When did King of the Hill jump the shark?

[garbed_attic]

I reckon when Season 6 begins with a whole episode based around Bobbie kicking men in the testicles with the word "testicles" repeated many times throughout the episode.

Seasons 2 and 3 are pretty flat-out incredible. 4 and 5 are still top-tier, but there are some odd tonal lurches. The story-line with Peggy breaking every bone in her body and then being trained back to health by the (endearingly abusive? I don't really know what the intent is) Cotton Hill is quite bleak and simply not very funny... and the episode in which Peggy is tricked into posing for pornography leaves a bad taste in my mouth. There's this increasing emphasis upon punishing Peggy for her hubris rather than enjoying her ludicrous self-confidence, delusions and all.

Likewise, I think KITH is best when Hank and Bobby represent two equally valid approaches to masculinity. As the show progresses Hank is more often simply right with various straw-men set up to lead Bobby astray and then Hank to humiliate/ shame. 'The Witches of East Arlen' in season 7 has some on-point commentary about peer pressure, but doesn't seem to extend much further than "guys who play D&D are weird - eww!" Likewise, in the season 10 episode 'Business Is Picking Up' mostly seems to hinge on the premise that waste removal is a professional worthy of contempt and Hank is good for dissuading Bobby from it as a career choice!

Of course, you never quite got 'Zombie KoTH' in the same way as 'Zombie Simpsons' - there's no equivalent to Marge raping Homer or the Family Guy cross-over episode... it never starts feeling entirely wrong, but it gradually becomes less funny and the reliance upon digital coloration and occasional CGI remove a lot of the warmth/ ugly charm of the animation style.

Compare - Season 4: 'Naked Ambition'



So, it's not beautiful exactly, but the muddy watercolour look feels warm and looks earthy and real. The purple of the water is a nice touch. The background isn't super detailed, but those are some pretty nice trees I'll tell you what! Nowhere near Simpsons animation standards at their best, but a damn slight better than Family Guy.

Season 9: 'Care-Takin' Care of Business'



Things are just that bit more uniform and smooth - colour gradients especially. There is less texture and slightly less character. It doesn't look bad... just a little less interesting to my eyes.

Oh and no-one likes Lucky, right?

[Small Man Big Horse]

It didn't, and to suggest otherwise is madness. Sorry!

[Small Man Big Horse]

I will allow the possible suggestion that there was a slight decline in quality around season nine, but it's such a minor thing that it's not really worth mentioning.

[Lemming]

Season 5 is when it starts to noticeably change in tone for me (always hated the Castro episode in particular), with 6 being a very jarring change, as you said.

But I've always defended Season 6 because, even though it slides into a very non-KOTH tone at times, it's still (mostly) hysterically funny and the characters are still (again, mostly) intact, even when the script is pushing them into bizarre situations. "Soldier of Misfortune" is one of my favourite episodes of the entire show - pocket sand, "Mr Big is pleased", "I was just calling for help, I swear", Dale getting instantly captured during the rescue attempt, etc. "Sug Night" is another favourite, even if the end reveal that Hank is literally sexually aroused by propane pushed things a little too far into self-parody territory. "Bobby Goes Nuts" is absolutely stupid, but Mike Judge making agonized pain noises for the entire second half of the episode still sends me into breathless laughter no matter how ridiculous and sub-par the script gets.

That said, it's still a shaky season overall and some of the episodes just straight-up don't work (the one with the cult and emus springs to mind), so if we're trying to determine a single absolute non-negotiable shark-jumping point, season 6 probably qualifies.

Season 7, I think, is when the show really starts to develop the problem of Hank just voicing the opinion of the writers and then being vindicated as a bunch of strawmen unravel themselves around him.

But it's such a great show that there's still a goldmine of quality episodes in every season. I must have seen every episode at least 3 times (and all the pre-season 7 episodes about a trillion times) and I could easily go for another full rewatch again.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I'm never sure if I'm missing something with KOTH or there's nothing to get.

[3S96]

Never really felt it jumped the shark, per se, but I think it became quite cosy towards the end. Can't think of specific examples, but it just felt as if what it made it special wasn't really there anymore, probably from around series eight or nine, as stated above. Familiarity perhaps? Still, it was all down (Hank) hill after the volunteer firemen episode if you ask me. Dale, who always got the best lines, singing bee-bye-bicky-bo has to be the best thing in all of KOTH.

