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** Another is "Look! I'm [[MadLibsCatchPhrase X]]" usually while doing an impression or wearing a costume. His quotation above being one example of many.
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* GratuitousSpanish: Will often say random Spanish words in conversation, sometimes incorrectly or mispronounced.
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* MatzoFever: The last two men she was with (Gary and Chuck) were both Jewish.
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* YourCheatingHeart: Was revealed in the 13th season to be having an affair with Chuck behind Gary's back.
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* NiceGuy: Despite his laziness, Lucky is a good-hearted person and loves and cares for his wife Luanne and his daughter Gracie dearly.
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* NiceGirl: Luanne is a real sweetheart.
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* NiceGuy: Hank is a normal and well-meaning person. Even though he can sometimes see his son as somewhat a disappointment for not being as manly as he had hoped he would be, he still genuinely loves him and his wife;
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* GoodParents: Despite Peggy's TookALevelOfJerkass after season 4, she still remains loyal and loving to her family.
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* NiceGuy: Bobby is innocent, gentle, sweet, kind-hearted, and good-natured.
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Changed line(s) 165 (click to see context) from:
* NeverMyFault: Peggy never accepts she did something wrong even when the consequences catch up to her (like accidentally kidnapping a Mexican child because she didn't really speak Spanish) and even if she does, she'll still find some way of justifying it or downplaying how badly she messed up.
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* NeverMyFault: Peggy never accepts she did something wrong even when the consequences catch up to her (like accidentally kidnapping a Mexican child because she didn't really speak Spanish) and even if she does, she'll still find some way of justifying it or it, downplaying how badly she messed up.up or find a way to make someone else take fault.
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Typo
Changed line(s) 214 (click to see context) from:
* CrossdressingVoices: His voice actor is Pamela Segall Adlon, who has done voicework for a lot of boy characters (and a few girl characters, like [[WesternAnimation/{{Recess}} Spinelli]] and [[WesternAnikation/PepperAnn Margaret Rose "Moose" Pearson]]).
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* CrossdressingVoices: His voice actor is Pamela Segall Adlon, who has done voicework for a lot of boy characters (and a few girl characters, like [[WesternAnimation/{{Recess}} Spinelli]] and [[WesternAnikation/PepperAnn [[WesternAnimation/PepperAnn Margaret Rose "Moose" Pearson]]).
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Changed line(s) 164 (click to see context) from:
* {{Narcissist}}
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* {{Narcissist}}{{Narcissist}}: The most notable trope about Peggy Hill. She believes herself to be an ideal mother and wife.
* NeverMyFault: Peggy never accepts she did something wrong even when the consequences catch up to her (like accidentally kidnapping a Mexican child because she didn't really speak Spanish) and even if she does, she'll still find some way of justifying it or downplaying how badly she messed up.
* NeverMyFault: Peggy never accepts she did something wrong even when the consequences catch up to her (like accidentally kidnapping a Mexican child because she didn't really speak Spanish) and even if she does, she'll still find some way of justifying it or downplaying how badly she messed up.
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Changed line(s) 473 (click to see context) from:
* AscendedExtra: His most noteworthy scene in that episode was when he told the story of why he was called "Lucky" (he slipped on a spill while running for the bathroom in a department store and was paid off to avoid a lawsuit). His friends [[ThoseTwoGuys Elvin and Mud Dauber]], more prominently featured in that episode, are conversely DemotedToExtra.
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%% This example seems to be divorced from its context. It seems to be relying on something previously written above it that no longer exists when it speaks "that episode". Someone who knows what it's talking about needs to fix this, until then I'm commenting out the AscendedExtra example.
%% * AscendedExtra: His most noteworthy scene in that episode was when he told the story of why he was called "Lucky" (he slipped on a spill while running for the bathroom in a department store and was paid off to avoid a lawsuit). His friends [[ThoseTwoGuys Elvin and Mud Dauber]], more prominently featured in that episode, are conversely DemotedToExtra.
%% * AscendedExtra: His most noteworthy scene in that episode was when he told the story of why he was called "Lucky" (he slipped on a spill while running for the bathroom in a department store and was paid off to avoid a lawsuit). His friends [[ThoseTwoGuys Elvin and Mud Dauber]], more prominently featured in that episode, are conversely DemotedToExtra.
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I believe this is Square Peg Round Trope.
Deleted line(s) 421 (click to see context) :
* TookALevelInBadass: Not much but she started getting more assertive with Cotton like demanding he take care of G.H. for her "me-time" to launder and pleasantly asking him to eat a certain way in front of the television.
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thinking about it a bit more, that went a bit too far, and it's more concise without that part anyway.
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* SingleIssueWonk: In most respects Hank epitomizes normalcy, and in most respects seems to be the picture of perfect mental health.[[note]]other than perhaps having some difficulty expressing emotion, but [[RealMenHateAffection this issue is typically seen as a fairly "normal" one for a man to have]][[/note]]. Typically he plays the role of StraightMan while [[OnlySaneMan everyone else around him is acting crazy]]. The one thing that can push ''him'' into being the crazy person in the scene, however, is his obsession with propane. It's to the point that when Peggy found out she preferred the taste of burgers grilled on charcoal rather than propane, she had to hide it from him because in his mind that was practically tantamount to cheating on him.
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* SingleIssueWonk: In most respects Hank epitomizes normalcy, and in most respects seems to be the picture of perfect mental health.[[note]]other than perhaps having some difficulty expressing emotion, but [[RealMenHateAffection this issue is typically seen as a fairly "normal" one for a man to have]][[/note]]. Typically he plays the role of StraightMan while [[OnlySaneMan everyone else around him is acting crazy]]. normalcy; The one thing that can push ''him'' into being the crazy person in the scene, however, is his obsession with propane. It's to the point that when Peggy found out she preferred the taste of burgers grilled on charcoal rather than propane, she had to hide it from him because in his mind that was practically tantamount to cheating on him.
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Changed line(s) 89 (click to see context) from:
* OnlySaneMan: Sometimes. His hyper-mundane personality makes him eccentric in his own right, amongst most people he is, paradoxically, too normal to be normal. But when he's next to Bill, Boomhauer, and especially Dale, he looks normal by comparison, and he is typically the one who has to fix everything when their bizarre antics get out of hand.
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* OnlySaneMan: Sometimes. His hyper-mundane personality makes him eccentric in his own right, right; amongst most people he is, paradoxically, too normal to be normal. But when he's next to Bill, Boomhauer, and especially Dale, he looks normal by comparison, and he is typically the one who has to fix everything when their bizarre antics get out of hand.
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Serious Business isn't a character trope. Also I don't remember the name of the episode this is from, but I'm pretty sure it happened.
Changed line(s) 97,99 (click to see context) from:
* SeriousBusiness:
** Propane and propane accessories. Justified because it's his livelihood, and he's easily the most knowledgeable person about propane in a town that relies on it for heating and cooking.
** He also takes meat preparation very seriously, to the point that his response to someone who takes their steak well-done is to politely ask them to leave.
** Propane and propane accessories. Justified because it's his livelihood, and he's easily the most knowledgeable person about propane in a town that relies on it for heating and cooking.
** He also takes meat preparation very seriously, to the point that his response to someone who takes their steak well-done is to politely ask them to leave.
