Television

Issue date:
Sept. 4-6, 1998

TV's new First Family

King of the Hill, a cartoon family with real-life values, leads a new wave of animation in prime time.

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In this article:
Some new shows to look out for on TV this Fall
Beyond Beavis and Butt-head
"Out-of-the-loop boomers"

By Mark Morrison

The Hills, of fictional Arlen, Texas, are prime time's No. 1 cartoon clan. Dad is voiced by Mike Judge; Mom, by Kathy Najimy.

e's a 40-year-old white guy married to his high school sweetheart: He manages a propane company, coaches Little League, chugs beer from the can, argues with liberals and bureaucrats equally and suffers from a congenitally narrow urethra.

She's a strong-willed wife, mother and substitute Spanish teacher who commands universal respect; she plays a mean game of Boggle, loves her ruby lipstick and defines her personal style with the latest shopping finds at Lubbock's Very Large Shoes. And, of course, there's their overweight 12-year-old son, who, let's just say, is no Bart Simpson.

Hank and Peggy Hill, son Bobby and big-haired niece Luanne Platter (whose home with the Hills represents a significant climb from her trailer-park roots) are not as famous, or as merchandised, as the stars of their former Sunday night lead-in, The Simpsons. But King of the Hill has quietly surpassed Matt Groening's groundbreaking series to become the top-rated prime-time animated show, No. 25 in the Nielsen ratings at the end of last season. Astonishingly, the series ranked fourth among men 18-34, behind only Seinfeld and ER.

Hank Hill is "like an alternative Andy Griffith," says co-creator Greg Daniels.

This season, Fox is gambling with the show's success, moving it to Tuesday, where it will anchor the night and wage war with Home Improvement, Mad About You, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Moesha.

Thanks in no small measure to King of the Hill, animation is big again. No fewer than five more cartoons are scheduled to debut in midseason, though none is likely to have the quirky sweetness that makes Hill one of a kind -- and the surprise hit of the year.

Even though they're cartoon characters, "Hank and his family are one of the realest families on TV right now," TV Guide critic Matt Roush says. The new cartoons coming up "are more edgy and twisted in one way or another. And though certainly there are some strange things that happen on King of the Hill, it's not a twisted show. No matter how weird things get, at the end of the show everything is OK. Most episodes come with a sense of family values without being ideological."

Beyond Beavis and Butt-head

Series creators Greg Daniels and Mike Judge are both 35 but otherwise are a study in contrasts. Daniels wears wire rims, lives in Los Angeles and has the slouchy demeanor of a young Walter Matthau. Judge wears a black T-shirt and jeans, lives in Austin, Texas, and, thanks mostly to his ebbing hairline, bears a rough resemblance to Sting.

But they're no Odd Couple -- and certainly no Beavis and Butt-head, the

popular MTV series with which Judge first made his name. In contrast to that show's sophomoric sensibility, King of the Hill, which debuted in January 1997, finds its humor in crafty truths and edgy observations about family life.

"Out-of-the-loop boomers"

In creating Hill, Daniels and Judge decided to avoid the cliché of the bumbling TV dad, finding inspiration in a mutual TV favorite.

"He's like an alternative Andy Griffith," says Daniels. "We kept saying, 'Andy Griffith is back -- and he's p----d!' "

Like The Andy Griffith Show (1960-68), Hill is more sophisticated than it seems, merging Judge's irreverent views of blue-collar America with the Harvard-educated Daniels' National Lampoon-inspired political incorrectness (Daniels was a writer-producer on the equally irreverent The Simpsons). Though an early episode about constipation may have set the stage for pushing the TV envelope, the producers say that is not what Hill is about.

"A lot of what we're doing is to try something original without doing something we all find personally repugnant," says Daniels. "The generation Mike and I are from is a tiny, skinny generation. It's not the big slacker thing. We're the very tail end of the baby boom. I don't want to make generalizations, but one thing we have in common is a distaste for the excesses of the people who would have been our older siblings -- all the older brothers of friends I had who went through weird phases where they had to dry out or got into weird trouble at the end of the '60s."

Being part of this generational wedge may have left them feeling culturally adrift, but that's often a good thing when it comes to breaking comedy molds.

"To me, the job's never been about trying to be edgy," says Judge, who is probably more conservative and soft-spoken than his critics would expect. And while episodes often end with a lesson learned, as in most family shows throughout television history, it's sometimes an unpopular lesson.

"People think a TV show has to show the way the world should be instead of the way the world is," observes Daniels.

Not Hill. Take the "Husky Bobby" episode, in which the Hills' pudgy progeny becomes a model for extra-large clothing without Hank's blessing. Apparently embarrassed by his son's new celebrity status, Hank stubbornly pulls him out of a fashion show -- and just in time. Bullies pelt the stage with doughnuts, proving that sometimes even a seemingly insensitive father knows best.

Says Daniels: "Hank was really saying, 'I care about my son, but cruelty exists, and why let him be the butt of it?' It's hard to tell that story."

Tweaking sitcom conventions, these two talents have tapped a vast constituency of Americans who may fall between the cultural cracks -- not unlike Hank and Peggy Hill, whom Daniels describes as "out-of-the-loop baby boomers."

"Most people aren't hip," says Judge. "I like the fact that the show is about completely unhip people and we're not making fun of them."