King of the Hill returning with all new episodes

[Js1 85325]

9 hours ago, Hermanator said:

Are they going to age them? So like 60 years old Hank and 36 years old Bobby?

I'll give it a try but just won't be the same without Luanne and Cotton. Cotton Hill top 5 TV character of the last 30 years. 

Probably.

I want to see a grown up Bobby.  Maybe it opens with Luanne and Lucky's funeral and Bobby takes in Gracie. 

[cmontexas 3271]

Arlen is Allen

[Texzilla58 4735]

I’d want to see Peggy finally getting back at the Boggle playing chicken that vanquished her dreams. Perhaps as the star of Taco Tuesday.

[dcbc 14482]

3 hours ago, Herpa Derpa said:

Gatesville.  One school town next to Fort Hood.

Too small.  Alrlen has a mall. 

 

In the end, it's a fictitious town located in the northern half of central Texas.  It has one high school, which played for the state championship around 1971 or so, a mall, and is reasonably close to a military base, i.e., Fort Hood.

[Js1 85325]

4 minutes ago, dcbc said:

Too small.  Alrlen has a mall. 

 

In the end, it's a fictitious town located in the northern half of central Texas.  It has one high school, which played for the state championship around 1971 or so, a mall, and is reasonably close to a military base, i.e., Fort Hood.

It's so intentionally vague, but it's supposed to be inspired by Garland, yet it's someone where around Killeen-Temple-Fort Hood.  ~100 miles from Dallas and 3 hours from Houston. 
 

[dcbc 14482]

5 minutes ago, Js1 said:

It's so intentionally vague, but it's supposed to be inspired by Garland, yet it's someone where around Killeen-Temple-Fort Hood.  ~100 miles from Dallas and 3 hours from Houston. 
 

. . . east of Springfield.

[Js1 85325]

1 minute ago, dcbc said:

. . . east of Springfield.

[Pam Cummings 9641]

23 minutes ago, dcbc said:

Too small.  Alrlen has a mall. 

 

In the end, it's a fictitious town located in the northern half of central Texas.  It has one high school, which played for the state championship around 1971 or so, a mall, and is reasonably close to a military base, i.e., Fort Hood.

Yea the point of Arlen is that it's supposed to be every Texas suburb. And that's why it brings all of us Texans together, because we all think Arlen is based on our hometown.

 

We all have the neighborhoods with the alleys in back. We all have mega lo mart. We all have the local golf course that we all play at along with some stupid resort with a dumb name with a really nice golf course that maybe our wives or girlfriends will buy us a gift card to go play a round there for our birthday. Etc.

Edited January 19, 2022 by Pam Cummings

[dcbc 14482]

1 minute ago, Pam Cummings said:

Yea the point of Arlen is that it's supposed to be every Texas suburb. And that's why it brings all of us Texans together, because we all think Arlen is based on our hometown.

True.  I'm from Houston, and while I always liked KOTH, I didn't truly get it until I moved to east Texas and started watching reruns with my kids. 

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

Yea the point of Arlen is that it's supposed to be every Texas suburb. And that's why it brings all of us Texans together, because we all think Arlen is based on our hometown.
 
We all have the neighborhoods with the alleys in back. We all have mega lo mart. We all have the local golf course that we all play at along with some stupid resort with a dumb name with a really nice golf course that maybe our wives or girlfriends will buy us a gift card to go play a round there for our birthday. Etc.

Mostly true.

Hardly any burbs in Houston and Austin have the alleys. I have only seen that in Dallas.

[F250 28772]

5 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

I also think we can get a romance storyline with Bill. Some young thing targeting his military pension, which he should be close to getting if he decided to keep cutting hair on base. 

If Bill is still in the military he should be working on his 3rd retirement. Didn't he join in the 70's?

 

[956 Worldwide 34710]

1 hour ago, Pam Cummings said:

Yea the point of Arlen is that it's supposed to be every Texas suburb. And that's why it brings all of us Texans together, because we all think Arlen is based on our hometown.

 

We all have the neighborhoods with the alleys in back. We all have mega lo mart. We all have the local golf course that we all play at along with some stupid resort with a dumb name with a really nice golf course that maybe our wives or girlfriends will buy us a gift card to go play a round there for our birthday. Etc.

Fair enough, but for me I always saw Arlen as NOT a suburb.  Seemed like outside of town was the country, the characters were “real Texas”, and going to the city from Arlen was a trip, not an outing or commute. No one had jobs downtown or at a big company. 
 

But that is part of the genius, it was everywhere and nowhere in Texas. 

['stache 21814]

Arlen was obviously meant to be ambiguous. Mike Judge said the stories were based on his upbringing in the suburbs, but it would have been before the blew up into what Frisco and Allen are these days. If its meant to be close to a city it would be more of an exurb that relies less on commutes to the big city and have more rural and independent identities. I always thought of Arlen-Mcmaynerberry as sort of a play on Midland-Odessa. 

