The original post: /r/television by /u/lifeofcelibacy on 2025-08-06 17:15:13+00:00.
I’ve only watched a few episodes of the reboot, but so far I’m really enjoying it for one simple reason: fundamentally, King of the Hill is a nice show. It has conflicts and its characters are far from perfect, but it has a tendency in its writing to give said characters the benefit of the doubt and find a way to resolve their differences.
King of the Hill ended its first run right around the time that animated shows were starting to really embrace snark, subversion and scathing satire. And while there’s nothing wrong with shows like that, I think our current social and political environment has also caused the pendulum to swing back in the other direction. Everyone is mean nowadays, so people want nicer characters in their animated shows.
Hank Hill is a great main character to have these days because he’s fundamentally just a likable and affable guy. Probably the best example of this for me is when he finds out the “Samoa” brand of Girl Scout cookies has had its name changed for cultural sensitivity reasons, and he casually remarks “huh, that’s a nice change” and quickly forgets about it. It’s something you’d never see in real life now, which is why including it in the episode was so striking for me.
TL;DR King of the Hill is a welcome revival because it’s a nice show with likable characters, which is something we need these days.