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* SeriousBusiness:
** Propane and propane accessories. Justified because it's his livelihood, and he's easily theSingleIssueWonk: In most knowledgeable respects Hank epitomizes normalcy, and in most respects seems to be the picture of perfect mental health.[[note]]other than perhaps having some difficulty expressing emotion, but [[RealMenHateAffection this issue is typically seen as a fairly "normal" one for a man to have]][[/note]]. Typically he plays the role of StraightMan while [[OnlySaneMan everyone else around him is acting crazy]]. The one thing that can push ''him'' into being the crazy person about propane in a town that relies on it for heating and cooking.
** He also takes meat preparation very seriously,the scene, however, is his obsession with propane. It's to the point that when Peggy found out she preferred the taste of burgers grilled on charcoal rather than propane, she had to hide it from him because in his response mind that was practically tantamount to someone who takes their steak well-done is to politely ask them to leave.cheating on him.
** Propane and propane accessories. Justified because it's his livelihood, and he's easily the
** He also takes meat preparation very seriously,
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* GoodCannotComprehendEvil: He seems to assume everyone is as honorable and law-abiding as him. In "Ho Yeah!", an angry pimp gets into a car chase with him. Hank crosses a stoplight just before it turns red and thinks this has bought him time. When the pimp crosses the red light to continue chasing him, Hank is incredibly shocked. Hank was also swindled by a used car salesman for 25 years, ever since the salesman told the teenage Hank buying his very first car that paying sticker price was a huge discount available only to a privileged few. Present-day Hank is of course an extremely honest salesman ([[CatchPhrase of propane and propane accessories]]), and it seemingly never crossed his mind that a salesman could be dishonest.
-->'''Salesman:''' What can I say, Hank? I'm a salesman.\\
'''Hank:''' I know! You're a ''salesman''! That's why none of this makes any sense!
-->'''Salesman:''' What can I say, Hank? I'm a salesman.\\
'''Hank:''' I know! You're a ''salesman''! That's why none of this makes any sense!
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* IWasQuiteALooker: Not ugly by any means, but when he was young, he was very trim and had a smooth face with wider eyes.
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* IWasQuiteALooker: Much to Bobby's surprise.
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* IWasQuiteALooker: Much to Bobby's surprise. Oddly her younger self looks the same, aside from different outfits, slightly slimmer, and a different hairstyle; it's her current dowdy style and old-fashioned hairdo and glasses that don't do it for her.
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* TheDitz: Hank says that he worries about her because she is an idiot for making stupid decisions such as marrying Cotton, dating another man before she broke up with her boyfriend and selling her gold to someone on TV.
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* TheDitz: Hank says that he worries about her because she is an idiot for making stupid decisions such as marrying Cotton, dating another man before marrying him before she broke up with her boyfriend boyfriend, having her husband sell her house for a RV which she happens to drive recklessly and dangerously on the road, tried to make a coffee out of the RV's cruise control, and selling her gold to someone on TV.
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* FreudianExcuse: Being married to an emotionally, verbally, and sometimes physically abusive man for years, (Cotton once used her as an actual footstool), and only being able to seek comfort in glass figurines, may be the reason why in her later years Tilly makes spontaneous and often stupid choices. Now that she's free from Cotton, and no longer taking care of Hank, Tilly is free to live her life how she wants and is expressing out decades of repressed emotions, which channel into some questionable antics.
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* FreudianExcuse: Being married to an emotionally, verbally, and sometimes physically abusive man for years, (Cotton once used her as an actual footstool), and only being able to seek comfort in glass figurines, may be the reason why in her later years Tilly makes spontaneous and often stupid and crazy choices. Now that she's free from Cotton, and no longer taking care of Hank, Tilly is free to live her life how she wants and is expressing out decades of repressed emotions, which channel into some questionable antics.antics and an insensitive wild streak.
-->'''Tilly:''' Maybe I am an idiot. Who cares?...I want to live on my own terms, Hank. I want to have fun while I can. Let the pieces fall where they may. Some things will work out well, some won't. At least it won't be boring.
-->'''Tilly:''' Maybe I am an idiot. Who cares?...I want to live on my own terms, Hank. I want to have fun while I can. Let the pieces fall where they may. Some things will work out well, some won't. At least it won't be boring.
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* TheUnfavorite: In the majority of the time, Hank doesn't like any of what Bobbie does unless it's something that connects real well with Hank. This is taken UpToEleven because Hank doesn't like Luanne that much either...
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* TheUnfavorite: It's not subtle how Hank doesn't like her and how [[TheThingThatWouldNotLeave she can't move out from the house because she's not financially ready to make a move]].
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Changed line(s) 467 (click to see context) from:
A 35 year old hillbilly introduced later in the series whose personal income consists primarily of nothing but personal injury suit victories. Becomes involved with Luanne, then later [[spoiler: marries and has a child with her.]] Voiced by Music/TomPetty.
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A 35 year old hillbilly introduced later in the series whose personal income consists primarily of nothing but personal injury suit victories. Becomes involved with Luanne, then later [[spoiler: marries and has a child with her.]] her. Voiced by Music/TomPetty.
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Hank's father, a crotchety old man who doesn't seem to approve of anything Hank does. This war vet can never stop talking about how he killed "fitty" (50) men while in service. When it comes to impulsiveness, he's even [[UpToEleven got Peggy beat]]. Heaven help Hank. [[spoiler: His last appearance in the series sees him die from a horrible accident (or as he puts it, Tojo finally got him).]] Voiced by Toby Huss.
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Hank's father, a crotchety old man who doesn't seem to approve of anything Hank does. This war vet can never stop talking about how he killed "fitty" (50) men while in service. When it comes to impulsiveness, he's even [[UpToEleven got Peggy beat]]. Heaven help Hank. [[spoiler: His last appearance in the series sees him die from a horrible accident (or as he puts it, Tojo finally got him).]] him). Voiced by Toby Huss.
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* BrokenBird: It's implied that Didi isn't happy in her marriage to Cotton but she's too meek to say anything about it. She constantly looks and sounds dazed and miserable whenever she's on-screen.
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* BrokenBird: It's implied that Didi isn't happy in her marriage to Cotton but she's too meek to say anything about it. She constantly looks seems confused and sounds dazed and miserable sad whenever she's on-screen.
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* RoboSpeak: Speaks in a very monotone voice that makes it sound as though she's rehearsed her speech.
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* RoboSpeak: Speaks in a very monotone voice that makes it sound as though she's rehearsed her speech.whatever she's saying.
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* WhatDoesSheSeeInHim: After Cotton's death, she finally seems to acknowledge the fact that he was an awful man [[spoiler:and has actually admitted that, since marrying her new husband, she barely even remembers anything about him]].
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* WhatDoesSheSeeInHim: After Cotton's death, she finally seems to acknowledge the fact that he was an awful man [[spoiler:and has actually admitted that, since marrying her new husband, she barely even remembers anything about him]].
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* SingleTargetSexuality: Only person Hank had sexual attraction for is Peggy. One reason he didn't hire a woman at his job was because when he tried an hypothetical scenario with Peggy it lead to them having sex, making Hank thinks he won't be able to handle it.
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* GracefulLoser: Really doesn't let defeat get him down too much. A great example is when he and Hank enter a shooting competition together and [[SecondPlaceIsForLosers place second.]] Hank is embarrassed at failing, though Bobby is just happy they did that well in their first competition.