Admittedly, it's been a while since I saw the whole series, but given I'm at an impasse now, I may give it a re-watch list.

[3S96]

I'm never sure if I'm missing something with KOTH or there's nothing to get.

It's hard to say. I've always liked how understated it is, but it is genuinely hilarious at times, just not nearly as often as classic Simpsons.

[lankyguy95]

I'm going through it again at the moment so I might have some thoughts in a few weeks. I can't say I've ever thought it jumped the shark though.

[St_Eddie]

I really need to delve into King of the Hill properly, as I only ever watched a handful of episodes, back when the show was being broadcast on UK terrestrial television.  I liked what little I saw, so this thread is a nice little nudge for me.  I certainly enjoy Mike Judge's other work (to varying degrees), so chances are high that I'll become a fan of this too.

[Povidone]

Never did, consistently good from start to finish which is why it's the best of yer animated comedies.

[Old Nehamkin]

I think there was a noticeable drop in quality from season 5 when Greg Daniels and Mike Judge stepped down from active showrunning duties. The show remained consistently funny for the most part after that, but it also became much more episodic and overtly sitcom-ish in a way that felt like a step back from the first four seasons which took quite a bold approach to character development and ongoing storylines in a way that I don't think has really been matched by any other animated sitcom before or since.

As far as specific shark-jumping episodes go, the one where Luanne starts going out with the guy who runs the pork processing plant always stuck out as a weird one. The ending in particular is a bizarre tonal misjudgement that I can't imagine ever being approved in the early years of the show.

[garbed_attic]

I think there was a noticeable drop in quality from season 5 when Greg Daniels and Mike Judge stepped down from active showrunning duties. The show remained consistently funny for the most part after that, but it also became much more episodic and overtly sitcom-ish in a way that felt like a step back from the first four seasons which took quite a bold approach to character development and ongoing storylines in a way that I don't think has really been matched by any other animated sitcom before or since.

I really wish they'd kept aging the characters. Having Bobby, Connie and Joseph grow through adolescence and then university would have opened up new storylines and allowed the writers to explore different facets of their personalities and we could have seen Hank and Peggy retire and cope with that and Bill just getting sadder and sadder.

[gatchamandave]

As far as specific shark-jumping episodes go, the one where Luanne starts going out with the guy who runs the pork processing plant always stuck out as a weird one. The ending in particular is a bizarre tonal misjudgement that I can't imagine ever being approved in the early years of the show.

Dingdangyomangotitinonegimmeacallsometimebabe

[ASFTSN]

As far as specific shark-jumping episodes go, the one where Luanne starts going out with the guy who runs the pork processing plant always stuck out as a weird one. The ending in particular is a bizarre tonal misjudgement that I can't imagine ever being approved in the early years of the show.

Remind me - this is the Bluebeard style one where the bloke starts asking Luanne to dress as a pig to get his rocks off, and the end involves him getting fatally mulched by his own pork-processing contraption, with Peggy and Luanne just sort of shrugging it off?

[typeforty]

Sorry, back up a minute - Marge raping Homer??

[Chriddof]

Remind me - this is the Bluebeard style one where the bloke starts asking Luanne to dress as a pig to get his rocks off, and the end involves him getting fatally mulched by his own pork-processing contraption, with Peggy and Luanne just sort of shrugging it off?

Spoilers, I guess:

The bloke is asking Luanne to dress as some sort of German maid, and it's the bloke himself who dresses up as a pig. There's also an additional weird detail that (I think) he asks Luanne to enter a relationship with some random dude dressed as a Swiss / German farmer type, so he can be their "baby" (the pig). It turns out that he's had some sort of brain trauma that's caused him go insane and obsess over some old print ad he keeps in his office. And just before he dies, he gets a massive electric shock to his head that makes him normal again, and then seconds later he gets turned to sausages.

And yes, Luanne and Peggy just sort of wander off at the end, despite the horrific event that's just occurred.

Sorry, back up a minute - Marge raping Homer??

There was a Simpsons episode where Marge became a bodybuilder and raped Homer (off camera). There was a "joke" afterwards where Homer's sobbing in the kitchen to Bart and Lisa that "last night... she was the man!"

