TVSquad

(S11E08)

Peggy: There's a brown spot on the lawn, and there is a brown spot on your son.

Wow, a whole hour of King of the Hill. I must say I thought this one had more yucks than the other episode.

(S10E12) Being a heterosexual male with the ability to use my eyes, I can certainly understand the desire to kick back at the occasional strip club now and again, but I've never understood men who go to these places all the time. They're fun once in a while, but I would think frequenting them every day would cause the novelty to wear off pretty quickly. That doesn't seem to be the case for Mr. Strickland, who has spent every morning of his life kicking back at his favorite strip joint and enjoying the free buffet. In the beginning of last night's episode, after fuming over the lack of free food, he's banned from the strip club indefinitely.

The episode could have easily been turned into one about a dirty old man upset about not being able to ogle chicks before work every morning, but it was really more about Strickland's endless struggle to remain young and vibrant, at least in his own mind. He has no desire to be the real "boss" of Strickland Propane, he delegates that responsibility to Hank. What he does want is to be the crazy guy who swipes money from the cash register to use at the strip club each morning. Since he can't even do that anymore, he decides to make Strickland Propane more "fun," turning it into "Strickland Propanerie" and having his workers dress in Hawaiian shirts and bunny ears. Unfortunately, this means no work ever gets done and they end up having to work overtime. Hank eventually smooths things over with the owner of the strip club, and Mr. Strickland is allowed back, as long as both parties understand the other one isn't apologizing.

Well, my Tivo listed last night's episode of King of the Hill as "Hank FIRES Everything" which didn't sound quite right to me. TV.com has the episode name listed as "Hank FIXES Everything," so I'm going with that, since I don't recall Hank doing any firing during last night's episode, although one of his workers, Joe Jack, is fired by Mr. Strickland when a price war with other propane and fuel salesmen in the area gets out of hand. Mr. Strickland figures firing Joe Jack will save about $400 a week.

I've come back to this time and again in my other KOTH reviews, but I like how the show has a "human" element other primetime cartoons don't have. However, once in a while a show, animated or otherwise, will have to bend the rules of what makes sense in order to move the plot along. The idea of a price war was a great idea for a show, but why would Arlen, a small town, need not one, but FOUR propane dealers?

All in all, a good episode, and the subplot featuring Tom Petty as Luanne's philosophical redneck boyfriend convincing her and Bobby to camp out for Brownsville Station tickets (seats in front of the speakers on the left side of the stage, to be exact) was pretty funny, especially when, after eating nothing but bread for five days, Luanne fears she may have contracted "bread poisoning." And let's not forget an appearance by the American Chopper guys, who incite a mass riot at the propane expo. My only minor disappointment was a lack of Peggy, who, if she isn't my favorite character, is the one I find most intriguing. It's as if her mind receives the same information as everyone else, but is then sent through some bizarre filter only she has, which results in her tossing out little gems like, "more people would rather see someone killed on TV than watch real people make love."