Ever notice that the seven deadly sins are represented by a few characters?
Wrath- Cotton Hill (He gets furious at just about anyone, for nearly any little thing)
Pride- Peggy Hill (She thinks she's the greatest substitute teacher in the world. So proud, she doesn't realize she's terrible at speaking Spanish)
Gluttony - Bobby Hill (He loves food, especially fruit pies)
Lust - John Redcorn (He sleeps around with many women, particularly Nancy)
Boomhauer can also satisfy this.
Greed - Buck Strickland (Has a gambling problem and also tries to make some quick bucks at work)
Envy - Nancy Gribble (Is jealous of people with better professions than her and gets jealous when other women show interest in her husband)
Sloth - Bill Dauterive (Bill is lazy, but it's probably due to his depression after Lenoire left him)
Buck and Jimmy are two sides of the same coin when you get down to it.
Buck and Jimmy are terrible bosses to Hank and Bobby, respectively. They both make their employees do embarrassing, if not dangerous, things out of selfishness.
The difference is Jimmy is a far stupider man who is incapable of commanding loyalty, while Buck has greater people skills and is more capable of throwing bones, as long as it gets him his way.
"Lost in Myspace" features Strickland Propane getting a MySpace page for the company. While it comes across as dated for 2008 (and a sign that the show writers are trying to stay hip and relevant, even though it's years past that), many Southern and Western towns in the U.S. like Arlen in real life are a bit behind the times and would embrace trends like MySpace after everyone else has moved on to the next thing. Also at the time Fox owned MySpace.
And considering how long an episode takes to be produced, MySpace was still somewhat popular in 2007 and only started declining in 2008.
Considering Dale is shown to be a bad shot, his threatening a suicidal Bill with a gun as seen on "Pretty, Pretty Dresses" would be effective since he wouldn't likely kill Bill. (Although it also could just be the shock of how willing Dale is to resort to such measures.)
Bill mentions several times he had Abusive Parents, and the only woman he ever loved left him. Hence it's no surprise that the minute anyone gives him an inkling of positive attention ("A Bill Full of Dollars") or authority ("Apres Hank, Le Deluge") he lets it ALL go to his head.
In "Propane Boom Part 2," Luanne seems to go off the rails following Buckley's death and suddenly becomes obsessed with the world's injustices. This is Played for Laughs, but sadly Truth in Television - many people who have lost someone, especially to to a sudden or violent death, experience a period of anger at how unfair the death was and how unfair God or the world is for taking people in such a way.
In the same episode, Dale tell the Texas RRC agent investigating the explosion, "That's what they want you to think" and the agent replies, "Sir, we are 'They'. The Railroad Commission of Texas historically has had a very disportionate national and international influence for a state regulatory industry, because of anti-federalist sentiment in Texas combining with the fact that, in addition to regulating propane, it regulates industries like petroleum and uranium. This went to the point that in previous decades the RRC had influence on world oil prices like OPEC does today.
Also in that two-parter, when Buckley notes he's now manager of the new propane department, he mentions "They didn't want me making keys anymore.", implying there were a lot of complaints about his idiocy. But, likely for fear of their own careers, the store management simply shifted Buckley over to another department, hoping he wouldn't screw that up. Look what happens. Notably, we never see who's managing the store at the time (aside from Buckley and a fellow jerky teen who threatens to fire Hank). It's possible they were ousted after the explosion, thus leading to new manager Norm from "Mega-Lo Dale", who's at least competent and whose problem workers are dealt with by the end of the episode.
In "Wings of the Dope," Buckley's angel has wings but no halo throughout the episode. As he walks toward the horizon at the end, he pulls a halo out of his pocket and puts it on - he earned his halo for giving Luanne closure and helping her find a better path in her life than beauty school.
Cotton and Hank's relationship changing after Cotton's first appearance is due to Hank sticking up to him in his debut episode. It can also be said that Hank sticking up for his dad in the episode was out of fear, and when he told him off it did a 180.
In some earlier episodes, Bobby only goes up to Hank's stomach while in other episodes he's taller and comes up to his shoulders. Although Bobby never hit puberty in the series, he is 11 when the show starts and is 13 by the time the series ends, and this can be explained by him having a small growth spurt.
Could also count as Fridge Horror: In "Keeping Up With Our Joneses" when Bobby is caught smoking, Peggy warns him it will stunt his growth. Bobby becomes addicted to cigarettes for a short time after Hank made him smoke an entire carton of cigarettes as punishment, and since Joseph and Connie hit puberty and aged quicker than Bobby, Peggy may've been right.
In "Rodeo Days" Bill recognizes the clown is Bobby due to Bobby wearing Bill's underwear and Peggy's shoes. His underwear did go missing but he recognized Peggy's shoes because he has an unrequited crush on Peggy and would notice small details like that (plus, Peggy is a woman with size 16-and-a-half feet. You'd have to be blind or really oblivious not to notice).
