| King of the Hill | |
|---|---|
| Season 1 | |
 DVD cover | |
| Showrunners | |
| No. of episodes | 12 |
| Release | |
| Original network | Fox |
| Original release | January 12 (1997-01-12) – May 11, 1997 (1997-05-11) |
| Season chronology | |
Next → Season 2 | |
| List of episodes | |
This is a list of episodes from the first season ofKing of the Hill, which aired onFox from January 12 to May 11, 1997 for 12 episodes.
Theshowrunners for the season wereMike Judge andGreg Daniels.[1] New episodes of Judge's first animated seriesBeavis and Butt-Head continued to air onMTV when the first andsecond seasons ofKing of the Hill were airing on Fox, with the series eventually wrapping up in November 1997. ABeavis and Butt-Head spin-off titledDaria also premiered on MTV in March 1997, although Judge had no creative involvement with this series, and didn't voice any of the characters like inBeavis and Butt-Head.
The opening sequence utilizeddigital ink and paint, however, the episodes themselves were still done using traditionalcel animation, and they would continue to be animated this way up until theeight season.
Work on the show's background music began in January 1997, the same month that it commenced airing. The show's production company,Judgmental Films, hired seven composers to write the music to the first 13 episodes. Among the seven composers were the bandThe Refreshments, who also composed the opening and closing themes that appear in every episode. The producers gave each composer one or two episodes to do whilst they were looking for the style that would best suit the program, eventually settling onJohn O'Connor andRoger Neill.[2]Ron Wasserman, who composed the theme songs forMighty Morphin Power Rangers andX-Men: The Animated Series, was interested in composing for the show and submitted acoustic guitar music during pre-production, although he would not end up being chosen as one of the initial seven composers on the first season.[3] For the first season and beyond, the show's background music would typically be done three weeks before episodes went to air.[2]
The season originally aired Sundays at 8:30–9:00 p.m. (EST) on theFox Broadcasting Company.[4][5] It aired followingThe Simpsons, another adult animated series.King of the Hill's strong ratings helpedThe Simpsons post its first increase over previous season ratings.[6] To coincide with Fox's broadcast ofSuper Bowl XXXI, a 20 second skit titled "Super Bowl Moment with Hank Hill" aired on January 26, 1997, in which Hank tries to cut in line at a supermarket checkout on the day of the Super Bowl. This skit utilized digital ink and paint like the opening sequence did, and was later included on the DVD release of the first season.[7]
On August 1, 1997,King of the Hill's first season premiered onChannel 4 in the United Kingdom. In Australia, the season began airing on theSeven Network on November 23, 1997, and was also aired onFox8 the following year. Between 1998 and 2010, the rest of the series would continue to be aired concurrently on both Seven and Fox8 in Australia. On the Seven Network, the series was initially airing duringprime time, although during the 2000s it typically aired during weekend afternoon timeslots, alongside children's programs. In 1998, aFrench-Canadian dub of this season began airing in Quebec. This dub removed the Texas references and set the show in rural Quebec, changing the names of all characters and locations. It continued up until the eight season.
