When it comes to wacky animated neighbors in cartoons, Dale Gribble from “King of the
Hill” is certainly one of the wackiest. Driven by his own impulses, a fairly grey morality
and a whole slew of conspiracy theories, you never quite know what Dale is going to do
next. While this can sometimes lead to him being a total nuisance and occasional
danger to the people around him, Dale can also have some pretty bright and even
admirable moments. But what are the best of these deeds, and what are the worst?
Well, that’s what we’re ranking today. I’m Brad with WickedBinge, and this is
the Best and Worst Deeds of Dale Gribble
For this list, we’re going to be starting with Dale’s most good and admirable deeds, and
work our way down to his more… questionable acts.
At the top of this list, we have:Staying loyal to his wife: If you’ve watched
King of the Hill, you know all about the season-spanning affair between Dale’s wife,
Nancy, and John Redcorn. Even if Dale never found out about the affair, this episode
certainly served as a bit of karma. In "Night and Deity", we meet Sheila,
another exterminator who Dale admires for how professional and skilled she is. We see that Dale
respects Sheila greatly and is very impressed and amazed by her,
though it’s more in a sort of fanboy-ish way than anything romantic. Still, Nancy certainly notices
the sparks between them, and although Dale sort of blows off Nancy’s concerns,
it’s only because he himself is so oblivious. This all comes to a head when, after agreeing
to go to a late night extermination job with Sheila, Dale FINALLY learns that Sheila
has feelings for him. But while Dale acknowledges that he does like her, he
views their relationship as platonic only. What’s more, he makes it incredibly clear to Sheila
that he only has love for Nancy, making a pretty heartwarming speech where he calls
Nancy the greatest woman in the world, telling Sheila that he doesn’t want to be
with anyone else. While we know that staying loyal to a spouse is the LEAST that a good
husband or wife can do, this was still a really impressive - and pretty sweet - moment for Dale
that shows just how deep his love for Nancy runs.
Keeping Chuck Majone’s secret: In “Megalo Dale”, Hank puts in a good word for Dale
that gets him a huge extermination gig at the Mega-lo Mart. It starts off simple enough,
with Dale only trying to catch some rats. However, as he continues finding more clues,
Dale comes to the realization that he isn’t hunting after rats, but is instead hunting after
Chuck Majone, the store’s celebrity mascot. Obviously, Hank and the others don’t really
believe him, and the show even makes it seem like it was just the work of a couple of
teenage employees who just wanted to play a prank on Dale. But then, it turns out that
Chuck actually IS living in the Mega-Lo Mart, both as a means to take a break from his
constant Mega-Lo jobs and as a way to quote “stick it to the man”. Though a bit shocked
and confused at first, Dale ultimately respects Chuck’s actions, given that he’s a fan of
sticking it to the man himself. In the end, Dale is able to catch the teenagers and prove
himself to be a competent exterminator while still keeping Chuck’s secret, even while
Bill and Boomhauer continue poking fun at Dale’s so-called crazy conspiracy. This
honestly says quite a bit about Dale’s character. Remember, Dale is someone who
enjoys being right about as much as Hank and Peggy do, and tends to brag about every
little bit of success he gets. So, for him to pretend to be wrong in order to keep Chuck
secret and help him out, it shows that Dale isn’t necessarily all about his ego and can
occasionally take a hit for someone else’s sake. Speaking of which:
Saving Bobby from fire ants: Getting bitten by a fire ant certainly isn’t any fun. But
getting bit by hundreds of them and all at the same time? That’s a whole new level ofpain,
but one that Dale was willing to take. In a very strange subplot in "King of the Ant
Hill", Bobby gets hypnotized by the smell of a queen fire ant. You gotta love that Early
Installment Weirdness. After taking care of her, he eventually frees the queen, placing
her back into an ant hill. Unfortunately, while Bobby was loyal to his queen, the ants
were anything but thankful. This led to Bobby getting absolutely swarmed by fire ants.
When he saw this, Dale told Bobby to take his hand and let the ants crawl onto him.
