Sunday, September 13, 2009


WHY "KING OF THE HILL" IS THE BEST SHOW ON TV. HANDS DOWN.

The last episode is going to be aired soon, sadley. I'm hoping re-runs will continue for years. What about it is so good that Hank Williams II penned a song entitled, "Hank Hill is still the King" and I was inspired to spend money on a "Strickland Propane, Arlen TX" t-shirt?
Kurt Schlichter, at Big Hollywood:

The beauty of King is that while it pokes fun at Hank’s myriad foibles, it understands the creepy nature of those who dedicate their lives to interfering in the lives of others, always claiming the moral high ground yet inevitably maximizing their own personal power and advantage. From snooty school guidance counselors to pompous college professors to lazy municipal clerks, Hank is constantly beset by nimrods trying to force him to conform to their personal vision of how he should be. He usually responds as any good American would – with an exasperated threat to “kick your ass.” There were probably more than a few Hank Hills at Lexington and Concord.

Hank also embodies a kind of glorious naïveté, the shameless love and admiration for our country and its principles that would make a goateed hipster snigger. Hank is the type of guy who would show up at a town hall meeting about health care and ask where the Constitution says the federal government has any business at all getting involved with him and his doctor. The politician would roll his eyes – what kind of hick thinks the fact that the Constitution doesn’t empower the feds to take over health care is an argument against doing so? You know, kind of like in real life.

The beauty of King is that it made no apologies for the Hanks of the world. Liberals with a wide range of life experience living on the coast tend to think of those parts of America that stretch between Manhattan and Manhattan Beach as a sinister breeding ground of banjo-strumming inbreds aching to drag their terrified meterosexual victims off to a revival meeting. Not quite – if you really want to take a risk, hang with a liberal icon. Hank Hill wouldn’t have left a passenger in his truck at the bottom of a pond – but he wouldn’t have been heading to the beach with a gal pal for a personal pork barrel project in the first place. If your daughter’s car broke down on the side of the road at night, you’d pray for one of the Hank Hills of this country to be the one to pull up beside her.


No comments: