The 25 best 'King of the Hill' episodes

It’s reasonable to start with “Ho Yeah” because, while it is a funny episode, it’s quite broad. Also, it’s aged…not poorly, but imperfectly. If you have ever seen the image of Hank wearing a “pimp hat,” you know this episode, and can also probably figure out part of the plot. Renee Zellweger voices a lady who, shall we say, does her best work in the evening, and Snoop Dogg plays Alabaster Jones, a former work acquaintance who thinks Hank has taken up his old role. Very silly, super broad, but still plenty of funny stuff.

Season six of “King of the Hill” came out of the gate with gusto (this is the second episode, and you’ll have to wait a bit for the first). This is a great Dale episode (R.I.P. Johnny Hardwick), playing up his most-comedic traits to a tee. With Dale’s presidency of the Arlen Gun Club on thin ice, Hank tries to do something nice by secretly answering Dale’s “Soldiers of Fortune” ad. Of course, Dale screws everything up, imperiling the lives of his friends.

Cotton Hill, while voiced impeccably by Toby Huss, is a cartoonish character. Yes, “King of the Hill” is a cartoon, but part of what makes it stand out is that it isn’t cartoonish. He’s not just Archie Bunker, but unlikeable, but he doesn’t have shins owing to a war injury. While Cotton can be a lot, his introductory episode is important to the show, and to Hank as a character.

Halloween and Christmas are great fodder for sitcoms. For a lot of people, “Hilloween” may have been their first introduction to the concept of a “hell house.” In essence, a hell house is a haunted house that is intent on teaching “Christian values” through fear and are — and this is not a dig on all religious people — uniformly run by crazy people. Hank is no liberal, but when a local kook tries to ban Halloween and starts inviting kids to her hell house, Hank is ready to go to war.

Ahh, shop class. Where would sitcoms be without it? Peggy, of course, is a substitute Spanish teacher, but while on a break from Strickland, Hank takes a gig as an interim shop teacher at Arlen’s middle school (named for Tom Landry, of course). The kids love him, and Peggy isn’t used to getting that kind of adoration. It gives Hank something fresh and fun to do, but also creates reasonable conflict within the marriage, and it’s always better for storytelling when a couple’s issues aren’t utterly absurd.

The second episode of the show! Impressive! The pilot had to lay out all the track for the show, and that’s why sitcom pilots are rarely particularly good. “Square Peg” was able to build on that track, and it is the episode that showed the promise in this sitcom. Peggy has a teaching gig…but not Spanish. She’s tasked with teaching sex ed, and that is not something Peggy is comfortable with. Hank, meanwhile, isn’t comfortable with his son Bobby learning about sex, giving him his own stakes in the situation.

Funnily enough, the next episode on this list is about Bobby’s dating life (such as it is for a child his age). Bobby falls for a girl named Marie who is – gasp! – a vegetarian. Obviously, this horrifies Hank as much as Bobby learning about sex. There’s also a fun B-plot about Hank’s beer-drinking crew getting an alley couch. Notably, this is the only episode of “King of the Hill” to win the Outstanding Animated Program Emmy.

This is technically the second part of a two-parter with “Hanky Panky.” Consider them both wrapped in together if you would like. “High Anxiety” is the one where Hank accidentally smokes weed, though. Also, he becomes a suspect in a murder. Yeah, a lot is going on.

It’s easier to send animated characters to other locations. “The Simpsons” does it all the time. “Three Days of the Kahndo” sees Hank, Kahn, and Dale getting stuck in Mexico as part of a timeshare scam gone awry. Of course, Mexico isn’t exactly a big trip from Arlen, Texas, but “King of the Hill” is smaller in scope (and more realistic) than “The Simpsons.” Not as good, but more realistic.

Still early in the first season, “King of the Hill” did a story that was, and likely is, polarizing. “Hank’s Unmentionable Problem” is scatological, but not sophomoric. Hank, a private and demure guy, is having a serious constipation issue. The longer it goes on, the more he frets, but also the more people come to know about it, which just makes things worse for Hank. If you truly can’t stand toilet-related subject matter, this probably isn’t your 16th-best episode, but we have it here.

Sure, Hank tries to make coffins for himself and for Peggy, which is all well and good, but the main story is another example of the realism of “King of the Hill.” Bart Simpson has been 10 and looked exactly the same forever. In “I Don’t Want to Wait,” Bobby is about to turn 13, but his friend Joseph comes back from summer vacation. Puberty has hit him hard. He’s six inches taller, he has a puberty mustache, and his voice has broken. Now, Bobby has to reconcile being treated like a little kid while his good friend is shooting up toward adulthood.

It’s easier to do a series finale than a series pilot, but the stakes are no less high. You have to stick the landing, and leave people feeling satisfied. Of course, “To Sirloin with Love” is technically not the series finale any longer, but it was designed to be, and it was from 2009 until 2025. A lot happens, but it’s ultimately a Hank and Bobby story, which tells you what was at the core of “King of the Hill” the whole time. Bobby even gets to deliver the last “Yep” of the series…for a while at least.