Dale Gribble's middle name is Alvin, meaning that he shares his first name and middle name with two different cartoon chimpmunks. This could be a Stealth Pun on why he's so nutty.
How is it that Hank is aware of this one bank teller who's "in-between genders" yet is oblivious to Peggy's friend, Carolyn being a drag queen? Likely because the teller had a large build and masculine features combined with feminine dress, hair, and makeup while Carolyn was much smaller and had boyish/girlish features and therefore was less masculine looking while her biological male form can be construed as just a baby faced guy.
A bit of Fridge Humor: the magic/occult group that Bobby joins in one episode calls themselves "the Coven of Artemis." Artemis is the Greek goddess of the hunt, the moon, and wild places—pretty fitting for some group of wannabe druids. She's also the goddess of chastity, which is also fitting since, frankly, most of the guys in the group are probably virgins.
In the episode with Buddha Sack, he jokes that Hank's urethra is so narrow that sperm have to exit in single file. Sperm are actually the smallest cells in the human body (0.05 millimeter, or roughly 0.002 inch), so he's not only saying Hank's urethra is narrow, he's saying it's microscopic!
What was George W. Bush even doing campaigning in Texas? Well, candidates actually do campaign in their home states fairly often. Sure, it's not as high profile as, say, Iowa, New Hampshire, or Florida, but it makes for a good media appearance and is often done after going to fundraisers where candidates can easily draw in half a million dollars from the very people that got them elected to statewide office in the first place. So in 2000, George W. Bush being the current governor of Texas at the time and all, it's very likely that he was simply fundraising and decided to make a nice media appearance to hype up his political base.
In the episode "Plastic White Female" when John Redcorn comes to pick Nancy up, the song playing in his car is Great White's "Rock Me", which is about a guy who is having an affair with a woman in a relationship.
In "Junkie Business", at the end when Buck gives Hank a 6 month probation (after rehiring him after Hank quits to get rid of the junkie and his the social service guy from the first episode), it does seem extremely harsh, especially towards the guy who saves his company. But when you keep in mind none of the problems would've happened if Hank was more thorough when looking for a new employee. He turns down a woman who is more qualified for the position she's interviewing for to hire a drug addict who loves football and sweet talks Hank. In the end, Hank does get Stickland Propane out of a situation he started to begin with. Buck could have realized this and thought it be fair to give Hank some sort of punishment, even if he's his best employee.
The Reveal that Boomhauer works for the Texas Rangers. Becoming a Texas Ranger requires 90 units of college or 3 years of military service, plus 8 years in law enforcement (service as an MP does not count), and finally, a job at Texas Department of Public Safety with a rank of at least Trooper II. So Boomhauer had to have been a Texas Ranger from the start of the series, yet it's implied at different times that he's a former electrician on worker's compensation or that he is well off due to inheritance and/or his family winning the lottery. To address possible follow-up questions, Texas Rangers don't do long-term undercover work, it's just that Boomhauer is never shown to be on-duty during the show.
The fact that the majority of the show's main characters are so sharply polarizing makes a lot more sense when you know that, originally, the series was making fun of suburban Texans and other Good Ol' Boy types, only to retool itself when those were the same people who most liked the show. Hank, Peggy and the rest weren't ever really intended to be the heroes, and the writers occasionally liked to slip in reminders of that fact.
A few episodes hint that Dale Gribble may suffer from an eating disorder; he’s referred to as an anorexic chain smoker, he implies he binges and purges, and he’s rarely ever seen eating. He is pretty skinny but does have a small gut. This could be due to all the beer and Mountain Dew he drinks.
The above is supported by the episode "The Fat and the Furious", where Dale tries to dissuade Bill from eating a hot dog eating contest by revealing that he himself (as a youngster) had a "talent" for strange eating habits, and tried to become popular via that reputation. But Dale, after seeing at least one person disgusted by what he was doing, realized that "just because you have their attention, doesn't mean you have their respect."
in the episode where it seems like Dale has gone clock tower, he says he wants Bobby to be the one to kill him, because Bobby's a clean shot. This isn't just Dale being Dale, he honestly believes he could. It's shown time and time again that Bobby is a very good marksman.
Cotton's hatred and mistreatment of Tilly stems from his anger and bitterness at being forced to leave Michiko.
The above is also supported by his choice of Didi as his second wife; despite her blonde hair she seems at least vaguely Asian. But then again, he also treats her like crap... (Though not to the extent he treated Tilly).
Characters have commented on how much respect Hank has for Boomhauer. This is clearly true, as Bobby's full, legal name is Robert Jeffrey Hill. The episode (Uh Oh, Canada) reveals that Boomhauer's first name is "Jeff". Seeing as how Hank (partially) named his son after his friend shows how high in regard he holds Boomhauer.