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Changed line(s) 69 (click to see context) from:
* InnocentBigot: Comes across as this to Khan the moment they first met, particularly in the infamous "are you Chinese or Japanese" segment. In Hank's defense, at the time the show aired, immigration from Laos was so rare as to be basically unheard of. Even currently, it's so rare, the census form only lists "Asian/Other."
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* InnocentBigot: InnocentBigot:
** Comes across as this to Khan the moment they first met, particularly in the infamous "are you Chinese or Japanese" segment. In Hank's defense, at the time the show aired, immigration from Laos was so rare as to be basically unheard of. Even currently, it's so rare, the census form only lists "Asian/Other." "
** Hank also lets this shine when interviewing employees for Strickland Propane. He passes over a high-qualified applicant because she's a woman, but is portrayed as simply being uncomfortable with having a woman around the workplace and not being sure how to interact with a woman in that setting. There's also the implication he fired her for even more shallow reasons; namely that she wasn't a fan of sports.
** Comes across as this to Khan the moment they first met, particularly in the infamous "are you Chinese or Japanese" segment. In Hank's defense, at the time the show aired, immigration from Laos was so rare as to be basically unheard of. Even currently, it's so rare, the census form only lists "Asian/Other.
** Hank also lets this shine when interviewing employees for Strickland Propane. He passes over a high-qualified applicant because she's a woman, but is portrayed as simply being uncomfortable with having a woman around the workplace and not being sure how to interact with a woman in that setting. There's also the implication he fired her for even more shallow reasons; namely that she wasn't a fan of sports.
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Changed line(s) 81 (click to see context) from:
* NotSoDifferent: Hank and his [[spoiler: Japanese half-brother, Junichiro.]]
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* NotSoDifferent: Hank and his [[spoiler: Japanese half-brother, Junichiro.]] Also his wife Peggy; for all the flak she gets for her ego, Hank himself has been no better than her on occasion. For an example, he once told Luanne that the world was better [[BornInTheWrongCentury when more people were like him.]]
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* ActionDad: Frequent ass kicker of both the figurative and literal varieties? Check. More physically fit than just about any other character in the show? Check. Survived a tornado by grabbing onto a freaking telephone pole? Check.
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* ActionDad: Frequent ass kicker of both the figurative and literal varieties? Check. More physically fit than just about any many of the other character in the show? Check. Survived a tornado by grabbing onto a freaking telephone pole? Check.
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[[caption-width-right:244:Slipped on pee-pee at the [=CostCo=].]]
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Return to the main Character page [[Characters/KingOfTheHill here]].
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[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:Henry Rutherford "Hank" Hill]]
[[quoteright:180:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/download_8755.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:180:I sell propane and propane accessories.]]
->"I tell you what..."
The protagonist of the show, Hank is a propane salesman who loves his job nearly as much as he loves his family. He's pretty introverted and can't cope with emotion very well, but he's clearly [[OnlySaneMan the most level-headed of the cast]]. Voiced by series creator Creator/MikeJudge.
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* ActionDad: Frequent ass kicker of both the figurative and literal varieties? Check. More physically fit than just about any other character in the show? Check. Survived a tornado by grabbing onto a freaking telephone pole? Check.
* {{Adorkable}}: Hank's excitement over mundane things and general sheepishness gives him a certain awkward charm.
* AesopAmnesia: Half the episodes in the entire show couldn't happen if Hank didn't forget the many, many times he learned to accept Bobby for who he is, or realized that his father was a selfish jackass.
* AlliterativeName: Except for the "R." in the middle of his name.
* BigApplesauce: [[spoiler:Hank was born in the ladies' room at Yankee Stadium. He is ''not'' pleased to learn about it.]]
* BigNo: Many times.
* BerserkButton:
** Also disrespecting propane in any way. He doesn't mind jokes about it though, in fact he finds propane-related comedy (that disses other forms of grilling fuel) hilarious. As seen in "Meet the Propaniacs."
** Don't do anything to his lawn.
* BoringButPractical: To the fullest possible extent. Hank actually ''prefers'' the boring, mundane parts of whatever he's involved in and would be happier if the "fun" or "exciting" parts could be downplayed or removed entirely. He is almost right all the time due to how said fun parts tend to be exaggeratedly portrayed to get his point across.
* BornInTheWrongCentury: Wonders when people stopped believing in hard work, honesty, decency, modesty, and plain old common sense. Of course, Hank's definition of decency, modesty, and common sense are all rather skewed.
* CallingTheOldWomanOut:
** Does this to his mother several times, from cheating on boyfriends to wondering what she saw in Cotton. Oddly, he's very slow in doing this to the much worse Cotton, mainly out of fear.
** In one of the first episodes, he told him to his face that he hated the old man. The problem is, it impressed Cotton.
* CannotSpitItOut: He has a really hard telling anyone that he loves them, including his own son. Combine this with his other uptight behavior regarding expressing emotion and you get why Bobby sometimes thinks Hank doesn't love him.
* CatchPhrase: He has a few.
** "I tell you what."
** "BWAAAAAH!"
** "God-dang it!"
** "I'm gonna kick your ass!"
** "Damn it, Dale/Bill!"
** "That boy ain't right."
** "I sell propane and propane accessories."
* ChasteHero:
** Hank is one despite being married and in his forties (since "chaste" does not mean the same thing as "celibate"). He has the same obliviousness to female attention, whether from his wife or any other woman. He is quite embarrassed by any display or mention of sexuality (male or female), and runs out screaming when he accidentally enters the porn section of a video store; in what is perhaps the best illustration of this side of his character, when he meets two young female nudists, he winds up giving them a sales pitch on the benefits of propane heating for their summer home.
** He was traumatized by an attractive StalkerWithACrush female cop who pulled him over on a trumped-up charge just so she could grope him. He wound up singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" under his breath the whole time to get himself through it.[[note]]This is probably a more realistic reaction than what [[AllMenArePerverts male characters usually get slapped with on television]].[[/note]]
** [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in one episode where Buck says, "Oh, don't worry Hank, I know you don't have sex." A clearly annoyed Hank says, "Well, that's not quite…" before deciding to leave well enough alone.
** Hank does display some more "standard" male traits now and then; in "Luanne Virgin 2.0", when he sees Peggy in [[SexySoakedShirt a wet baptismal gown, underwear visible]], he takes her back to their truck to (symbolically) deflower her again.
* ChickMagnet: Hank is occasionally this, much to his chagrin.
* TheComicallySerious: A lot of the humor in the series comes from Hank trying to keep his diginity at the sheer quirkiness (and sometimes insanity) of those around him.
* DeathGlare: This, and a well placed threat, is his favorite tools when dealing with abrasive jackasses.
* DefrostingIceKing: Hank undergoes subtle CharacterDevelopment throughout the series that sees him become a little more flexible in his convictions, open to compromise (though still by no means easily malleable), and more receptive to affection from friends and family than he was when the show began.
* DopeSlap: Occasionally hands them out to Bill or Dale, usually in the form of arm punches.
* EmbarrassingTattoo: Has one on the back of his head that has Bill's name on it as thanks to the latter for bailing him out during a farewell party during their younger days (though Hank got the tattoo while he was drunk and couldn't remember why when he found out), though he gets it removed at the end of the episode. [[spoiler:Only to get it tattooed again, far more crudely]].
* EnragedByIdiocy: Or a lack of common sense. Mentions this specifically in an episode where he had to take anger management classes in order to lift a restraining order Dale had placed on him, saying that he didn't have an anger problem but an "idiot problem".
* FantasyForbiddingFather: While Hank does love his son, he does often forbid Bobby doing or participating something that he considers "Un-American" or "feminine".
* FourTemperamentEnsemble: The Melancholic.
* {{Flanderization}}: In the early seasons, though Hank was still very straitlaced, he did have some more "normal" moments such as his being an avid guitar player and a fan of classic rock. These interests vanished as the series progressed, leaving him with little ''other'' than being uptight. For example, in a later episode, he puts on safety goggles just to move a hammer from position to another on a pegboard. Before this, he had never worn goggles for actual woodworking.
* FreudianExcuse: Some of Hank's unwillingness to show emotion stems from him breaking his ankle during the state championship football game when he was a teenager. He believes that it was punishment from God for the way he showed off and bragged about the touchdowns he made before the accident, and thus refuses to show any other emotion out of fear that something similar will happen. Having an AbusiveParent didn't help either. Whenever Hank showed any emotion, his father would come down hard on him for it, calling it a sign of weakness. Cotton even called Hank a sissy for telling him he loved him [[spoiler:while he was on his deathbed.]]
* GoodOlBoy: Of the sympathetic, generally positive variety.
* GoodOldWays:
** If something is not traditional, Hank considers it wrong, and he doesn't have to think any further about it. This is often PlayedForLaughs.
** This culminates when a "Hip Christian Group" leader points out to Hank that Jesus had long hair, only for Hank to say only because he wasn't his father. That's right, Hank knows better than the father of Jesus, God.
** This goes so far that when Peggy tells Hank that her new friend "Caroline" is a man in drag, he simply doesn't understand the concept of a man wanting to dress like a woman. Not only this, Hank goes on thinking Caroline is a actually a woman despite the explanation, [[WeirdnessCensor because it's the only circumstance he can realistically fathom]].
* GoodParents: He doesn't understand why Bobby has unmanly hobbies, and isn't very good at showing him affection, but he ''does'' love his son. He also does love Luanne as a surrogate daughter; it just takes way more coaxing to bring that feeling out from him. His discipline toward Bobby is that he doesn't want him to be mocked or unprepared at the world when he grows up.
* HatesBeingTouched: Anything more intimate than a handshake is bound to make him squirm, to the point that his niece Luanne went to hug him and he reflexively steered her toward Peggy instead. He does warm up a little as the series goes on.
* HonorBeforeReason:
** Hank adamantly refuses to see a doctor whenever he isn't feeling well because he thinks it's a either a sign of weakness or makes him lazy, because if he admits that he's sick, then that means he won't be able to go to work. In the first season, he refused to see a doctor about his constipation, or discuss it with anyone else, because he's too squeamish to discuss bathroom problems. This was despite the fact that he hadn't had a bowel movement in ''days''.
** In another episode, he throws his back out and still refuses to see a doctor and attempts to simply go about his normal routine, even though his back hurts so much can't even stand up straight and spends all day hunched over at a near-right angle. When he does finally get goaded into seeing a doctor, the only two options he suggests are to get workman's compensation and bedrest or to take painkillers for the nerve pain so he can go on working. Hank rejects the idea of workman's comp since he views it's only for pregnant women or lazy government leeches who can't be bothered to do their jobs. He is also is offended at the idea of painkillers, which he sees as little better than taking crack cocaine (even angrily accusing his doctor of being "Dr. Feelgood" for attempting to prescribe them).
** In the episode, "Ho Yeah" Hank believed that the angry pimp chasing him would obey the red traffic light, only for the pimp to drive through much to Hank's shock.
** When the doctor first diagnosed his narrow urethra, he laid out a whole host of options meant to help Hank and Peggy conceive. Hank quickly shot down the idea of boxer shorts, alternative sexual techniques, and dismissed in vitro fertilization as "science run amok." Thus, the fact that they were never able to conceive the bigger family they wanted is entirely his fault. Over a decade later when he and Peggy were very much ready for more children he did relent and make attempts to increase his sperm count, but eventually gave up for a wide variety of reasons (embarrassment over what he had to do, Bobby becoming visibly upset at the idea of a sibling, and Cotton impregnating a women at the age of 70).
-->'''Hank:''' ''(To Peggy)'' If you wanna keep trying, you can keep trying by yourself.
* {{Hypocrite}}:
** Chided Dale about having Joseph enrolled in a private school by saying he was doing it more for himself, but then Dale turned it around and asked if Hank was more worried about Joseph, or that the middle school football team was losing its star player. Still, at least Hank didn't deny it and still said it should be Joseph's choice.
** Hank is often dismissive of his mother's judgment, with one of the main arguments being her marriage to Cotton, yet Hank is just as often cowed by Cotton's emotional abuse. A lot of episodes have focused on Hank's unwillingness to call Cotton out on his behavior and his desire to get Cotton to show ''any'' kind of approval.
* InnocentBigot: Comes across as this to Khan the moment they first met, particularly in the infamous "are you Chinese or Japanese" segment. In Hank's defense, at the time the show aired, immigration from Laos was so rare as to be basically unheard of. Even currently, it's so rare, the census form only lists "Asian/Other."
* InnocentlyInsensitive: Pretty much Hank's defining character trait. He's a good husband and a well-meaning father (even if he is still a major BumblingDad), but a lot of the comedy in the show deals with his stubbornness to think beyond his traditional GoodOlBoy value system and how insecure it often makes Bobby and how upset it makes his wife. To be fair, he usually mellows on issues by the end of each episode, and is a lot more level-headed than your average [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Homer Simpson]] or [[WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy Peter Griffin]].
* JerkassHasAPoint: While many are put off by his catchphrase, "that boy just ain't right" in regards to Bobby, he is correct that ''something'' is off about Bobby, particularly in early episodes. To wit, Bobby responds to the pheromones from a fire-ant queen like a fire ant would. Bobby once spent an entire episode baiting squirrels and other animals so he could shine a flashlight up their rectums (admittedly, with future aspirations of being a proctologist.) And Bobby's just plain... odd. Also, he has tried, on numerous occasions to get Bobby to learn self-defense, since he knows bullies target weakness, and he can't always be protecting the boy.
* LiteralAssKicking: When Hank is angered, his standard threat is to "kick your ass". On the rare occasions he actually goes through with it, he proves that he meant it ''literally''.
** When Jimmy Wichard puts Bobby's life in danger, he almost exclusively assaults Jimmy in the posterior with his foot.
** In another episode, where Hank was constipated and Peggy recommended that he try acupuncture. Hank said that if anyone tried to do that on him, he would kick the guy's ass. Later, he reluctantly tries the procedure. He quickly becomes dissatisfied and goes to kick the acupuncturist's ass with the needles still in him.
* MenAreUncultured: Played with in that he's clearly pretty intelligent; he just thinks of "high culture" as snobby, effeminate, moronically redundant, and needlessly extravagant.