Hank’s thoughts have evolved by the time of “Aisle 8A” clearly. It’s another “Hank is uncomfortable about private human matters” story, this time involving Connie. While Hank is tasked with watching Bobby and Connie alone Connie experiences a less-than-pleasant milestone of puberty, the kind that requires a trip to a certain aisle, much to Hank’s dismay. He also decides that it is now time for Bobby to learn about sex, even if Hank is wholly unequipped to have that conversation.

In syndication “Returning Japanese” is a two-parter, but within the world of the show it exists as an hour-long episode. The epic nature of that helps the episode in terms of ranking, but then again a show that was used to just doing a half-hour story had to make a story twice as long work. All told, “Returning Japanese” ends up in the middle of this ranking. It’s…well, it’s hard to explain. Let’s just say there is essentially a Japanese Hank, and Cotton sets a goal of spitting in the emperor of Japan’s face.

This episode could have been immensely dumb. The plot is broad and sitcom-y, to be sure. An X-ray from when Hank had his “unmentionable problem” becomes a centerpiece at an art museum. Does that make any sense? No. Does it still work? Yes. Plus, Bobby gets gout from chicken livers, and Bobby with gout proves quite funny.

Merry Christmas! Here’s one of the darkest, weirdest “King of the Hill” episodes. Bill is depressed as the anniversary of his wife Lenore leaving him approaches, so his friends decide to make sure he doesn’t do anything too drastic, including but not limited to ending his life. Eventually, though, Hank snaps at Bill, and then Bill snaps mentally. He pulls a Norman Bates and starts dressing as, and acting as, Lenore. It’s truly dark stuff at times, which is not a road “King of the Hill” went down a lot. And they did it for Christmas as well. That boldness was rewarded.

Speaking of sitcom-y plots, Hank and his crew become firefighters for this episode, and only this episode. Maybe it would have been a longer gig had they not burned down the firehouse. The story is told “Rashomon”- style, which is always a smart thing for a sitcom to try once. You can’t overdo it, but it works once for basically every sitcom.

Many consider “Bobby Goes Nuts” a top-five episode, or even the best episode. It’s funny, sure. We have it in the top 10, after all. However, “Bobby Goes Nuts” is mostly built around Bobby kicking men in the testicles, including his father. He ended up in a women’s self-defense class instead of the boxing class he was meant for, you see. Bobby screaming “That’s my purse!” and letting it rip? Like we said, it’s funny. It’s just slight and a little silly.

Here, “King of the Hill” took an old sitcom trope and turned it on its head. They don’t really do episodes like this anymore, but back in 1997, cigarette smoking wasn’t the kind of thing that wasn’t included in a content warning. Hank catches Bobby trying a cigarette, so he does the classic “smoke an entire carton” punishment. Then, Hank, Bobby, and Peggy all end up hooked on cigs. There’s just something about a well-crafted sitcom story about smoking that feels almost…nostalgic?

There’s a good B-story with Bill in this episode, which is impressive given that Bill isn’t as funny a character as Dale or Boomhauer. The main story is epic, at least from Hank’s perspective, though. Hank wins a chance to do the classic sporting contest of trying to throw a football through a hole for money, in this case a million dollars. Notably, Meryl Streep lent her vocal talents to this episode (as did former Dallas Cowboy Don Meredith).

One of the long-running jokes of “King of the Hill” is that Nancy, Dale’s wife, is clearly having an affair with John Redcorn. It’s also quite likely that Joseph is John’s biological son. Dale’s obliviousness is played for laughs, but the script gets flipped in “Nancy Boys.” Nancy actually goes on a date with Dale, and in the process realizes why she loved him in the first place. Thus, she breaks off her affair with John, and now he’s on the outside looking in.

This is sort of a Christmas episode, in that it aired on December 14 and features a story about Peggy and Luanne trying to write a novelty holiday song. The action, though, is in the main story. Hank, Bobby (and Hank’s stowaway friends) have a rented 18-wheeler and a long haul to make it to Arizona for Hank’s mom. That’s a lot of characters for one travel storyline, but “King of the Hill” made it work, and got this episode into the top five.

Hank is a man of principle and determination, even over simple things. Plus, he likes to maintain his steadfast reputation of small-c (and often big-C) conservatism. In “Dirty Laundry,” Hank finds out his credit has been dinged because a clerk at a video store asserts Hank rented a porno movie and never returned it. Hank steadfastly denies it, and while nobody believes him (or cares nearly as much as he does), he fights it tooth and nail. It’s classic “King of the Hill,” a small-scale story with big stakes for Hank Hill.

When Hank gets emotional at a movie, it’s alarming to those around him. Peggy believes it is because Hank feels like he and Bobby aren’t close, but Hank knows the truth. It’s not truth that covers him in glory when it comes to his family, though. Hank believes his truck is about to break down for good, and that is what has him feeling so emotional. It’s very Hank, and very “King of the Hill,” for the show to explore emotion and family dynamics through Hank’s truck.

Here we are. The best “King of the Hill” episode. Whether we include the second part, or just the first, it’s the best. “Propane Boom” closed out the second season of “King of the Hill” with a bang. Hank loses his job and ends up working at Mega Lo Mart, much to his chagrin. It’s a great Hank episode, but also one of the most-fleshed-out Arlen episodes. Plus, Chuck Mangione is in it! “Propane Boom” is quintessential “King of the Hill.” And, whether or not we include it, the second part lands the cliffhanger well.