- Downtown, Burbank Fuddruckers.
That is actually what it says, and I have to say it.
(rock music)
Running for 259 episodes over the course of 13 seasons,
King Of The Hill is an absolutely classic animated sitcom.
But the slice of life comedy about a Texan family
is usually spoken about with more reverence
paid to the fact that it's a sitcom
than paid to the fact that it's animated.
As a matter of fact, I couldn't tell you how many times
I've seen people ask why King Of The Hill
needs to be animated.
Admittedly it's a question I've wondered myself at times.
It doesn't have the inter-dimensional travel
of Rick and Morty,
the high concept absurdity of South Park,
or a character who's literally just a horse.
But just because it's not flashy doesn't mean
King Of The Hill doesn't rely heavily on the necessity
of its animation.
In fact, the show would never have attained
the same level of success if it had been live action.
Let's look at all the reasons that
King Of The Hill needs to be animated.
Number one, cinematography.
Cinematography isn't a word you typically
think of in the same sentence as animated sitcom,
or hell, even in the same sentence as live action sitcom,
until the past few years at least.
Situational comedies have traditionally existed
in a world of three cameras on a studio backlot set,
with characters cheated out to the audience
resembling a stageplay.
This look's been mimicked by animation as far back
as shows like the Flintstones,
and as recently as Bob's Burgers.
This flat design minimizes the number of
costly backgrounds that need to be drawn,
and greatly reduces complex angles
that you might see the characters.
King Of The Hill on the other hand,
was like nothing else when it premiered in 1997.
Though the location was the quiet suburban sprawl
of Arlington, Texas, the way the show was shot
has more in common with a Coen Brothers movie
than it does with The Simpsons.
Take a look at the staging of this simple dinner scene,
and how elegant it is.
An outdoor establishing shot,
character close-ups and reverse shots,
cutting all through the table with a clear line of action.
The complexity of this scene was unheard of
in an era of three-camera sitcoms.
King Of The Hill's contemporaries like Friends, Frasier,
Just Shoot Me, and even Seinfeld,
rarely dared to put a character's back to the camera.
It wasn't until shows like Malcolm In The Middle
and Arrested Development normalized the notion
of a single camera shooting,
that shows began to look this good.
King Of The Hill's cinematography wasn't just for
innovation's sake, either.
There was an obvious practical value to the cost.
Cameras, sets, locations, scouting crews,
they all cost a lot of money.
Peak TV means shows cost more than they ever have,
and while animation's not cheap either,
creating reusable backgrounds and elements
was a cost-saving measure that made all of this possible
long before any other show was doing it.
Number two, voice cast.
Though Hank, Peggy, and Bobby stand front and center,
King Of The Hill is a show with an impossibly huge cast.
There are 188 named characters with dedicated pages
on the King Of Hill wiki,
and that's not even including the one-off,
incidental, unnamed characters.
A live action show would require virtually
every single one of those roles to be a different person,
or for the actors to undergo expensive
and time consuming facial reconstructive surgery
between roles which is surprisingly not a thing
a lot of actors are game for, I don't know why.
As other animated shows like The Simpsons have shown us,
an impossibly huge cast is nothing that a team
of extremely talented voice actors can't handle.
While not as frequently lauded as The Simpsons
for their versatility,
the King Of The Hill cast tackles an amazing amount
of characters.
Creator Mike Judge obviously handles Hank,
but also juggles Boomhauer, Stuart Dooley,
and a bunch of other uncredited roles.
Toby Huss has Cotton Hill, Joe Jack,
and admittedly in not the greatest move, Kahn.
Then Dave Herman plays pretty much every other
speaking role who's not one of the main cast.
Like Gilbert Dauterive, Jimmy Witchard, Buckley,
Jimmy Carter, Alien urine salesman,
dolphin trainer, muscular man, and frisbee hippy.
The ability to rely on this pool of incredible actors
to give characters personality and life
means that the show didn't have to get lucky
with their casting every time that they wanted
to gamble on a new character.
Would the show work with just Hank or Boomhauer? No!
But I mean, I wouldn't mind seeing a show
that's nothing but Boomhauer,
and that is also what I would call it,
Nothing But Boomhauer.
I am going to call Fox in the past right now,
when that was a relevant idea.
Number three, guest stars.
Yes when you hear guest stars and cartoons,
you've gotta mention The Simpsons.
But in the same breath, you've gotta balk
at how the show virtually only includes cameos
so Grandpa Simpson can yell out things like
"I love you Lady Gaga," which is totally real, look it up.
And also that was a perfect Grandpa Simpson impression,
I've very impressed with myself.
King Of The Hill, however, gives guest stars
a far greater gift than an awkward geriatric shout out.
It gives them actual roles.
Instead of providing weird, yellow bastardized versions
of celebrities as themselves,
King Of The Hill actually uses actors' acting talents,
and gives the audience an opportunity to see folks
in a way that they've never seen them before.