* NeverGetsDrunk: A partial example; he drinks so much Alamo Beer it has no effect on him anymore...but on the rare occasion he's seen drinking something stronger, he gets hammered pretty quick.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Bill's nervous breakdown in "Pretty, Pretty Dresses" was somewhat instigated by Hank. The first few times he tried to talk to Bill about Lenore never coming back, he stopped when Bill was about to cry. This wasn't because he didn't want to hurt Bill's feelings, but because Hank doesn't deal with emotions. After destroying the gifts and tree Bill had gotten for Lenore, he was more then happy to finally go home after Bill told him he didn't feel anything with absolutely no emotion. It's extremely obvious that Bill was far from okay, yet Hank took it as a sign that everything was okay and left. The next day, Bill started acting like he was Lenore himself. Hank realizes what he has done and later in the episode impersonates Lenore to make it right.
* NotSoAboveItAll:
** Became addicted to a video game based on propane because it allowed him to ascend to ranks such as "manager", even though he was aware that his time playing the game should've been spent helping Bobby prepare for the Presidential Fitness Test. Hank only snapped out of it thanks to Peggy collaborating with the game's designers to destroy it.
** An earlier example is when he and Bobby get swept up in [[MillenniumBug [=Y2K=]]] fever in "Hillennium". Peggy briefly becomes frazzled as well, but that was because she realized her current computer was a piece of junk and none of her musings were on hard copy.
* NotSoDifferent: Hank and his [[spoiler: Japanese half-brother, Junichiro.]]
* ObliviousToHints: Is very much so. When Peggy tells him to get over Bobby being asked out by a girl rather than the other way around, she points out they would've started dating earlier if it was acceptable for women to make the first move. A flashback shows Hank talking about something he's going to do with a truck on Friday night and Peggy flirtatiously states she isn't doing anything - he's not quick on the draw there.
* OnlySaneMan: Sometimes. His hyper-mundane personality makes him eccentric in his own right, amongst most people he is, paradoxically, too normal to be normal. But when he's next to Bill, Boomhauer, and especially Dale, he looks normal by comparison, and he is typically the one who has to fix everything when their bizarre antics get out of hand.
* OnlySaneEmployee: Hank's job at Strickland Propane. Pretty much runs the place, thanks to this.
* PapaWolf: A good way to make the typically straight-laced Hank lose his temper would be to threaten Bobby or Luanne.
* ParentalSubstitute: To Luanne, albeit begrudgingly.
* PerpetualFrowner: Peggy says he has it even in his sleep.
* ProgressivelyPrettier: Not exactly "prettier" (he would beat the tar out of anyone who had the temerity to use that word), but in the first season, Hank's face had more lines as if he was either older or just really depressed most of the time, and when he got angry, he could look thuggish. As the art style evolved over the seasons, Hank actually began to look younger and his visual anger was a lot more restrained.
* RealMenHateAffection: Unless it involves his dog, Ladybird, his lawn, or his truck. Tellingly, these are all things that can't emote back, or in Ladybird's case, can't emote back in a way that would make Hank uncomfortable. Hank doesn't mind expressing affection as long as he doesn't have to deal with a human response.
* TheReliableOne: The real reason Buck values Hank so highly. Even ''Kahn'' recognizes that if he's in serious trouble, he should call his "stupid redneck neighbor".
* SeriousBusiness:
** Propane and propane accessories. Justified because it's his livelihood, and he's easily the most knowledgeable person about propane in a town that relies on it for heating and cooking.
** He also takes meat preparation very seriously, to the point that his response to someone who takes their steak well-done is to politely ask them to leave.
* SpitTake: Hank consciously avoids these.
* TheSpock: Prefers to keep things as they are and act rationally.
* StayInTheKitchen:
** Hank had the unfortunate tendency to display a belief in this during the earlier seasons. "Peggy's Turtle Song" was all about him being ecstatic over Peggy deciding to become a full time housewife and mother when Bobby was (mistakenly) diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. Hank professed that "family values" were back in the Hill house. This was until he realized how much Peggy loved being a teacher and that she was stagnating.
** In the much maligned ThanksgivingEpisode, where he began praising Bobby's cooking, Hank had earlier said to Peggy that Bobby would have no desire to find a wife if he learned to cook and clean for himself. Hank had pretty much instigated Peggy's paranoia over Bobby "replacing" her by implying he only married her just so he would have someone to cook and clean for him (which, of course, says loads about Peggy's self-esteem), though like the above episode, Hank realized he made a mistake by implying this.
** In "Junkie Business", he refuses to hire Maria Montalvo, a highly-qualified grill associate, because she's an attractive woman. Instead, he hires a drug addict, which [[HoistByHisOwnPetard backfires spectacularly]]. That and the fact that she had no idea who Troy Aikman is.
* TheStoic: Hank keeps his emotions very guarded most of the time, maintaining a level temper. A quick way to rouse him to anger is to [[EnragedByIdiocy do idiotic things around him]], screw with his truck or lawn, or, above all of those, threaten Peggy, [[PapaWolf Bobby, Luanne, or Ladybird]]. This is also his greatest flaw, as he overdoes it a bit and comes off as unusually wound up relative to everyone else.
* StrongFamilyResemblance: Although he resembled his dad a good bit when he was a kid, Hank's facial structure is very similar to his mother's as an adult.
* TeamDad: He is the undisputed leader of his buddies, doing his best to keep them from falling into chaos. Unusually for the trope he doesn't assume the position due to being older (as he, Dale, Bill and Boomhauer are all the same age), he's just by far the most sensible and responsible friend they've got and they all respect and admire him enough to let him steer the ship. When things do go wrong for them it's usually because they didn't involve Hank and the solution to their problems is usually calling Hank.
* TrademarkFavoriteFood: Loves Alamo Beer to the point that he's rarely seen drinking anything else. To go with it, usually steak, medium-rare [''[[SeriousBusiness only]]''].
* WeirdnessCensor: Hank sometimes refuses to believe things that are so unusual or exotic as to not make sense to him. In the case of Peggy's drag queen friend Caroline, Hank continues to believe Caroline is a woman even after the explanation (then again, his dad was known to make mustard gas for V-J Day).
* WellDoneSonGuy: He really does want his father to show him some hint of approval. His totally unwarranted loyalty and admiration for Buck seems to stem from the need for some kind of father figure who's at least ''slightly'' less of a {{jerkass}} than Cotton as well.
* WhatTheHellHero: Peggy does this to Hank multiple times. Such as:
** When he punished Bobby for cigarette smoking by making him smoke a whole carton (which led to all of the Hills becoming addicted to tobacco). This might be a case of in-universe ValuesDissonance, since in the '50s this was a popular punishment to make children hate smoking. Hank is so old-fashioned that he just didn't know this was out of practice and frowned upon until Peggy told him. Even then, it wasn't until the peer support meeting that the Hills attended that Hank really learned that it was wrong and was called a monster.
** When he was pretty much making a ventriloquist dummy to function as the son that Bobby isn't.
** His willingness to exploit Kahn's manic depression by withholding his medication in order to get him to construct a state of the art grill for Strickland Propane.
** Setting up Luanne with a guy he picked out just so he wouldn't have to deal with her being overly emotional after Buckley broke up with her, and so he could get his den back.