What’s more, he did this without hesitation and without asking for anything in return
from Bobby or Hank. Now, we’ll see an example of this in just a little bit, but Dale hardly
EVER does anything for free, wanting to be either praised or compensated for any bit of
effort he gives. This goes to show just how seriously Dale took the threat and how much
he cared about getting Bobby out of harm’s way. Once Dale takes on the ants, they of
course bite him, and the pain is enough to make him momentarily blackout. Dale’s a
professional exterminator, and even if he isn’t the most informed or educated
exterminator, we’re sure he knew about the pain that he was signing up for. So yeah, this
was a pretty noble act. The only thing that lessens it is, well… everything else Dale does
in this episode - and don’t worry, we’ll get to that.
Helping John Redcorn get land from the government: If there’s one thing more ironic
than Dale’s loyalty to his wife, it’s his friendship with her ex-secret lover, John Redcorn.
In “Nancy’s Boys”, we see Nancy break up with John Redcorn after falling back in love
with Dale. As John Redcorn gets more and more upset with this dramatic situation,
Nancy gets just as upset, leaving Dale confused but still wanting to make things right.
While trying to convince John Redcorn to go back to being his wife’s massage therapist,
he ends up agreeing to help John Redcorn get land from the government - land that
once belonged to his tribe. These efforts come to fruition later in the episode “Spin the
Choice”, and while 12 acres is a far cry from what John Redcorn originally asked for,
that isn’t exactly Dale’s fault. Dale did all he could to help with the paperwork process,
even after John Redcorn agreed with Nancy that they shouldn’t see each other anymore.
Dale wasn’t doing this in exchange for
something his wife wanted, he just genuinely wanted to help his friend - while also fighting
the government, as a plus. It’s nice to see him being so generous with his time,
and through Dale’s efforts, John Redcorn is still able to get at least a small piece of land that he
can use, and that he promises to pass onto Dale and Joseph.
Trying to protect Bill from humiliation: This should be obvious but Dale isn’t the nicest
guy to Bill. In fact, he almost never gives up a chance to make fun of or insult him. So,
why are we putting an interaction with Bill as one of his best deeds? Well, because
sometimes you just need a friend who can be brutally honest. In “The Fat and the
Furious”, Bill ends up becoming a competitive eater to impress his latest girlfriend.While
Hank and others see this as a skill Bill can use to gain fame for America and win
the heart of his new girlfriend, Dale is the only one who sees the darker side of it. See,
when Dale was a kid, he too ate things (specifically bugs) in order to be popular,
because of course kids see something like that as a spectacle. Unfortunately, they also
see it as something to laugh at. Since he was humiliated by his own eating-related past,
Dale didn’t want Bill to go through the same thing. Not being one to reveal his own
secrets, Dale didn’t exactly do a great job of convincing him of this at first, coming off as
unsupportive and cruel with Bill just assuming Dale was jealous. But even when Dale
does reveal why he was trying to discourage Bill, Bill does his hot dog eating contest
anyway and has to experience the humiliation Dale was talking about first-hand in order
to understand it. But even after being dismissed by Bill, Dale still cheers when Bill gives
up the hotdog eating trophy and lets him know that he’s proud of him and happy that
he’s no longer making a fool of himself for the sake of shallow fame.
Giving up one of his kidneys: In "Dale Be Not Proud”, Dale agrees to give up one of his
kidneys to help NHRA driver John Force. Now, giving up an organ is one of the bravest
and most noble things a person can do. Given that Dale is already extremely weak and
has poor health due to all his smoking and the chemicals he uses, this is even more of a
risk for him - and this isn’t even mentioning the guy’s fear of hospitals. So yeah, for
someone like Dale, this was a huge sacrifice. So, why are we putting it at the bottom of
our good deeds list? Weeeell, Dale didn’t exactly do this out of the goodness of his
heart. Hank had to practically strong-arm him into it, and even then, he only agreed to do
it if John Force gave him several things in return (like putting the Dale’s Dead Bug ant on
his racing car) and if Hank agreed to be him for a day. Then, after it was revealed that
the kidney was actually going to a sick kid instead of John Force, Dale actually tried to
steal his kidney back and nearly got away with it. Even when he decided in the end to
still let the sick kid have his kidney, Dale still made the kid give him candy and toys in
exchange for it - although this could have just been to save face. Either way, while the
act itself was definitely a good deed, we can only give Dale a little bit of credit for it.
