King of the Hill: Season 14 - Time Sure Flies, I Tell You What
By Jim Slotek
Rating: B+
There is a reason the characters in animated series like The Simpsons, South Park and American Dad never age. It’s called playing it safe.
Aging is tricky, and if The Simpsons did what Mike Judge is doing with the latest chapter of King of the Hill, Bart and Lisa could be in their forties now. (Come to think of it, that’s a show I’d prefer to watch over the preserved-in-amber version.)
What is technically Season 14 of King of the Hill puts the viewer through something like time travel. It plops us, 16 years after the fact, into a very much changed, and not-as-idyllically insular Arlen, Texas. The adults – including Hank Hill, who’s just spent a decade as a propane consultant in Saudi Arabia (where Peggy learned to mangle Arabic as badly as she did Spanish) – are at a place in their lives where they either accept retirement or struggle to evade it.
And the kids? Well, they’re in their 20s, either on a high-end career track or playing video games in an endless post-school victory lap. They are sexually active, and their language can be raw. The high-achieving Connie Souphanousinphone is still the love of Bobby Hill’s life, but she subscribes to “ethical non-monogamy” (ENM) in which people avoid the distractions of relationships by sleeping with whoever they want, no strings attached.
No, this is not your dad’s Arlen (a place where, admittedly. people once stayed the same age for 13 seasons, just like the series’ animated cousins).
The earliest tidbit that was released about the “new” KOTH is that Bobby (still voiced by Pamela Adlon) runs his own restaurant in Dallas, a German-Japanese fusion barbecue (one regular customer notes he “wasn’t a big fan” of the last fusion of those two). And the episode where Bobby is accused of cultural appropriation is funny and savvy about the lengths people will go to take offence.
But the social conscience of the show is less a key to its success than the humanity on display. Like similar shows, KOTH introduced caricatures who, happily evolved into characters. None, however, was as successful as Mike Judge and company at giving these characters souls. Stubborn hubris, fear, denial, painful expressions of love that are like pulling teeth, all are on display and always have been..
The soulfulness is still there, now seasoned by the years. And like before, you must stick with it for a while before you realize you’re watching fictionalized people who can be achingly real.
There has ache off-screen as well, with multiple deaths of voice actors. Brittany Murphyy and rocker Tom Petty voiced my favourite couple, Luanne and Lucky, and both sadly passed. The couple is missing in action here.
Johnny Hardwick, the voice of conspiracy theorist Dale Gribble, put in a few episodes before his untimely death, and Toby Huss, the former voice of Kahn Souphanousinphone (Connie’s dad) has taken over Dale’s role. Kahn, in turn, is now voiced by The Daily Show’s Ronny Chieng, putting an Asian actor in the role for the first time (casting that didn’t get nearly the attention that Hank Azaria got for voicing The Simpsons’ Apu).
And Jonathan Joss, who voiced John Redcorn, was shot and killed in San Antonio in June. He is in several episodes this season.
Out of the gate, Season 14 strains to give every character a “moment” to remind us of the backstories and neuroses. There’s also a new Black neighbour, Brian Robertson (voiced by veteran actor Keith David), whose moment never really arrives in the 10 episodes I screened..
It’s also notable that a small town in Texas that, in the real world, would be MAGA ground zero, devotes next to no time for politics (other than Dale’s conspiratorial ramblings, and the fact that he’d been elected mayor for 38 hours).
Actually, I’m glad they stopped short of current politics. King of the Hill has always been about people-politics, Hank’s conservatism being of the old-school, well-meaning, stop-talking-nonsense variety.
And if that slice of apple pie is the one aspect of the show that’s still stuck in amber, I’m okay with it.
King of the Hill: Season 14. Created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels. Starring (voices) Mike Judge, Kathy Najimy, Pamela Adlon, Stephen Root. Begins streaming on Disney+ Wednesday, August 6.