** When interviewing perspective job applicants at Strickland Propane, Peggy chastizes Hank for some of the (illegal) questions he's going to ask the applicants, such as whether or not they are Christian. She also gets on his case about his refusal to hire a qualified female applicant. [[spoiler: And for good reason as the man he hired turns out to be a drug addict.]]
** For being gung-ho about Strickland Propane getting a company softball team and wanting her on it, despite the fact that she was already on a team (an all female team) and he never once went to one of her games.
** A non-Peggy example came from a Little League coach who chastised Hank for not supporting Bobby enough, specifically stating "I haven't given up on Bobby the way you have." Hank actually admits that he ''did'' give up on Bobby being a baseball player because he was so bad, but not supporting him simply made it worse.
* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: "It Came from the Garage" reveals that Hank has a phobia of bats. Naturally, he has to [[FaceYourFears sail underneath a bridge where hundreds of them live]] in order to save Bobby in the same episode.
* WithFriendsLikeThese: Multiple times, Hank gets exasperated by the idiotic antics of his friends. However, when push comes to shove, Hank proves that he really cares about them when they get into really bad trouble.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Margaret "Peggy" Hill (née Platter)]]
[[quoteright:210:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/char_6989_4107.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:210:Two-time Substitute Teacher of the Year.]]
->"In my opinion..."
Peggy is Hank's wife, to whom he is HappilyMarried. Impulsive and ditzy, she causes trouble for the family with hare-brained ideas. She and Hank stay loyal to each other no matter what though. Voiced by Kathy Najimy.
----
* ActionMom:
** Something she's demonstrated numerous times when it comes to defending Hank, Bobby, or Luanne. Sometimes she has to defend one from the other. To the point that she handed Leanne Platter a humiliating beat down, to successfully conning a smug con man, to shaming the Alamo Beer Company into apologizing for tainted beer, to threatening three grown men with a ''wooden spoon''. Buck is actually afraid of her.
** We've seen her defend Luanne from Hank, Hank from Bobby, Bobby from Hank, and Hank from Luanne. She generally will not let any member of her family be disrespected, even if it's by each other.
* AlliterativeName: Her maiden name was Peggy Platter.
* BrainyBrunette: Somewhat (though not as much as she thinks).
* BunnyEarsLawyer: She's mediocre at just about everything, but she's ''really'' good at Boggle, and has a surprising affinity for selling real estate.
** She's also an excellent softball pitcher, almost striking out a former major league player.
* CantTakeCriticism: Criticism is something she ''never'' considers or contemplates in later seasons, being too much of a KnowNothingKnowItAll to even consider her faults. If anything it just make her more determined to prove her arguments are right.
* CatchPhrase "Hoo Yeah!"
* [[CallingTheOldManOut Calling the Father-in-Law Out]]: With Cotton on his deathbed and tormenting Hank, she gives him a ''ruthless'' talking to.
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: She can rival Luanne in this regard depending on the episode.
* CryingWolf: In "Peggy's Fan Fair", no one would believe her when she realized Music/RandyTravis stole her song lyrics, and in "Pigmalion", no one would believe her about Trip Larson being bad news.
* {{Determinator}}: Partially deconstructed. Her belief that she can do anything through sheer willpower proves to be entirely wrong a lot of the time and gets her into a great deal of trouble. On the other hand, there are occasions where Peggy justifies this mentality, most notably in "Peggy Makes the Big Leagues." Also, clinging to that belief is probably the only thing that allowed her to come out of her childhood as relatively mentally healthy as she did. See FreudianExcuse below.
* DistressedDamsel: Subverted in some episodes, played perfectly straight in others.
* {{Flanderization}}:
** Her ego, originally a mild quirk, eventually became her defining character trait, so much so that her backstory had to be rewritten to explain her narcissistic tendencies (see FreudianExcuse below).
** Remember when her Spanish was initially considered to be pretty good? Hard to believe that later in the series, her Spanish "abilities" would end up with her accidentally kidnapping a Mexican girl while taking her class on a field trip. She is only able to prove her innocence when Hank convinces her attorney to let her plead her case in her own Spanish words to the judge.[[note]]Let's just say, it was ''not'' because she presented her side in a "good light" that [[WordSaladHumor convinced him it was an accident]]...[[/note]]
* FreudianExcuse: Peggy grew up with a cold, unpleasable, overly critical mother who constantly told her everything she did was wrong. In her adult years, Peggy believes she is the absolute best at everything she does. She ''has'' to believe this, because it's the only way she can convince herself that her mother was wrong and she's not completely worthless.
* TheFriendNobodyLikes: It's been noted on more than one occasion that Hank's friends generally only associate with her because she's Hank's wife; Dale flat-out admitted on at least one occasion that he can't stand her. It's not like she is fond of them either.
** Except Bill who's her StalkerWithACrush.
* GeniusDitz: Peggy believes herself to have a high IQ. She actually does seem to be pretty smart in some ways, but her total inability to ever consider the possibility that she might be wrong about anything means she ends up acting on a ''lot'' of really stupid ideas.
* HiddenDepths: She might seem like an egotistical jerk who just suffers from unwarranted self-importance. Well, she kind of is. But her constant insistence that she's a genius in the face of all evidence makes a lot more sense, and even becomes ''slightly'' sympathetic, once you find out how her mother always treated her.
* IWasQuiteALooker: Much to Bobby's surprise.
* ItsAllAboutMe: Peggy's worst moments spring from this.
** In "Little Horrors of Shop", she isn't happy that Hank is a successful shop teacher because it's ruining her chance for a third Substitute Teacher of the Year award. She ends up piggybacking off of Hank's popularity to win the award.
** In "Goodbye Normal Jeans", Bobby starts helping around the house thanks to Home Ec. Hank is happy, but Peggy gets jealous because he's a better homemaker than her. She goes so far as to steal the Thanksgiving turkey Bobby made.
** In "Maid in Arlen", Bill falls for Kahn's mother, but they get broken up by Kahn and Bill gets depressed again. Peggy's too busy bitching about how Laoma personally betrayed her by planning to move into a retirement home to care about anything else.
* TheKirk: Much, ''much'' more impulsive than Hank, but still more buttoned down than Bobby.
* KnowNothingKnowItAll: To a ridiculous degree, especially when it comes to her Spanish speaking ability. She thinks she's "very fluent." She barely knows enough to teach a middle school Spanish class.
* LargeHam: Hooo Yay!
* MamaBear: To both Bobby, Luanne, and Ladybird.
* MyBelovedSmother: Can be this to Bobby and Luanne (babying them and making decisions).
* {{Narcissist}}
* NewJobEpisode: Rivals Homer Simpson in this regard. Though Peggy works as a substitute teacher, journalist, and real estate saleswoman for some time, she also dabbles in grocery bagging, sculpture, rollerblading and restaurant owning.
* ParentalSubstitute: To Luanne, to the point that some first time viewers assume that Luanne is Bobby's sister.
* PluckyGirl: Nothing gets Peggy down for long.
* {{Pride}}: Be it substitute teacher, housewife or softball player, Peggy can't see herself as not the best.
* ProgressivelyPrettier: In the beginning of the series, Peggy had eyes that almost looked like dots and was drawn rather lackluster. Later seasons had her with a more bright-eyed look and with more vivid coloring with a touch of raspberry-colored lipstick.