One episode also has Peggy tell Luanne she wanted to name Bobby Jeffrey, but Hank wouldn't let her. This shows that while Peggy has some disdain for both Dale and Bill, she also has respect for Boomhauer. As for why Hank didn't let her use it as a first name, he likely didn't want to show favoritism among his friends
Many criticize Hank's Bully because they showed Hank's inability do anything about the Spoiled Brat Caleb and had Bobby fight the battle for him. Many fail to realize that Hank could only do so much. Caleb is just a kid, many of his antics really fall under a stern talking to, which won't matter much if his Parent's continue to let him do as he please. At best, Hank calls the police, they give him a stern talking to, but nothing will happen, worse case scenario, Hank just seems petty for calling the authorities on a kid. Having Bobby deal the same medicine on Caleb's parents is what finally took to fix the problem. Hank doesn't hate Caleb, he just wants him to behave, because he's a kid.
Why are Kahn and Minh not liked in the Laotian community? Minh's father was a general in the Laotian Army. And possibly a war criminal (in the episode where Minh's dad visited, he said he was on trial at the Hague). While their attitudes don't help, the fact that she doubtlessly benefited from her father's position probably wouldn't help their popularity.
In Hillenium, Kahn, who only makes a very brief appearance in the episode, makes fun of Hank for setting the toilet paper on fire implying he isn't too worried about the Millenium bug. Kahn's official job is a systems analyst meaning he works with computers; he's probably one of the few on the block who are actually knowledgeable about the Millenium bug and has no real concern about it.
As we see in "Hank's Bad Hair Day", Peggy cut Bobby's hair at home all his life, which likely explains his trademark buzzcut; it was probably the easiest hairstyle for her to do, and Hank never objected because his son would have a "manly" haircut.
During "Harlottown", the city manager brings up Salem, Massachusetts as an example of a town who capitalized on its unique past, in order to bring in tourist dollars and improve their community. While this might be an unintentional Genius Bonus, this very much foreshadows the city manager's real plans for one simple reason: the Salem Witch Trials never happened in present day Salem, but rather Salem Village or present day Danvers. Legal charter caused Danvers to split from Salem, while the latter went through a series of tragedies and misfortunes that caused them to capitalize on the Witch Trials as a way to bring in money; while Salem, Massachusetts capitalizes on witches and the paranormal, most of the actual historical sites are in Danvers. Case in point, during the episode, the city manager and the council take advantage of the town's unique past, while ignoring or not caring about much of the nuance that went into the town's founding, simply to bring in money.
In "Luanne Virgin 2.0" after discovering Peggy wasn't a virgin when they married, Hank dons a green baseball cap and leaves to go stay with Luanne. Possibly unintentional, but in China, a man whose partner has cheated on him is said to be "wearing a green hat."
With the naivete of Hank and Peggy about drugs, prostitution, and other vices of the world (with Hank trying to keep his son from knowing about it, as seen in "Get Your Freak Off"), it's a damn good thing Bobby is more street-smart by comparison (mostly by having friends and hanging out with people who know more about the way the world works more than he does, even if said acquaintances turn out to be a bad influence on him) or else he'd probably get into way more trouble than he usually does.
In the episode when Bill gets involved with a bunch of over-enthusiastic body builders in order to get in shape for his army physical, he injures himself after putting on too many weights for a work-out machine. We don't know exactly what injury the machine caused until the end of the episode. The doctor states that Bill had ruptured his rectum, causing his internal systems to become external. It's called rectal prolapse and it's exactly as unpleasant as it sounds and a common hazard with bodybuilders.
The episode where Luanne and Peggy accidentally join a sorority (really a front for a cult) ends with Hank and co. having a large barbecue to snap the recruits out of the week's worth of brainwashing. And we never see the recruiter caught and punished for her actions. What if the recruiter finds a new place to set up shop? And what about the poor women that were sent to rot in some farm making jams?
Just because we don't see it on screen, doesn't mean Hank or someone else didn't call the police or somebody about what is basically a kidnapping cult. Peggy certainly seems like the type to rat someone out who tried to take advantage of her and/or her niece Luanne.
In High Anxiety, had Debbie not killedherself by accident Buck Strickland, Hank, Ms. Liz, and possibly Peggy could have likely all been killed.
Much has been written about Hank's poor choice in surrogate father figures by choosing Buck Strickland over Cotton Hill. The Fridge Horror angle is that, depending on how you look at it, either Hank's sense of self-worth is so warped by Cotton's years of mistreatment that he legitimately believes he deserves a surrogate father as bad as Buck, he's so desperate for approval that he'd crumble without Buck's manipulative feigned paternal affection, or Cotton was just so bad that Buck is still a legitimate step up over him.