Now it’s time to cross over to the dark side of our favorite exterminator and conspiracy
nut. These are Dale’s worst deeds. Starting with the most mild example, we have:
Purposely ruining Hank’s lawn: See, we told you we’d get back to this one. In "King of
the Ant Hill", Hank becomes self-conscious about the quality of his lawn. Because of
this, he not only buys new grass, but fires Dale as his personal exterminator. Instead of
taking this with grace, Dale does all he can to sabotage Hank’s new lawn by planting fire
ants and messing with Hank and Peggy’s efforts to try and get rid of them, like removing
their Eco-kill trap. Now, planting fire ants ONCE was already super petty, but the fact
thatDale was planting ants several times a day just took this to a whole new level. What
makes this worse is that even when Dale gets what he wanted - being rehired as Hank’s
exterminator - he still ends up absolutely DESTROYING Hank’s lawn with his ridiculous
amount of chemicals, leaving it as nothing but a patch of dirt and causing Hank to be
absolutely heartbroken. Perhaps the cherry on top of this awful-neighbor-and-friend
sundae is just the fact that Dale didn’t feel remorse about this at all. If it weren’t for
Peggy telling Hank the truth, Dale likely never would have revealed what he did. Even
when Hank does find out, Dale’s more concerned
with not getting beaten up than trying to apologize to Hank. Now, as we explained
before, he does make amends for this by helping Bobby and later getting Hank a new
patch of grass, but this was still probably one of the worst schemes Dale has ever done,
simply because it was so personal. Like Hank said, you don’t mess with a man’s lawn.
Digging a hole under Hank’s house: Speaking of how awful of a neighbor that Dale can
be, there is really no episode that shows this better than "The Texas Skillsaw Massacre"
- and it all starts with Dale digging a tunnel under Hank’s house. While he claims it’s a
‘friendship tunnel’, the fact that he kept it a secret meant Dale probably knew that Hank
was going to be mad about it. But as awful and, frankly, pretty stupid as this idea was,
it’s really only one element of this section. After the hole is discovered, Hank’s house
gets condemned as unsafe, forcing him and his family to move in with the Gribbles. It
should be noted that Dale only offered because Nancy was forcing him. Yeahhh, not
exactly neighborly, and it doesn’t get any better from here. While the Hills are there, Dale
is absolutely obnoxious to them. From keeping Hank up late with his TV watching to
trying to charge Hank for things like breakfast and toilet paper, it’s really no wonder that
Hank is at his wits end with Dale during this episode. Later on when Dale is, again, being
a nuisance, he puts his hand in front of a saw that Hank was using, causing him to
accidentally cut off Dale’s finger. While both of them are responsible for this, the fact
that Dale lies, tries to pin the accident completely on Hank, and then taunts him with a
restraining order afterwards really just paints a terrible picture of Dale. We already know
how petty and annoying he can be, but the way Dale treats Hank here - not to mention
how careless he was for digging the hole in the first place - makes you wonder how
these two are still friends. Trying to use his family for profit:
For the most part, Dale - while not the most intelligent
or responsible - is still a loving husband and father, as we discussed earlier. However,
this love can sometimes be blinded by dollar signs. In "The Trouble with Gribbles", Dale
tries to sue the company that makes his cigarettes in order to get some extra money,
which would allow him to get Nancy the plastic surgery she’s wanting. To help his case,
once he learns that the company is recording him, Dale begins insulting Nancy over andover
for the company to hear, claiming how quote-unquote ugly he thinks his
second-hand smoke has made her. Because Dale sees Nancy as a bad liar, he keeps her
in the dark, making his insults seem all the more real and devastating to Nancy, who’s
already in a fragile and self conscious state. Then, in “The Courtship of Joseph’s Father”,
when Joseph gets scouted by a wealthy prep school that wants him to play on their
football team, Dale barely even tries to acknowledge what Joseph wants. Instead, he
gets completely wrapped up in the so-called wealthy lifestyle and all the perks that he
can get from being a parent at a prep school. Even when Joseph makes it clear that he
wants to stay at his old middle school, Dale forces him to leave his friends behind and
go to the prep school. Both of these instances showed off the worst of Dale’s greed.