* {{Retcon}}: Peggy went from being born in Montana and raised in Arlen to being born and raised in Montana. This complicates episodes that have Hank and Peggy as HighSchoolSweethearts.
* SmallNameBigEgo: She seems to think she's some kind of giant in the teaching world, despite being a small town substitute who won an inconsequential local award twice in a row.
* SmarterThanYouLook: There ''is'' evidence that suggests that she's pretty clever, it's just that her ego is so big that it hardly ever shines through.
* TooDumbToLive: In "Fun with Jane and Jane", Luanne manages to escape a cult posing as a sorority. Peggy, who's currently hung up on the fact that she has no friends, drags Luanne back and even joins them herself, not knowing or caring that they plan on sending the girls off to a farm to make preserves.
* TookALevelInDumbass: She started off smarter and more sensible than Hank. Post-Flandarization, she's a clueless KnowNothingKnowItAll.
* TookALevelInJerkass: In Seasons 1 and 2, Peggy was a genuinely nice, if quirky, housewife. In Season 3, she started to show a little ego, but was otherwise the same. From Season 4 onward, she's a ''huge'' KnowNothingKnowItAll, and often an inconsiderate jerkass.
* [[WellDoneSonGuy Well Done Daughter Girl]]: After Peggy's mom was retconned from being an overbearing perfectionist housewife to a coldhearted rancher. Her mother apparently never forgave Peggy for abandoning their ranch, even after Peggy singlehandedly saved the ranch to prove herself.
* [[WithFriendsLikeThese With Wives Like Her]]:
** Tends to fall into this at times when the situation benefits her ("Little Horrors of Shop" and "Racist Dawg" are two prime examples).
** Much earlier in the show, Peggy used to associate with a group of unnamed housewives, but chances are she stopped doing so because their 1950s mentality when it came to talking about sex and the fact that they had nothing better to do but talk about clipping coupons didn't really click with her.
* WomanChild : Will sometimes act like a spoiled teenager. Even once mimicking Bobby when both were mad at Hank.
* WomenAreWiser:
** A notable aversion. Although she occasionally does have to let Hank know when he's being a jerkass, for the most part he's nicer, more competent and more practical than she is, and regularly has to rescue her from the results of her own [[ZanyScheme zany schemes]]. However, there have been times where Peggy is able to function in a situation a lot easier than Hank does, either due to his willing inability to deal with emotions or because it's some cultural event that clashes with Hank's "old days" mind set.
** The best example of this played straight is when Peggy learns that Hank has paid sticker price for every car he's bought for the past twenty-five years. For years, Hank was led to believe he was being offered "special deals" on the cars until Peggy got involved in buying a new car and watched Hank pay full price on a car she was going to pay $2,500 less on.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Robert Jeffrey "Bobby" Hill]]
[[quoteright:267:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_p184316_n316340_cc_v4_aa_513.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:267:Pictured: a boy, not right.]]
->"Hey Dad! I'm Creator/SophiaLoren!"
Bobby is Peggy and Hank's 13-year-old son, who wants to break into the entertainment business. Since he's kind of effeminate and has some strange interests (by his family's standards), Hank fears for the boy's future. He'll be all right, though. Voiced by Creator/PamelaAdlon.
----
* BigEater:
** His appetite is as bizarre as it is large. Cotton, in charge of a boot camp, once attempted to punish Bobby for his appetite by making him eat a stack of leftovers and run-off. Bobby didn't mind in the slightest.
** In another episode, where Bobby started eating at a New York Style deli, he wound up getting gout from the food. Even when his gout got so bad he couldn't walk and needed a scooter to get around, he still kept going back for more.
** He once ate a 72-ounce steak in under an hour to spite his vegetarian girlfriend he broke up with. He did get sick after eating it, though.
** Getting sick after eating something ridiculous seems to be a pattern with Bobby: he once devoured an entire platter of [[{{Foreign Queasine}} lutefisk]], and as a result befouled the church bathroom so strongly that it led to the whole church burning down. Cotton is of course blamed for the arson. "Look for the man with the terrible smell!"
* BigFun
* BookDumb: His grades tend to hover around the C and D range, and a few episodes focus on his failing a class or exam. But he also has an encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture and arcane trivia.
* BunnyEarsLawyer: His dad and neighbors don't think much of him because he's a dull-witted, vaguely effeminate chubby kid with a strange sense of humor. But Bobby has shown a broad range of talents over the years.
** He's a crack shot with a gun. He's so good that he carries Hank though a shooting competition, scoring a perfect shot everytime while Hank struggles to hit the target.
** As well as a professional level golfer, making a hole in one on his first attempt.
** And capable of violence when pushed, as when he caught Joseph kissing Connie. Bobby furiously punched his bigger, more muscular friend in the jaw. Twice!
* CampStraight: Oh yes. Even without Hank's rigid view on masculinity Bobby's interests and mannerisms are feminine, such as tending roses and skipping around, but he also fancies himself something of a KidAnova and dates several girls over the course of the show.
* CatchPhrase: "I was just trying to help". It's actually a fairly depressing one to have since it's always said after Hank gets angry with him.
* CharacterizationMarchesOn: Bobby was initially a slow, confused kid who didn't have much in the way of personality. His effeminate characteristics and odd charisma quickly became his defining traits.
* CheerfulChild: In one episode, Hank remarks that every time a bully starts after Bobby, he does some prop comedy, like sticking French fries up his nose, and makes friends with the bully. Of course, Hank considers this to be disappointing.
* ChickMagnet: Oddly enough. Mostly attributable to his confidence and charisma.
* TheChosenOne: Bobby may or may not be the reincarnated spirit of the Lama Sanglug.
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: He's in a world all his own most of the time.
* CrossdressingVoices: His voice actor is Pamela Segall Adlon, who has done voicework for a lot of boy characters (and a few girl characters, like [[WesternAnimation/{{Recess}} Spinelli]] and [[WesternAnikation/PepperAnn Margaret Rose "Moose" Pearson]]).
* EvenNerdsHaveStandards: One of the dispute he has with Connie is that she is a bookworm and they both have a laugh at how geeky both of their attempt to break up (Bobby took Hank advice on how to fire people and Connie wrote a short essay to explain it) is. He also see a bunch of twenty years old men trying to cast a spell on him after refusing to drink dog's blood and admits that even he wants to give them wedgies.
* ExtravertedNerd: Despite his geekyness and unpopularity, he is very talkative and engages in a lot of social activities and school functions, has attended and hosted parties, and has gone out with several girls.
* FatIdiot
* {{Flanderization}}: He became a ''lot'' more immature in the later episodes.
* GeekyTurnOn: In "Rodeo Days", after seeing a rodeo clown do an acrobatic stunt:
-->''"Wow, I don't think even Kerri Strug could do that while wearing cowboy boots. Mmm … Kerri Strug in cowboy boots …"''
* ImprobableAimingSkills: Best shot in the family.
* {{Keet}}
* KiddieKid: Although it [[DependingOnTheWriter kind of depends on the writer]].
* MadeOfIron: Or as Hank puts it, mush. Cotton repeatedly tries to break Bobby's spirit in a boot camp by overfeeding him with leftover food mixed with one another, have him sit on an ice cube with just underwear on, and imprison him inside a small concrete cell for ''days''. Despite all this, Bobby brushes them all off with ease, all in an effort to build him up into a man. Hank explains that he's like mush- You can't build it up, but it's all give and you can't break it down either.
