'King of the Hill's' Bobby Was Never Meant to Grow Up

Time​ Magazine

9 hours ago

For yet another unnecessary revival of a long-running show, King of the Hill Season 14 is surprisingly satisfying. Now streaming in full on Hulu, Mike Judge and Greg Daniels' 10-episode continuation of their beloved animated sitcom revisits the Hill family nearly a decade after the events of the series finale, which aired in 2009. Old-school patriarch Hank and his self-assured wife, Peggy, have just finished a long stint in Saudi Arabia, where our propane-evangelist hero worked for Aramco and lived in an idyllic, company-adjacent suburb. Now the couple is returning to their fictional hometown, Arlen, Texas, to retire. Though American culture has taken an extremist turn, things on the old block are mostly the same. The men still guzzle beer in the alley. Boomhauer still speaks incomprehensibly. Needy Bill has become more pathetic than ever. The Souphanousinphones have yet to tire of mocking their 'redneck' neighbors. Our new golden age of conspiracy theories has transported Dale Gribble to tinfoil-hat heaven—though he remains unalarmed by how much time his wife, Nancy, spends with hunky healer John Redcorn.
Amusing antics ensue as perennial straight man Hank struggles to comprehend everything that has changed since he last lived in the U.S., from all-gender restrooms to toxic manfluencers. Judge and Daniels, working with new showrunner Saladin K. Patterson (who created the 2021 Wonder Years reboot), are perceptive in portraying the tension between his George W. Bush-era 'compassionate conservativism' and the hateful rhetoric of today's right. (When some Girl Scouts explain that the name of a cookie was changed to avoid offense, he replies: 'It's nice to be nice.') The creators also capitalize on Hank and Peggy's restlessness in retirement, which forces them to embark on new adventures. There's just one major problem with the way King of the Hill has been updated for 2025: Bobby. The standout character in a series nominally centered on his dad, the Hills' boy has now grown into the adult man he was never meant to be.
One reason we know how much time has passed in the alternate universe of adult animation is that Bobby Hill, who aged from 11 to 13 years old during the show's original 12-year run, is now 21. Instead of going to college, he has pursued his passion for meat and become the chef and part owner of a Dallas restaurant he describes as 'a traditional Japanese barbecue with a fusion of flavors and techniques from the German traditions of the Texas Hill Country.' ('Last time the Germans and Japanese teamed up, I wasn't a fan,' one senior diner notes. 'But this is delicious!' Bobby: 'I call it the Axis of Flavor.') He shares an apartment with his childhood best friend, the Gribbles' son Joseph, who is heavily implied to be the biological offspring of John Redcorn. And in the premiere, he runs into his first girlfriend, Connie Souphanousinphone, on a local university campus, setting into motion the obligatory will-they-or-won't-they storyline.
What is Bobby doing on said campus? Exiting a dorm where he's just spent the night with a college girl, who told him that their hookup was 'a one-time thing' and sent him on his way. This moment is preceded by a cringe-worthy scene in which Peggy is awakened by her ringing cellphone; it's a Bobby butt-dial, all heavy breathing and moans. In theory, I am pleased for Bobby Hill. Good for him; he can get it. But hearing him have sex? No, thank you.
I don't think that's because I'm a prude, or even just because I'm nostalgic for the old King of the Hill (though, while we're on the subject, it was always my favorite of the Fox animated sitcoms). At the core of the original show was ultimate normie Hank's struggle to relate to his weird son, and vice versa. 'That boy ain't right' was Hank's refrain—one that dated back to a series premiere in which Bobby used the threat of a Child Protective Services investigation to intimidate his well-meaning but gruff father into showing him love. Neither a great student nor an athlete like his dad, Bobby was defined to some extent by his old-soul precociousness (this is a kid whose sense of humor comes straight out of vaudeville), but even more so by his middle-school malleability. In that sense, and despite all his eccentricities, he became adult animation's quintessential pre-Tina Belcher, pre-Big Mouth preteen: a mess of curiosities, talents, delusions, and hormones slowly organizing themselves into a cohesive identity.
For 13 seasons, the most memorable Bobby storylines—which also comprised the majority of the show's most memorable storylines—were the ones that stretched his nascent self into new shapes. In one great episode, the owner of a clothing store for 'husky' boys observes Bobby strutting his stuff in a variety of high-stretch garments and recruits him for a fashion show. (While he embraces the spotlight, his plus-size modeling career is cut short by Hank's secondhand embarrassment.) The source of a GIF turned meme of a cross-legged Bobby meditating in his bedroom as smoke from a stick of incense swirls ceilingward, Season 4's 'Won't You Pimai Neighbor?' sees a delegation of Buddhist monks identify the boy as a potential lama. And in what might be the most famous Bobby episode, 'Bobby Goes Nuts,' Hank sends his bullied son to learn boxing at the YMCA. When that class is full, Bobby talks his way into a women's self-defense course. Soon, he's standing up for himself. But to Hank's horror, he's doing it by kicking his tormenters in the crotch while shouting 'I don't know you! That's my purse!'
Like most pubescent kids, Bobby is a sponge, thirsty for love and liable to absorb any influence that might help him figure out who he is. Feeling excluded from Hank's bond with the Hills' elderly dog, Lady Bird, in another Season 4 episode, he befriends the raccoon that has been gorging itself on the family's trash. If the episode wasn't so funny, it would be heartbreaking. At the risk of taking a cartoon character too seriously, the reason so many of us adore Bobby isn't just because he's a hammy miniature entertainer who says the darnedest things, but because his oddball's search for belonging captures something universal about youth. A person who's still getting to know himself could grow up to be anything. For him, the possibilities are endless.
Getting to glimpse an adult Bobby is kind of a fun novelty, in the same vein as that flash-forward Simpsons episode where Lisa is the President. At least Judge, Daniels, and Paterson left the character's distinctively androgynous voice (provided by Pamela Adlon in both incarnations of a show that has weathered the untimely deaths of too many original voice actors) intact. And their choice to make his parents the characters in transition is an inspired reversal that goes a long way toward making Season 14 work as well as it does. The thing is, a stable, 21-year-old man who's excelling in his career, feels relatively secure in his father's love, and even gets laid once in a while barely resembles the wonderfully inchoate Bobby Hill we know. Which means that this King of the Hill, for all its many pleasures, isn't quite the same King of the Hill, either.