However, we do have to acknowledge that while he was certainly doing it for himself, he
was also partially doing it for Nancy and Joseph’s benefit, truly believing that Nancy
would only be happy if she got the surgery she wanted and that Joseph would be better
off at a rich-kid school. Of course, this doesn’t excuse his actions, but given how much
he regrets them and makes up for it by the end of both episodes,
we still can’t say that it’s the worst thing he’s ever done.
Becoming a ‘people exterminator’: With all the chemicals that Dale uses, it’s really no
surprise that it all eventually caught up to him. In "The Exterminator", Dale is forced to
quit being an exterminator and take an office job in order to avoid dying before he’s fifty.
But while at Stik-Tec, Dale discovers that he can do the one thing no one else there can
do: Fire employees without feeling bad about it. Naturally, having the power to fire
people quickly goes to Dale’s head, and he clearly enjoys holding the fear of losing their
jobs over the heads of his co-workers. We understand that firing people from a business
is a necessary evil in order to keep it afloat, but Dale just goes a bit too far with his
callousness and cruelty. What’s more, he’s not only a jerk to the other people in the
office, but he becomes a jerk to his friends and family as well, even neglecting Joseph
and breaking his promise to help him with his science project. If not for figuring out that
he could kill bugs without chemicals, who knows how far Dale would have taken his new
job or how obsessed with it he would have gotten. Stealing the identity of Rusty Shackleford:
For nearly the entire series, the Rusty Shackleford identity was just a running gag,
used whenever Dale didn’t want to use his real name for conspiracy-related reasons.
But then, in the episode "Peggy's Gone to Pots", this running gag turned out to be
not such a joke after all. We learn that Dale didn’t just make this name up, but that it was
actually the name of a classmate Dale had who he thought had died, but in actuality
he just moved away. Identity theft is no laughing matter, and considering all the
trouble that Dale often gets himself into, you can only imagine all the trouble it caused for
the real Rusty, with him having to deal withthe aftermath of whatever Dale decided
to use his name for. Not helping matters is, because he believes Rusty is there for revenge,
Dale forces Rusty to spend a week in Arlen because Dale refuses to get close to him
and actually talk to him, let alone take responsibility for stealing his identity.
Eventually, Dale does relent and signs the papers
that Rusty needs him to sign, relieving Rusty of this nonsense once and for all, but it still
shows just how irresponsible Dale can be. So, what’s worse than stealing someone’s
identity? For Dale’s worst deed, we’ve selected
Encouraging Joseph to kill a panda bear: In the episode "Vision Quest", we see Joseph
struggling with staying on a good path, finding himself drifting towards some bad kids
and ignoring Bobby’s concerns. But while everyone else sees these kids as obvious bad
influences, Dale only sees them as the popular crowd and, wanting to live through his
son, encourages Joseph to do all he can to try and impress them so that Joseph can be
cool too. He even tells Joseph that being cool and popular is the most important thing
in life. Okay, so, this is just bad parenting, right? Still awful, but not necessarily the worst.
Well, like with most things, Dale takes it to an absolute extreme. Later on in the episode,
Joseph has his titular vision-dream, and Dale - who for ridiculous reasons now believes
he’s a Native American - tries to interpret Joseph’s vision. Naturally, Dale interprets it
completely wrong, and when he learns of the cool kids’ plan to spray paint their names
onto some pandas at the Arlen Zoo, Dale tells Joseph to take it one step further and
actually kill a panda. While Dale only sees this as a way for his son to gain street cred
and look cool, everyone else sees it as the obvious bad idea it is, but Dale just keeps
pushing it. He even drives Joseph to the zoo himself and gives him the weapon. If it
weren’t for Bobby and John Redcorn stepping in when they did, Joseph might have
committed a serious crime - and all because his dad acted like it was such a good idea.
Seriously, there’s bad parenting, and then there’s actively encouraging your child to make
choices that could get them put in juvie, if not jail, all because Dale wanted to live
through Joseph and for him to be ‘cool’. While everything, thankfully, worked out in the
end, we still have to say that this is without a doubt the worst thing Dale has ever done.
But what do you think? What are the best and worst deeds that Dale Gribble is
responsible for? And which character should we feature next? Let us know in the
comment section below. Don’t forget to hit that notification bell,
and as always, stay wicked.