In December 1997,Entertainment Weekly criticKen Tucker namedKing of the Hill as one of the best shows to debut that year. He wrote, "it was a good year for new cartoons, but I'll takeKing of the Hill bracing openheartedness overSouth Park's clever but monotonous heartlessness any time. TV’s most original, complicated new character was Hank Hill—middle-class Texan, political conservative, social libertarian,Willie Nelson fan—who exploded every white-guy small-screen stereotype in place sinceArchie Bunker."[8]
In his 1997 review for the Pilot episode, Howard Rosenberg of theLos Angeles Times wrote, "whereasThe Simpsons sees animation as an opportunity to expand physical reality and tour plot realms far beyond the resources of regular sitcoms,King of the Hill is visually myopic in its storytelling." Rosenberg also wrote thatKing of the Hill lacked "the panoramic vision and often slashing irreverence and social observances ofThe Simpsons, which, although not the hilarious achiever it once was, remains a cleverly written farce and commentary on pop culture. On Sunday, for example, haplessHomer's eyewitness reports of an eerily glowing, ghostly figure in the night bringDana Scully andFox Mulder of Fox's ownThe X-Files to Springfield [in] a series whose points of reference, from sci-fi to goofy TV newscasters, are as topical and eclectic as ever." Rosenberg added that, "despite being more conventionally humanoid and recognizable than the exotic universe ofThe Simpsons, the premiere ofKing of the Hill is light on media signposts, limiting itself pretty much to benign mentions ofNBC'sSeinfeld."[9] A December 1997 article fromTime magazine titled "The Best Television of 1997" stated that, "The Simpsons is still the cleverest comedy on TV, andKing of the Hill creates a world with far more specificity than any live-action sitcom. Both are smarter, funnier and, in fact, more human thanFriends orSeinfeld."[10]
In June 1997, Katy Daigle of theHartford Courant labelled the show as being an improvement over Mike Judge's other animated seriesBeavis and Butt-Head, claiming that, "it has substance to its consistently on-target humor."[11] TheCapital Gazette described it as "The Simpsons meetsBeavis and Butt-head in the Texas burbs" in February 1997.[12] Phil Gallo ofVariety commented in his review of the Pilot that, "it's a break from all the over-the-top sitcoms Fox has scheduled in hopes of building off theMarried... with Children franchise. Humor here is far more sedate. Plenty of folks won't get it." Gallo added that the animation is "neither as crude asB&B or as sharp asThe Simpsons, whichFilm Roman also produces."[13]
In a 2006 review of the DVD release of the first season, Dorian Lynskey of British publicationEmpire gave it four out of five stars, commenting that "it seems odd that the Hills were once dismissed asSimpsons copyists. Compared to Springfield's helter-skelter surrealism, Arlen, Texas is doggedly low-key and the animation is as flat as the landscape." Lynskey added "Texan-born[note 1] creator Mike Judge's natural feel for small-town rhythms and ordinary lives makes this the truest and kindest of the post-Groening animated sitcoms."[14] In 2021, Ben Sherlock ofGame Rant considered the series to be more original than Fox's later adult animated showFamily Guy, which premiered in 1999. He wrote "King of the Hill andFamily Guy are both adult-oriented animated comedies capitalizing onThe Simpsons success, but only one is called a rip-off."[15]
| No. overall | No. in season | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original release date | Prod. code | U.S. viewers (millions) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | "Pilot" | Wes Archer | Mike Judge &Greg Daniels | January 12, 1997 (1997-01-12) | 4E01 | 19.92[17] |
Strickland propane salesman and family man, Hank Hill, is accused of beating his son, Bobby, after Bobby gets a black eye from getting hit in the face with a baseball during a Little League game and rumors spread that Hank beat up a teenaged Megalo-Mart employee (when really he just yelled at him for not knowing if the store sells atap and die and someWD-40). Meanwhile, Hank's friends, conspiracy nut Dale Gribble, down-and-out Army barber Bill Dauterive, and fast-talking womanizer Jeff Boomhauer, try to fix Hank's truck, while Luanne Platter (Hank's niece) moves in with the Hills after her parents get sent to jail over a domestic disturbance. The episode is also known as "Bobby the Baseball Phenom".[16] | |||||||
| 2 | 2 | "Square Peg" | Gary McCarver | Joe Stillman | January 19, 1997 (1997-01-19) | 4E02 | 14.32[18] |
Peggy is mortified and tongue-tied when she finds out she has been chosen to teach the middle school'ssexual education class, while Hank does everything he can to keep his son from learning about sex. | |||||||