[Deej 76773]

2 hours ago, Js1 said:

100 miles from Dallas and 3 hours from Houston. 

So it's Waco?

[cmontexas 3271]

Arlen/McMaynerbury =Allen/McKinney

[Hermanator 7043]

2 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Fair enough, but for me I always saw Arlen as NOT a suburb.  Seemed like outside of town was the country, the characters were “real Texas”, and going to the city from Arlen was a trip, not an outing or commute. No one had jobs downtown or at a big company. 
 

But that is part of the genius, it was everywhere and nowhere in Texas. 

That's why,  other than the 1 high school and central Texas thing, it felt a lot like Abilene. Big enough for 1 mall and a downtown and a super Walmart but also isolated from every big city around Texas to the point it takes 2 to 3 hours drive to get to Dallas or Austin. 

[956 Worldwide 34710]

Just now, Hermanator said:

That's why,  other than the 1 high school and central Texas thing, it felt a lot like Abilene. Big enough for 1 mall and a downtown and a super Walmart but also isolated from every big city around Texas to the point it takes 2 to 3 hours drive to get to Dallas or Austin. 

Even as late as the 1990s drinking beer in public would have been a dicey proposition for a respectable Abilene denizen. That’s a place where you didn’t acknowledge your neighbor at the liquor store. 

['stache 21814]

1 hour ago, cmontexas said:

Arlen/McMaynerbury =Allen/McKinney

https://kingofthehill.fandom.com/wiki/Arlen

Creator, Mike Judge, intended for Arlen to be based on his childhood experiences in the Dallas suburb of Garland, with intermingled names of other Dallas-area cities like Allen, Texas.

 

That makes sense, then. My guess is that Allen and McKinney were more rural and closer to exurbs when Mike Judge was there a few decades ago, and even in the 90s, than they are these days.  

 

[Hermanator 7043]

22 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Even as late as the 1990s drinking beer in public would have been a dicey proposition for a respectable Abilene denizen. That’s a place where you didn’t acknowledge your neighbor at the liquor store. 

That's why you drank it in the back alley. 

Some family is from there so spent a lot of time there in the 90s and early 2000s. The people you speak of is the CoC and Baptists, but most of the town were just regular beer drinking country folk

[Hermanator 7043]

2 minutes ago, 'stache said:

https://kingofthehill.fandom.com/wiki/Arlen

Creator, Mike Judge, intended for Arlen to be based on his childhood experiences in the Dallas suburb of Garland, with intermingled names of other Dallas-area cities like Allen, Texas.

 

That makes sense, then. My guess is that Allen and McKinney were more rural and closer to exurbs when Mike Judge was there a few decades ago, and even in the 90s, than they are these days.  

 

I remember in the early 90s going to a game in Frisco and it was a 3 or 4A single HS town at the time. So yeah anything north of Forest Ln probably seemed rural when Judge was a kid. 

['stache 21814]

2 hours ago, Patricio Swayze said:

Mostly true.

Hardly any burbs in Houston and Austin have the alleys. I have only seen that in Dallas.

My aunt and uncle moved to The Colony in the mid 90's when it was mostly new housing subdivisions and a Walmart without much else and they had an alleyway. I thought it was weird in a new neighborhood but kind of neat. I liked that the houses didn't have street fronting garages, but the front yards and streets felt weird, no cars, no people, no front porches, all the activity was in the back yards and alleys.

[mr. sunshine 2826]

Based on their drive times to Dallas and the Mexican border I always assumed Arlen was in Bell County 

[Gil Bang 25954]

what about Peggy's trips to Lubbock for the shoe store?

[billfromlaketravis 11467]

There's a phone number with an area code on one of the Strickland trucks in the first couple seasons. I can't find the screen grab. 

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

Last year I watched nearly the entire show…again. About to put it on in the background while I work.

[Js1 85325]

18 minutes ago, billfromlaketravis said:

There's a phone number with an area code on one of the Strickland trucks in the first couple seasons. I can't find the screen grab. 

I think it's 409, which is Galveston. 

[Js1 85325]

 

[billfromlaketravis 11467]

Just now, Js1 said:

I think it's 409, which is Galveston. 

Interesting. 409 basically covers Galveston going northeast all the way to Beaumont. Plenty of little towns in that area that aren’t on the beach and would fit the profile of Arlen. 
 

Judge has said Richardson was an inspiration, but Richardson hasn’t been like Arlen in what, 30, probably 40 years? 

[F250 28772]

21 minutes ago, billfromlaketravis said:

Interesting. 409 basically covers Galveston going northeast all the way to Beaumont. Plenty of little towns in that area that aren’t on the beach and would fit the profile of Arlen. 
 

