This is a love letter: Social realism is hard.
While “The Simpsons” got cultural icons for guest stars and had most of the “serious” television audience swinging from its chain for the past decade or so, “King of the Hill” has done its time as the lead-in – despite the fact that it’s always sharper on the social side and sweeter on the humane side.
While “Family Guy” grabbed a scatterbrained fanbase due to an onslaught of hip references and cracked-out scene cuts, “King of the Hill” matured into the best slice of Americana and suburban life since John Updike finished “Rabbit, Run.”
The show’s home in Arlen, Texas is almost magic. It’s a town populated by dynamic, hilarious and wonderfully human characters who all have at least one irreplaceable and often brilliant gimmick: Dale’s never-ending government paranoia, Boomhauer’s whiplash, ion-quick mumble and, of course, the trials of Khan, the Laotian neighbor and executive whose adjustment to middle-class American life is the most telling and nuanced aspect of the show.
As for the titular family, Hank Hill still sells propane with a sweet zeal, his wife Peggy is still the best substitute teacher in Arlen and their son, Bobby, the prop-comedy loving, chubby young lad who gets along better with adults than his plodding classmates, is still one of the most consistently irreverent figures in recent TV lore.
Even in its relatively brisk and brief fifth season, the cast manages to party with former Texas governor Ann Richards and explore Veterans’ Day with Hank’s always-surly father, Cotton (yeah, the guy with no shins). In the season’s most brilliant episode (“Yankee Hankie”), the proud Texan Hank finds out that he was actually born in (gasp!) Manhattan.
Texas usually gets a bum rap from those Manhattan critics, college kids and other pseudo-intellectual bobos, but what “Yankee Hankie” does better than anything is throw decades of Texan history at viewers as if we’re expected to know what’s going on. It’s a self-confident move, and one that lesser shows couldn’t pull off. And sometimes, “King of the Hill” actually informs as much as it blissfully entertains. It grabs ahold of the foibles of the honest-to-goodness middle class (SUVs and private school are thoroughly mocked by the series) without becoming mean-spirited or condescending.
As for the DVD, don’t expect anything much from the special features. What’s there is mildly entertaining at best. The set’s picture and sound are crystal clear and better than the standard broadcast version.
Those lesser shows, such as the increasingly inane “Family Guy,” claim to be more absurd and off-the-wall, but “King of the Hill” sticks to the daily bread that’s often more uproarious than it looks (Bobby saving a drowning pig, Dale’s lawsuit against his favorite cigarette company for ruining his wife’s skin). In doing so, “King of the Hill” makes real, heartland American life into slanted magic realism. And that gives it one thing no other animated comedy on television has right now: a heart.
Show: 5 Stars
Picture/Sound: 4 Stars
Features: 1 Star