Where else can you see Michael Keaton getting crushed
in a pig-murdering machine?
Or have former Texas Governor Ann Richards
date someone like Bill?
Would you prefer to have a version of Brad Pitt saying
"I'm Brad Pitt but yellow",
or get to see Brad Pitt doing a weird, horny,
nonsensical Boomhauer impression?
The show was able to score a wide range of talent,
Matthew McConaughey, Snoop Dogg, Johnny Depp,
Alan Rickman, Sally Field, Will Ferrell,
and that's just naming a few.
And all of this is because asking an actor to pop
in front of a mic for a few minutes isn't such a big lift.
International superstar Brad Pitt probably never got
out of his pajamas the day he jumped into an episode
of King Of The Hill.
And the other great thing is that when a character actor
would rather stay in their pajamas than reprise a role,
it's super easy to replace them
without the audience never really noticing.
Characters like Chris Rock's Booda Sack
was later replaced by Phil Lamar,
and Enrique was played at different points by
Danny Trejo, Eloy Casados, and Dave Herman.
If you change even one face in a live action show,
the audience just,
they lose their shit and never forgive you.
- Clever fellow, can't argue with his logic.
- [Host] Number four, longevity.
- Let's talk a little bit more about that cast.
It's the dream of every sitcom to return to a perfect zero
at the end of every episode.
Plots moving forward and characters developing
are the enemies of consistent joke writing,
and nothing's worse than a show that forces its premise
for years too long.
I mean there comes a point where it's a little weird
that all the friends in Friends are like 58 years old,
still roommates, and they've all at some point
been married to each other, including the monkey.
King Of The Hill ran for 13 seasons,
which means a live action 11-year-old Bobby Hill
would've been 24 by the time the show ended.
Which would maybe have changed some of the elements of his
awkward middle school kid plotlines.
Or made his tenure as a racist shock comedian
completely abhorrent instead of disappointingly misguided.
Pamela Adlon, Bobby's actor,
was able to play the part from ages 31 to 44
without her voice ever notably changing.
Mike Judge and Fox were free to doom Bobby
to awkward adolescence for a literal eternity
if they chose to do so.
And that's just one character,
and it doesn't mean that nothing changes on the show.
When the show runners do want a character to grow or develop
it can be as simple as re-casting a voice.
When Joseph hits puberty, his voice actor transitions
from Brittany Murphy to the dulcet tones
of other early 2000's powerhouse Breckin Meyer.
So really it's the best of both worlds.
King Of The Hill didn't have to move things forward,
but when they did, it could be at exactly the pace
that the show runners needed.
Which leads us to number five, control.
Try as you might, you'll never get a real life character
or real life location to look exactly like it does
in your head.
Unless you just draw it, and I mean not me
but somebody who's good at drawing.
It may be almost too obvious to say,
but animation afforded Mike Judge and team
unprecedented control over every part of their show
that would otherwise be left to chance and circumstance.
Weather, scheduling, casting availability,
things like clothing sizes for costuming, set design.
The amount of versioning in approvals in animation
means that the show was able to do complicated things.
Things as complicated as sending the Hill's
to an intricately designed Japan,
or making it snow in Texas where you'd never expect it.
Or something as bizarre as making a local
fast casual restaurant look exactly like
the downtown Burbank Fuddruckers.
I mean hey if you're an animator spending
too much of your time at Fuddruckers,
you'd probably be cramming it into your work
wherever you get the chance to,
so props whoever did that weird thing.
Beyond this, character direction can be controlled
to an unbelievable degree.
Sure voice actors leave a little something to chance,
but animators were supplied intensive style guidelines
that help to define the show's extremely considered look.
Don't let King Of The Hill's grounded look fool you.
They thought of everything and made it a rule.
The exact shape of Hank's pupils,
interior carlights turning on at night time,
even the time on Hank's watch accurately reflecting
the time it's supposed to be on the show.
That boy might not be right, but literally
everything else on the show is.
I'm not gonna try and do a Hank Hill impression.
As much as I like the show, I can't.
Don't make me.
Number six, extravagance.
Yes! That's not hyperbolic at all.
And last, but about as far away from least as we could get,
is the all-important element of scale.
The show is about small town life,
and isn't actually that small.
Consider what the stunt budget would be
if they did this cartoon in real life.
They dropped Peggy Hill out of a plane,
they drove a semi down a steep winding mountain.
They ran Hank across an active race track,
smashed a truck with a train,
and had multiple car chases,
not to mention the time they blew up
an entire Wal-Mart sized store.
King Of The Hill had to be animated because,
well it had to be.
It may have been grounded in our own reality,
but the specific vision Mike Judge had
left room for error that was narrower than Hank's urethra.
You thought I would get through this whole video
without mentioning that?
Not a chance.
Not a chance, my friend.
Constantly thinking about it.
It's a good show, it had to be animated.