[MojoJojo]

There was a Simpsons episode where Marge became a bodybuilder and raped Homer (off camera). There was a "joke" afterwards where Homer's sobbing in the kitchen to Bart and Lisa that "last night... she was the man!"

Blimey, that's ripped off of Family Guy too.

[Blumf]

Blimey, that's ripped off of Family Guy too.

That can't possibly be... they fuckin' did an all!!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lethal_Weapons
E07S03 August 22, 2001

That night, Lois rapes Peter in order to reassert her dominance

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_Arms_of_the_Ma
E09S14 February 2, 2003

When Homer refuses Marge's sexual advances the night before the contest, she callously ignores his worries and then proceeds to pin him down and rapes him, before leaving him completely sore and exhausted to take care of the kids the next morning.

[madhair60]

It never jumped the shark.

[madhair60]

Also I'm not convinced by the OPs comparison. From the same two episodes:

Naked Ambition



Care-Takin' Care of Business

[garbed_attic]

I probably should have used images from seasons further apart. The art definitely starts getting more smooth and standardised. Since humour in King of the Hill rarely came from the art itself it was never the same issue it was with The Simpsons though.

[madhair60]

Fuck sake Gout_Pony, sorry, I didn't even look at who posted this thread, just went "The OP". YOU DESERVE ADDRESSING BY FAKE NAME.

[garbed_attic]

Fuck sake Gout_Pony, sorry, I didn't even look at who posted this thread, just went "The OP". YOU DESERVE ADDRESSING BY FAKE NAME.

haha thanks! I think I need to change my display picture to something more striking!

And to tell the truth I couldn't really find many images illustrating my point so I may well be wrong - the thought was mostly influenced by watching a really late episode some time ago which employed obvious obviously digital animation for the ocean in a way that at the time looked jarring.

I should have come up for a better name for the thread but I wanted to imitate the Simpsons one to succinctly express the idea that I feel that later KoTH, while still being good, loses a certain something and what that certain something might be.

Personally I think the relationship between Hank and Bobby grows less interesting as the writers more often structure the stories to privilege Hank's ideological position over Bobby's (and the token antagonists he falls in with). And that this could have been avoided by having Bobby and the kids continue growing up, thus changing their relationships with their parents over time!

[Ignatius_S]

For such a long-running show, King of the Hill delivered an impressively high standard throughout its run. It's inevitable that long-running shows change to some degree. That change often causes a weakening – or sometimes jettisoning – of elements that made the show work so well. However, I don't feel that that really can be fairly said – for example, the book, The Death of Common Sense, was a famously a big influence on the development of the show, and believe that the influence was still very much at play by the end.

Mention of showrunners has been mentioned and feel this summary is very sound:

While waiting for Fox to get off its ratings-challenged butt and show the new season of King of the Hill, I thought I'd try to write a bit about the show's writers -- the Simpsons writers and their approaches are fairly well-known to fans, but the KotH people, not so much. So I'll start with a rundown of the showrunners the show has had during its run and what I see as their approaches:

Seasons 1-2: Greg Daniels. As co-creator, he served the same function that Sam Simon did in the first two seasons of The Simpsons: assembling the writing staff, and guiding the show through its growing pains until its style and tone was pretty much fully established during the second season.

Seasons 3-5: Richard Appel. (There's some overlap here because Daniels was still co-showrunner in season 3 and perhaps 4.) Like Daniels, a Simpsons vet and a Harvard Lampoon guy. The show's plots started to get a little wilder in these years (the dolphin episode, the Tennesee Williams spoof and the "Ho Yeah!" episode, to name only three). And during these seasons, KotH did a lot of episodes where the status quo changes -- eg Cotton having a new son -- and since Appel also wrote the Simpsons episode where Apu gets married, I'd speculate that he might have had a fondness for those kind of "life-changing" episodes.

Season 6: Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger. Two more Harvard Lampoon guys, who had been with the show since the beginning. Their approach seems similar to Appel's, but the plots got very wacky in this season, and with a heavy emphasis on the wackiest characters, like Dale (Dale thinks Joseph is an alien, Dale goes on a faux mercenary mission, Dale this, Dale that). Mike Judge's interviews have sent out some pretty strong signals that he didn't like the approach of this season; Aibel and Berger left after the last season 6 recording session and many of the episodes were heavily rewritten.