| 3 | 3 | "The Order of the Straight Arrow" | Klay Hall | Cheryl Holliday | February 2, 1997 (1997-02-02) | 4E03 | 18.93[19] |
Hank, Bill, Dale, and Boomhauer take Bobby and his friends on an Order of the Straight Arrow camping trip where the men send the boys on a snipe hunt during which Bobby stuns awhooping crane but then everyone believes it is dead. Meanwhile, Peggy sneaks out to buy special shoes for her large feet. Note: This episode was dedicated toVictor Aaron, the original voice ofJohn Redcorn. | |||||||
| 4 | 4 | "Hank's Got the Willies" | Monte Young | Johnny Hardwick | February 9, 1997 (1997-02-09) | 4E05 | 15.30[20] |
Hank is worried that Bobby does not have a normal role model in his life—and things get worse when Bobby accidentally hits Hank's idol,Willie Nelson (voiced by Nelson himself) with a golf club during a day on the green. Willie later explains to Hank that Bobby already had a hero all along...his father. | |||||||
| 5 | 5 | "Luanne's Saga" | Pat Shinagawa | Paul Lieberstein | February 16, 1997 (1997-02-16) | 4E04 | 17.49[21] |
When Buckley breaks up withLuanne and she goes on a days-long crying jag, Hank sets out to find Luanne a new boyfriend in 48 hours—which backfires when Hank sees Luanne with Boomhauer. Chuck Mangione also guest stars. Last appearance ofVictor Aaron asJohn Redcorn. | |||||||
| 6 | 6 | "Hank's Unmentionable Problem" | Adam Kuhlman | Greg Daniels & Mike Judge | February 23, 1997 (1997-02-23) | 4E07 | 15.05[22] |
Hank's ongoingconstipation causes great concern for Peggy and, much to Hank's embarrassment, everyone else in Arlen.Jim Cummings andSteven Banks guest stars. | |||||||
| 7 | 7 | "Westie Side Story" | Brian Sheesley | Jonathan Aibel & Glenn Berger | March 2, 1997 (1997-03-02) | 4E06 | 16.25[23] |
When a new Laotian family moves in next door, problems ensue when the new neighbor's family dog goes missing and the Hills fear that the stereotype about Asians eating dogs is true. | |||||||
| 8 | 8 | "Shins of the Father" | Martin Archer Jr. | Alan R. Cohen & Alan Freedland | March 23, 1997 (1997-03-23) | 4E08 | 15.89[24] |
Hank's brash, sexist, war veteran father, Cotton Hill, crashes Bobby's 12th birthday party and uses it as an excuse to stay over at the Hills' house, which does not sit well with Peggy when Cotton'smisogyny begins rubbing off on Bobby. | |||||||
| 9 | 9 | "Peggy the Boggle Champ" | Chuck Sheetz | Jonathan Aibel & Glenn Berger | April 13, 1997 (1997-04-13) | 4E09 | 15.42[25] |
Hank's promise to coach Peggy at the Texas StateBoggle Championship is jeopardized when his buddies try to lure him away to the Ninth AnnualDallas Mower Expo. Meanwhile, Bobby and Luanne freak out when they leave a condensation ring on the new coffee table, but their efforts to fix it cause even more trouble. | |||||||
| 10 | 10 | "Keeping Up with Our Joneses" | John Rice | Jonathan Collier & Joe Stillman | April 27, 1997 (1997-04-27) | 4E10 | 17.37[26] |
When Hank catches Bobby smoking a cigarette in a gas station bathroom, Hank punishes him by making his son smoke an entire carton, but the plan backfires when Bobby, Hank, and Peggy all become addicted. | |||||||
| 11 | 11 | "King of the Ant Hill" | Gary McCarver | Johnny Hardwick & Paul Lieberstein | May 4, 1997 (1997-05-04) | 4E13 | 12.64[27] |
After telling Dale never to spray insecticide on his lawn again, Hank's expensive new lawn becomes mysteriously infested with fire ants days before Rainey Street's Cinco de Mayo celebration. Meanwhile, Bobby becomes the hypnotized servant for the Red Ant Queen. | |||||||
| 12 | 12 | "Plastic White Female" | Jeff Myers | David Zuckerman | May 11, 1997 (1997-05-11) | 4E11 | 13.25[28] |
Bobby is invited to his first boy/girl party, and Peggy is horrified when she discovers him kissing Luanne's plastic beauty school head. | |||||||
The season was released on DVD inRegion 1 (North America) by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment in 2003. In Region 2 (the United Kingdom) and Region 4 (Australia), it was released during 2006. It is the only season of the show to be released on DVD in Japan, with the Japanese release featuring a dubbed version. The second season was also dubbed, and aired on Japanese television, but was never released on DVD in the country. The original 2003 DVD release for Region 1 included three DVD cases in a cardboard box. The Region 2 and Region 4 releases instead held all the season's discs in a single case. In 2010, the Region 1 DVD was reissued with similar packaging to the other regions.
Theseason two episode "The Company Man" is included on DVD releases due to its production code. OnHulu and most television reruns, this episode is still ordered as part of the second season.[29]