Keep in mind, that Buck actually noticed Hank's customer service and salesmanship skills at his old job at the shoe shop while Cotton would likely mark the workplace as evidence that his son is a loser.
Coach Sours has likely performed that helmet test before. imagine how much damage he has caused.
On that note Coach Sours could easily have killed the kids and is never held responsible.
Buck framed Hank for murder and got no consequences what so ever.
In "Get Your Freak Off", if Hank hadn't showed up when he did, who knows what would have happened in that closet. It is likely one group would have had sex and they are middle schoolers. Peggy, Minh and Nancy express very visible relief that Hank got there in time to handle things.
the kids from get your freak off are so likely to make bad choices due to that free range parenting style.
In Jumpin' Crack Bass, Hank caused an entire pond full of fish to be dependent on cocaine. He likely destroyed their entire colony.
With his continued disregard for gun safety (and his own physical well being), the gun safety instructor from Season 2's "How to Fire a Rifle Without Really Trying" is likely dead by now.
Kahn is revealed to have manic depression, and has to take medicine to even our his moods. Unfortunately, this mental illness tends to be genetic, so poor Connie might have to deal with her manic depression herself in young adulthood, if not earlier.
More of a Fridge Squick: In "Trans-Fascism" Hank, Buck, and the kitchen staff of Sugarfoot's start running an illegal food truck after Arlen bans trans fats. Hank needs to force the cooks to start practicing proper hygiene, with a scene at the beginning showing a guy taking biscuits out of the oven while smoking, testing if they're done by sticking his finger in one, and then another guy sneezing on them. You would think that working at Sugarfoot's, they'd be familiar with the kinds of things you have to do to keep a kitchen clean, given that some of them are laws and would be noted in health inspections, and even if they weren't aware of why you'd have to do them, you'd think that they would just do them out of habit if they were already doing it at Sugarfoot's. Combined with the fact that Buck has no qualms against bribing the cops while running the truck, one gets the feeling that Sugarfoot's—a restaurant most of the cast love visiting and eat at regularly throughout the series—was likely horribly unclean and Buck bribed health inspectors to look the other way.
When Cotton has flashbacks to the Japanese soldiers he killed during the war, they are unarmed, bandaged, and in various states of undress that *strongly* indicates they were wounded undergoing medical treatment. Coupled with the Real Life treatment of Japanese in the last years of the war, Cotton very likely comitted a war crime.
In "Yankee Hankee" Hank asks his parents for his birth certificate. Even assuming that his parents were together when he got his passport and his job at Strickland Propane, it's still odd that he wouldn't have his original birth certificate or a copy with him.
A lot of times, you get either of those with social security numbers, rather than the birth certificate itself.
Hank clearly looks more like his mother than his father, but his Japanese half-brother looks almost exactly like him when they have different mothers that don't look anything alike.
They do have the same father, in which case, he might also bear a resemblance to Hank. Perhaps, that was a stylistic oversight on the artist/animators part, as Hank and Junichiro are similar to each other and live relatively identical lives, so maybe they look similar to probably highlight that and or to make him more recognizable?
I always assumed that a lot of his features came from Cotton's gene pool, people often more resemble an uncle or grand parents before a parent, and Cotton was just lying because those traits (the glasses, narrow dohickey) are not ones he would want in a child.
In Propane Boom, why was Megalo Mart selling propane so destructive to Strickland Propane? Sure, it may be a better deal for things like Grills, but what about deliveries? I wouldn't expect Megalo Mart to all of a sudden be sending giant trucks out and they are never seen. Strickland should still be able to dominate this business.
As someone who used to work for a certain big chain store, orders like that are often not placed in store but placed online or via phone call order. They only keep at store what they can sell at an individual (my store had roughly 20-ish tanks) and only get in more individual tanks when it's around the summer or winter seasons. Thus they don't actually rely on the store but the company itself.
In "Hank's Dirty Laundry" how does being $40 in debt cause his credit to be declined. Credit Cards don't work like that. Even if he had an outstanding balance with interest, it would still accept his card.
Not all cards are like that—this troper has a card with a set limit, and once that limit is reached it sends out a message that the card doesn't have enough available credit to complete the transaction. Unless it was some kind of unlimited card (rare, especially for the working-class Hank), it would stop once the limit was reached. That's the whole point of credit limits, once you reach it they won't give you any more money until you make a payment.
"Hank's Dirty Laundry" also has Hank mention that one of the stars turned eighteen and this was her "Return to porn". As this was her return to porn? She was in adult videos before this. Hank admitted to watching Child Pornography in court. Not only that? But there are videos of this casually available.
I must ask: what kind of doctor stitches a man's ankles directly to his kneecaps? Was the Army so desperate for talent they were hiring very cut-rate surgeons back in dubya-dubya-two? Cotton in a wheelchair or having his shins replaced by metal leg shin extensions would have been more plausible.
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