Season 7 - present: John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky. With the show since season 2. They are the first non-Harvard KotH showrunners (their bios say that they went to the University of South Carolina). Their approach arguably reflects the fact that Mike Judge has been somewhat more involved in the show in the last couple of years: very reality-based stories, and a heavier emphasis on the theme of Hank vs. The World.
http://www.boardsandrec.com/showthread.php?t=39054

This article is a good summary of how the show's production changed:
http://www.macleans.ca/uncategorized/a-brief-history-of-king-of-the-hill/

Also worth a look:
http://www.geocitiessites.com/arlen_texas/inside.htm

...
I should have come up for a better name for the thread but I wanted to imitate the Simpsons one to succinctly express the idea that I feel that later KoTH, while still being good, loses a certain something and what that certain something might be....

Personally would say that the thread title went against with what the aim was.

Jumped the shark often comes across as a casual cliché – and can commonly be employed provocatively and/or lazily, and unsatisfactorily to boot. Often it's used to describe when a good show went bad – and would say that was the approach taken in the in the Simpsons thread you're talking about – and felt that was  being employed here.

At the very least, it's a term that's loaded with negative connotations and will direct discussion accordingly.

...
Personally I think the relationship between Hank and Bobby grows less interesting as the writers more often structure the stories to privilege Hank's ideological position over Bobby's (and the token antagonists he falls in with)....

Nah.

A similar, more common argument is that an outside position is introduced, Hank will come into conflict with it and he will be proved correct. However, that argument invariably overlooks key points.

For example, in a late episode, the Order of the Straight Arrow is reintroduced into the series and new character (I think a newcomer to the area) starts up the group with Hank. Quickly, the person is shown to be highly protective of the youngsters (e.g. when making a camp fire, they stay inside and make a toy one) and not very favourably portrayed. At the end, the troop venture outside, no disasters happen, their action embody what the Order is about etc. but Hank is *not* the 'winner'.

The other character questions Hank about who is he to tell him how he should raise his children. Hank has no other answer other than make his sound to indicate 'Well, that's a thinker' – he knows the other person has a very point. At that point, I feel the audience is being made to look at the character in a different light. It's a neat reverse and saves the show from 'Hank is 100% correct'.

... And that this could have been avoided by having Bobby and the kids continue growing up, thus changing their relationships with their parents over time!

Given that Fox explicitly forbad any more aging of characters, pretty much any character development, storylines that went over episodes etc., that was no chance of that.

[garbed_attic]

Personally would say that the thread title went against with what the aim was.

That's fair - though I personally do think that the post season 5 episodes are somewhat weaker than 2 to 5. But thank you for providing the links as they make sense of a lot of what I was trying to get at.

Also, I wasn't especially trying to blame Judge or any of the other writers. I still think the show would have been more interesting if Bobby et al. had continued to grow older as they did in the earlier seasons even if that was down to Fox.

[Replies From View]

All I remember from King of the Hill is the boy putting on some warm underpants from the tumble drier.

I thought it was good.

[mippy]

I love the show but the MySpace episode is unwatchable.

[Zetetic]

That's really interesting Ignatius_S, particularly regarding the showrunners.

I and someone else were watching King of the Hill on-and-off from the start over the last few years, and somewhere in Season 6 our watching has just petered out - it felt a bit more unpleasant in an unearned fashion, less thoughtful and - as what you've quoted points out - less grounded.

Perhaps it's worth starting again in Season 7. Edit: Although it sounds like it will have its own frustrations that prevent it being something so readily looked-forward-to.

[lankyguy95]

Just bumping the thread to say that 4music have started showing KOTH late at night.

[neveragain]

The story-line with Peggy breaking every bone in her body and then being trained back to health by the (endearingly abusive? I don't really know what the intent is) Cotton Hill is quite bleak and simply not very funny...

Have to say I love this little storyline. I never feel that Cotton is made out to be endearing but somehow or other his harshness and the spirit of getting-on-with-it helps Peggy in her recovery. On the other hand, Peggy's vulnerability here does make her more likable. The first episode after her fall where Peggy is paralysed - and infantilised by Hank and Bobby, who stick her near the screaming new baby and bottle-feed her in the same manner - is hard to watch but I always get happy tears from the ending when she regains her usefulness and pride.

Excellent thread by the way. Anything that discusses KOTH is.