I'm pretty good on Oklahoma gummies, so i started a new thread.
There's something strange about watching King of the Hill at 54 that I never could have understood when I was 24.
The original series premiered in January 1997. I was 24 years old. Bobby Hill was 12, and Hank was 43. At the time, I didn't particularly identify with Bobby, and I certainly didn't identify with Hank. Hank was an older dad from a generation that seemed distinctly removed from mine. His routines, his attitudes, his obsession with propane and his rigid ideas about how things should be done were funny precisely because they felt like the worldview of someone older than me.
I was basically watching Hank from the outside.
Nearly 30 years later, the reboot has completely changed that perspective.
I'm now 54. Hank is essentially my contemporary. And Bobby, who was a kid when I first watched the show, is now roughly the age of my own kids.
That changes everything.
When I watch Hank now, I don't necessarily see the stereotypical middle-aged dad that I saw in my 20s. I see a guy who is much closer to me in age, trying to figure out how to relate to his adult child while the world around him keeps changing. The things that once seemed overly rigid or old-fashioned can now feel understandable. Sometimes I even catch myself thinking, Yeah, Hank has a point.
That's probably one of the strangest things about getting older: you don't necessarily realize that you've crossed the generational line until something you used to laugh at suddenly makes sense.
Bobby's transformation is even more surreal. In 1997, Bobby was a 12-year-old kid. I was already 24. There was never really a point where I identified with Bobby. He was a child character I watched while I was already becoming an adult.
Now Bobby is an adult, and he's roughly the age of my children.
So the show has essentially moved me into Hank's seat.
I'm no longer the young adult looking at an older father and wondering why he behaves the way he does. I'm watching a father deal with a child who has grown up, developed his own identity, and doesn't necessarily see the world the way his dad does.
That's a completely different experience.
And that's what makes the reboot more interesting to me than simply bringing back a beloved sitcom. The characters didn't just come back. Time actually passed.
Most animated sitcoms exist in a strange kind of suspended animation. Homer Simpson doesn't really age. Peter Griffin doesn't really age. The kids stay kids. The characters can experience thousands of adventures without the passage of time fundamentally changing who they are.
King of the Hill was always different because it was grounded in ordinary life. Its characters had jobs, marriages, children, aging parents and changing relationships. Letting them actually age makes the passage of time part of the story.
And for viewers who watched the original as young adults, something fascinating happens.
We aged too.
When I first watched Hank, he was an older guy.
Now I'm Hank's age.
When I first watched Bobby, he was a kid.
Now Bobby is my kids' age.
The show has essentially become a time capsule that followed me through adulthood.
That's why some of the humor lands differently now. I'm not just remembering what it felt like to watch King of the Hill in the 1990s. I'm comparing who I was then with who I am now.
At 24, I was closer to the beginning of adulthood. At 54, I've accumulated decades of experience being a husband, a father, a worker and an adult trying to navigate a world that keeps changing. I understand things about Hank now that I couldn't possibly have understood when I was his son's age.
And maybe that's the real trick of King of the Hill.
It wasn't necessarily a show about Hank being old-fashioned.
It was a show about a father trying to hold onto the things that made sense to him while the worldand eventually his own sonmoved beyond them.
At 24, I could laugh at Hank.
At 54, I sometimes recognize myself in him.
And somewhere along the way, without really noticing it, I became the guy I used to think was old.
There's something strange about watching King of the Hill at 54 that I never could have understood when I was 24.
The original series premiered in January 1997. I was 24 years old. Bobby Hill was 12, and Hank was 43. At the time, I didn't particularly identify with Bobby, and I certainly didn't identify with Hank. Hank was an older dad from a generation that seemed distinctly removed from mine. His routines, his attitudes, his obsession with propane and his rigid ideas about how things should be done were funny precisely because they felt like the worldview of someone older than me.
I was basically watching Hank from the outside.
Nearly 30 years later, the reboot has completely changed that perspective.
I'm now 54. Hank is essentially my contemporary. And Bobby, who was a kid when I first watched the show, is now roughly the age of my own kids.
That changes everything.
When I watch Hank now, I don't necessarily see the stereotypical middle-aged dad that I saw in my 20s. I see a guy who is much closer to me in age, trying to figure out how to relate to his adult child while the world around him keeps changing. The things that once seemed overly rigid or old-fashioned can now feel understandable. Sometimes I even catch myself thinking, Yeah, Hank has a point.
That's probably one of the strangest things about getting older: you don't necessarily realize that you've crossed the generational line until something you used to laugh at suddenly makes sense.
Bobby's transformation is even more surreal. In 1997, Bobby was a 12-year-old kid. I was already 24. There was never really a point where I identified with Bobby. He was a child character I watched while I was already becoming an adult.
Now Bobby is an adult, and he's roughly the age of my children.
So the show has essentially moved me into Hank's seat.
I'm no longer the young adult looking at an older father and wondering why he behaves the way he does. I'm watching a father deal with a child who has grown up, developed his own identity, and doesn't necessarily see the world the way his dad does.
That's a completely different experience.
And that's what makes the reboot more interesting to me than simply bringing back a beloved sitcom. The characters didn't just come back. Time actually passed.
Most animated sitcoms exist in a strange kind of suspended animation. Homer Simpson doesn't really age. Peter Griffin doesn't really age. The kids stay kids. The characters can experience thousands of adventures without the passage of time fundamentally changing who they are.
King of the Hill was always different because it was grounded in ordinary life. Its characters had jobs, marriages, children, aging parents and changing relationships. Letting them actually age makes the passage of time part of the story.
And for viewers who watched the original as young adults, something fascinating happens.
We aged too.
When I first watched Hank, he was an older guy.
Now I'm Hank's age.
When I first watched Bobby, he was a kid.
Now Bobby is my kids' age.
The show has essentially become a time capsule that followed me through adulthood.
That's why some of the humor lands differently now. I'm not just remembering what it felt like to watch King of the Hill in the 1990s. I'm comparing who I was then with who I am now.
At 24, I was closer to the beginning of adulthood. At 54, I've accumulated decades of experience being a husband, a father, a worker and an adult trying to navigate a world that keeps changing. I understand things about Hank now that I couldn't possibly have understood when I was his son's age.
And maybe that's the real trick of King of the Hill.
It wasn't necessarily a show about Hank being old-fashioned.
It was a show about a father trying to hold onto the things that made sense to him while the worldand eventually his own sonmoved beyond them.
At 24, I could laugh at Hank.
At 54, I sometimes recognize myself in him.
And somewhere along the way, without really noticing it, I became the guy I used to think was old.