Judge has said Richardson was an inspiration, but Richardson hasn’t been like Arlen in what, 30, probably 40 years? 

Wasn't that about how long ago Judge was living in the area? Shit, the show came out 25 years ago.

 

[billfromlaketravis 11467]

4 minutes ago, F250 said:

Wasn't that about how long ago Judge was living in the area? Shit, the show came out 25 years ago.

 

Fair enough. Richardon of his youth would look like Arlen. 

[atomheartbevo 89659]

The gang made an appearance on Family Guy tonight

 

[Al_4_ISU 12463]

Arlen always struck me as a rural community more than a suburb.  Population around 10K.  Big enough to have a box store or two, but a solid drive from a real city and with plenty of country folk around.

The majority of the characters were more small town than suburbia to me.  I know lots of guys like Dale, Bill, and Boomhauer.  Hell, I even know a guy who talks like Boomhauer, but with a more northern accent.

[Hermanator 7043]

10,000 pop seems too small. More like a cross between something the size of Abilene and a tiny town. Like 60k or so. Big enough for a 4 or 5A HS and be predominately white but with a Latino community and the possibility of Asian neighbors. 

The presence of the Khan's, Wassanasan's, and enough other Asian/Laotian families to have an actual Asian community in the town really speaks to it being a DFW suburb. The late 80s and 90s is when the Asian populations of DFW, especially eastern DFW, really started to grow a ton. There's no Asian communities in 10k rural Texas outposts. 

[Texzilla58 4735]

For that time period it seems like any growing Texas suburb at the time. Arlington or Plano or Richardson or HEB or Duncanville could be Arlen. Or Katy or Spring. I always had a DFW or Houston area vibe on it though.

[futureman 22457]

2 hours ago, Al_4_ISU said:

Hell, I even know a guy who talks like Boomhauer

[Deej 76773]

23 hours ago, longhornmatt said:

And even many aspects of Austin in 1989 probably were closer to King of the Hill than to current Austin.

[Etexhorn13 3045]

If not for the proximity to San Antonio/Mexico, Arlen could’ve been a shoe in for Marshall.

[WBT 20565]

It's almost as if they made it a fictional town so they could draw on stuff from all over Texas.

[Captain Ron 12876]

 

[SimonBolivar 10958]

On 5/3/2022 at 9:17 PM, WBT said:

It's almost as if they made it a fictional town so they could draw on stuff from all over Texas.

For sure, in my mind it was always Temple. 

 

-50,000ish people

-Has mall

-Close to Ft Hood

-Central Texas location

-Plays Belton in sports

 

 

 

 

[notre dame joe 187]

On 5/2/2022 at 11:14 AM, Al_4_ISU said:

Arlen always struck me as a rural community more than a suburb.  Population around 10K.  Big enough to have a box store or two, but a solid drive from a real city and with plenty of country folk around.

The majority of the characters were more small town than suburbia to me.  I know lots of guys like Dale, Bill, and Boomhauer.  Hell, I even know a guy who talks like Boomhauer, but with a more northern accent.

I don't remember any farmers or ranchers on the show.

[billfromlaketravis 11467]

[GoPokes83 2240]

I don't remember any farmers or ranchers on the show.

Hank hung out at the organic grocery co-op’s farm. He brought some cows home after Mega Lo Mart buys the co-op. That hippie Appleseed takes them to the country.

[Mighty fine 169]

Hank hung out at the organic grocery co-op’s farm. He brought some cows home after Mega Lo Mart buys the co-op. That hippie Appleseed takes them to the country.

There's also the episode of with Luann and the pig farm operation. Seemed like that was a general reference to Arlen in the earlier episodes, like when Hank was chatting with the sooner propane salesman in the Cowboys training camp episode.

[billfromlaketravis 11467]

I thought 80s era Richardson was settled fact, right? 

[dcbc 14482]

On 5/3/2022 at 8:51 PM, Etexhorn13 said:

If not for the proximity to San Antonio/Mexico, Arlen could’ve been a shoe in for Marshall.

Nah, Arlen has a Mall with viable stores and a country club with multiple Laotian families. 

Edited February 17, 2023 by dcbc

[GoPokes83 2240]

There's also the episode of with Luann and the pig farm operation. Seemed like that was a general reference to Arlen in the earlier episodes, like when Hank was chatting with the sooner propane salesman in the Cowboys training camp episode.

Bobby gets disgusted by the smell when they drive past the sausage plant in the same episode. Hank tells him that smell means jobs. Growing up in Kansas with a giant beef processing plant in town I agree with Bobby!

[DixonHur 11302]

Johnny Hardwick, (aka Dale Gribble) dead at 59

[Kennythetiger 9381]

Man. He only missed one episode. 

[DixonHur 11302]

33 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

Johnny Hardwick, (aka Dale Gribble) dead at 59

Sorry, 64, not 59.