Head for the Hills: Big Tex and brood back for another round
01/26/07 12:31 PM
By ED BARK
Fated to be second to The Simpsons in everything, King of the Hill returns to Fox Sunday night (Jan. 28) for an 11th under-appreciated season.
There is this, though. On last Sunday's flight home from Pasadena, our American Airlines pilot did an impression of Hank Hill to the puzzlement of some and bemusement of most. And to his credit, he nailed it.
The real Hank is Austin-based Mike Judge, who's been voicing him since King of the Hill's Jan. 12, 1997 premiere. Fox has come close to dropping the show on several occasions. But now it's back for at least one more howdy, nestled nicely between The Simpsons and Family Guy at 7:30 p.m. central, 8:30 eastern.
Fictional Arlen, TX returns to the prime-time map with an episode titled "The Peggy Horror Picture Show." It's only an OK outing, with Hank's wife, Peg (Kathy Najimy), vexed by her she-man clothing and size 16 shoes.
"You think I'm feminine, don't you, Hank?" she asks.
"Well, sure you are," he assures her. "You're a wife and a mother."
The big lug then offers to buy Peg some new footwear at her favorite Lubbock emporium, Very Big Shoes. But the place has gone out of business, and an Internet search yields just one other possibility, Clarissa's Closet. It turns out to be a Big Foot monster of a store with Size 16s galore. While shopping, Peg meets "Caroline," who unbeknownst to her is a drag queen. They become fast friends before Peg predictably gets devastated.
Mildly amusing at best, the episode never clicks its heels. Hank is only minimally in it, and a subplot with dense son Bobby (Pamela Adlon) is lame from start to stop. It doesn't yet mean that King of the Hill finally is over the hill. But this definitely isn't putting its best foot forward.
Ya just gotta do better, guys, and here's hoping you will. Otherwise it's gonna be Boot Hill for keeps.
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