Buys a Timeshare
Season 10: Portrait of an Artist as a Young Clown
Season 11: Blood and Sauce
Season 12: Strangeness on a Train
Season 13: A Bill Full of Dollars
"Heh, what a load. Can you imagine how I would have turned out if my dad had loved me "no matter what"?"
Still one of my favorite jokes in the show.
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