[King of The Hill: Return of The King]

[classicswim]

 Slightly less irritated, but I still laughed at absolutely nothing. Stone faced for the entirety of the episode...

Compared to Futurama’s Hulu debut? Also, didn’t laugh once. Although, I guess I liked this premiere more? It at least had something, or a grasp of something to say, while Futurama said nothing?


The episode worked for me better when it was more grounded with how Hank can’t adapt to substantial changes that have made Arlen less quaint.

And when I say that, I mean stuff like Hank getting disgruntled with roundabouts.

I don’t mean that miserable fucking “are we all gender” line that they earnestly believe will win them awards.


I can give the episode props in that it at least kept trying to roll along with the beat. Futurama failed at this. KOTH basically presented the premiere with “alright — Hank’s gonna see gender friendly bathrooms and you’re gonna get ten seconds of really fucking awful and unfunny dialogue that’ll claw your eyes out.” Had this been Futurama, they wouldn’t spare you just ten seconds. You’d just drown from seriously fucking abysmal 7th grade attempts at comedy.

 

Another thing is the end of the episode with the Girl Scouts. Besides not needing to exist at all, a lot of these halfwit societal jabs wouldn’t be as pungent if you had something less insufferable to balance it out. Or make an effort in between to be less insufferable with your shit. That’s what I got from Hank getting those delights outside of Mega Lo Mart. And he immediately makes a friend with the same headspace as him. Isn’t that much more refreshing than the same fish out of water bullshit schtick that you’re not clever enough to pull off?

That’s where a lot of my disrespect grew for this. I expected Hank & Peggy in Saudi Arabia the entire time to be a downright troll to the audience. Even down to the explanation of it being a company, American imitation town. If it sinks into the entire show, it’s a mere device to pull really fucking bad and lazy commentary.

 

I saw people give Hardwick shit. The late, great, Johnny Hardwick. The youthfulness in Dale’s voice is all gone, but why blame Hardwick for a return that doesn’t need to exist? Guarantee you they wouldn’t be singing that tune if Toby Huss wasn’t the one replacing his voice.

Speaking of which, Kahn. Yeah. He wasn’t in this episode, but a clip of him was dropped at the very last second before the episodes released and yeah... fucking horrible new voice.

He’s not white, but he’s not Laotian either. They have meta commentary on the subject apparently I have yet to get into, and probably won’t bother.


I really just don’t see the point of recasting characters that are racial stereotypes and not just cartoon characters with different colors.

Futurama... have you... have you seen Leo Wong’s character design? And the way he looks? What’s the fucking point in putting a normal voice over something that’s admittedly racially charged to the core?


For Kahn, I think it would’ve been great to get a voice actor from Laos or has real experience with Laos, and get an actual energetic performance. Seems like they just grabbed a Daily Show rookie who has little to no business in a recording booth whatsoever.


Mind you, these showrunners would very gladly keep the cast mainly all white. FOX, Hulu, Disney - - they’re the ones that dropped the hammer. And they don’t always meet the mark. It gets real shortsighted.

Mike Henry couldn’t voice Cleveland anymore but they let him keep the paycheck for Consuela. 

Not that I’m any way offended or care about the cleaning maid or the bumblebee man, just good to know the company that called my type gang members a few months ago on their News network has all the right priorities.



The animation in the trailers really made my blood boil for how bad it was. And it’s not rigged! Everyone would immediately assume flash and tweening but no... just really fucking terrible. 

You know you’re on Bizzaro planet when there’s a standalone Aqua Teen Hunger Force season that’s animated better than King of The Hill. 

It’s sad because you think about the way later seasons of the original and how they didn’t have to downgrade so bad when they went digital. Even Simpsons in the mid 2000s look visibly very well.

 

 

Nancy & John Redcorn have this YouTube thing going. Boiled down to a less than subtle YouTube comment, still curious how that will pan out.

Probably the most interesting to come will be how they handle Bobby. He just sorta had a nothing college sex plot... and then he met Connie again!

I wonder what will be said about Bobby working in the same type of restaurant that killed Cotton.

Comments

[matt_zimmer]

I can't bring myself to watch it. I just can't. Hank Hill has always made my skin crawl and he is NOT a person I want to visit in 2025.

But the 100% on Rotten Tomatoes raised my eyebrows. What am I missing? Why am I the only person other than you who thinks this is a terrible idea in 2025? I don't understand critics.

As for recasting the voices of stereotypes it's like they don't understand the problem and think this surface change fixes the problem. It doesn't. Having Alex Desert voice Carl and Lou is fine to me because they are real characters. Cleveland Brown has never been anything other than a cheap shot at African-American manhood and that doesn't change with a Black dude voicing him. Cleveland is not a character on Family Guy. MacFarlane doesn't see him as a person, but as a color, and a joke color at that. Same deal with the elder Wongs.

I agree with The Problem With Apu that the level of racism in adult animation is neither funny nor sustainable. But for the most part, all they are doing is getting properly-raced voices to give them permission to keep doing the stereotypes. That's no solution.

If people have a problem with Cleveland Brown, and think he's offensive, and you agree with them, then stop using Cleveland Brown. It's that simple. But that would require a level of bravery animation isn't capable of.

I mean, The Simpsons actually got rid of Apu! I don't see why everything else believes this is actually hard.

[classicswim]

And it wasn’t their immediate decision to get rid of Apu either.

They wanted to stand their ground about it and it didn’t work in their favor. Hank Azaria just cried on talk shows after happily taking paychecks on a racist voice for 30 years and that was the end of it.

My favorite thing was Simpsons hired Utkarsh Ambudkar to play Apu’s nephew, a ‘modernized’ take for an episode, and Ambudkar went on Problem With Apu a year later to dish out criticism.

I have my own feelings about the doc otherwise but that was some real brass balls.

[matt_zimmer]

Oh, no doubt, The Simpsons and Azaria deserve a ton of criticism for how they handled it. But digging in their heels is how all of the shows are handling it. And it's the wrong move.