* MoralityPet: For Cotton.
* TheMcCoy: Pretty much completely driven by impulse.
* MistakenForGay: By Hank, who doesn't understand why his son doesn't like sports or anything considered "manly" (though the last episode "To Sirloin with Love" does reveal one manly thing he can do that doesn't embarrass Hank: [[spoiler:grill beef]]). Various episodes have shown that Hank does actually believe that his son is gay, and he's noticeably relieved when Bobby shows interest in Connie.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Bobby's actions in "Born Again on the Fourth of July" are directly responsible for the residents of Rainey Street and Milton Street to escalate their rivalry to a full-blown war. In his defense, he does try to fix things once he sees the results of his actions.
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: The only time his full name is shown was on a shelf. Apparently, his other nickname is "Butch", though that's never been used elsewhere, either.
* SoapBoxSadie: He frequently gets invested in various social and/or political causes. Rather than being used to deliver {{Author Tract}}s, his activism is handled fairly realistically; like your average 13-year-old, he's admirably idealistic and passionate, but he's also ill-informed and myopic, usually just wholeheartedly buying into whatever his peers or teachers tell him to believe without applying any critical thinking to the matter.
* StrongFamilyResemblance: In his flashbacks, Cotton looks like an older, taller, fitter Bobby. His facial resemblance to Hank is likewise much more obvious in flashbacks to when Hank was younger.
* TooDumbToLive: Sometimes, he does get involved in a lot of things that he knows are bad, but goes along with it as he's trying to find a hobby/interest that won't disappoint his father. He's also shown really poor judgment when it comes to animals, such as playing with a colony of fire ants or trying to befriend a raccoon.
* TrademarkFavoriteFood: Fruit pies, though he'll eat pretty much anything.
* WellDoneSonGuy: Bobby sometimes tries to make his father proud of him when it appears that Hank doesn't love him enough. He became terrified of the idea of having a baby sibling because he thought the only reason Hank and Peggy were proud of him was because he didn't have any siblings to be compared to (as Hank has a narrow urethra and a low sperm count, making it impossible for them to have another child). The very first episode actually stated that Bobby was afraid Hank doesn't love him all the time.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Luanne Platter]]
[[quoteright:210:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/luanne_platter_-_2378.jpg]]
->"Class was cancelled today and the library was closed. I love college!"
This is Peggy's niece; the Hills took her in early on in the show, partially to get her away from her horrible mother. Luanne isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer (at least in the later episodes. Earlier ones showed that she had a lot of technical skill when it came to fixing cars and some episodes show that she can think for herself in a crisis). Voiced by Creator/BrittanyMurphy.
----
* AcquiredSituationalNarcissism: In "My Hair Lady" and "Manger Baby Einstein."
* BareYourMidriff
* BewareTheNiceOnes:
** Despite her lack of intelligence and sometimes childish behavior, Luanne's proven to be a force to be reckoned with. Her highlights include how she handled the Hills' collective cigarette addiction, threatening Cotton for sexually harassing her, tackling an irate woman from harming Peggy, her competency at kickboxing, deciding to have her baby her way rather than listen to what others want her to do, and forcing everyone to give her the wedding gifts she never received.
** "Peggy's Pageant Fever" is a prime example of Luanne being mean on purpose. When Peggy dumps her for a professional stylist, Luanne starts nonchalantly doing things to screw with Peggy's daily routine. Although by the end credits, they've made up and Peggy lets Luanne use her hair to prepare for her beauty school classes, even though Peggy now has hair like a troll doll. [[spoiler: The moment Luanne's out of the room, she starts evilly snickering to herself with clasped hands because she did it on purpose.]]
* BaldWomen: She lost her hair in the Mega-Lo Mart explosion at the end of Season 2. Very notable in that, while other cartoons would have Luann's hair fully grown by the next episode, ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'' actually showed her hair slowly growing back over the course of several episodes.
* BrainlessBeauty and {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: In the later seasons.
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: She's a sweet-natured ditz with a big heart and a thick skull, both of which made her able to go the distance against George Foreman's daughter Freeda in the boxing ring.
* TheDitz
* DumbBlonde: In later episodes. In the early episodes, she had some smarts (i.e., she knew how to fix a car and she was good at styling hair), but she wasn't like Lisa Simpson when it came to brains.
* {{Flanderization}}: Particularly grating because of her initial character development as a young woman who desperately wanted to ''avoid'' becoming a redneck.
* FreudianExcuse: The way Peggy sort of began to dominate her life by making nearly all her decisions, as well as Luanne's gradually growing stupidity, could be seen as instigated by the way her birth mother walked out of her life for good after she acted like a complete whore and tried to kill Peggy. With Leanne's permanent absence, Luanne latched onto Peggy as a permanent substitute for a mother figure and started regressing to a more childlike intellect. This stopped (granted she's still dense) after she became a mother herself, and decided that she needed to stop relying on Peggy for everything in order to raise her child with Lucky and give her the childhood she'd been denied.
* GagBoobs and {{Gainaxing}}:
** When she jumps up and down, which makes Hank uneasy.
** This was parodied in a short made for the Emmy Awards where she got a wardrobe malfunction because of this.
* GenkiGirl
* HairOfGoldHeartOfGold: Young, sweet, innocent (how much is innocence and how much is [[TheDitz just plain stupidity]] is admittedly an exercise for the reader), blonde.
* InnocentFanserviceGirl:
** In one episode, she starts a Bible study class at a swimming pool. She ''thinks'' that she's reaching out to people; in reality, they just want to see her in a bikini and enjoy the hugs she gave out as rewards.
** Same thing when she got into boxing. She didn't learn until too late that the only reason guys came to see her was because they had a fetish for seeing a hot, under-dressed woman box.
** Averted in "Return to La Grunta," where she becomes self-conscious after several golfers sexually harass her. Luanne even dresses in unflattering clothes to discourage them, without success.
* KindheartedSimpleton
* MayDecemberRomance: Luanne is around 20 and married Lucky who is 35.
* MsFanservice: Invoked in-universe in "The Trouble with Gribbles", when she temporarily replaces Nancy as the TV weather girl.
* OddFriendship: Bonds with Bill over their barber skills in "My Hair Lady." She even gets fired trying to stand up for him to their boss. This actually extends as far back as Season 1's "Plastic White Female," though it's never really foregrounded.
* PunnyName: Luanne shares her full name with a dish at Southern cafeteria chain Luby's: [[http://www.flickr.com/photos/shellyd/83586853/ The "Lu Ann" Platter]].
* TookALevelInDumbass: By the time Season 2 aired, she had done some serious level grinding, and it got worse from there.
* WrenchWench: Part of her initial characterization. In the pilot, after Hank spends most of the episode trying to find out why his truck won't start, she offhandedly mentions she borrowed it, noticed the fuel filter was clogged and blew it clear. When Hank's truck is seized as evidence and taken apart after a junkie tries to steal it, she puts it back together.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Ladybird]]
Hank's and the Hills' old female dog. It is no exaggeration to think Hank likes her more than Bobby or Luanne.
-----------------------
* BigFriendlyDog: While not exactly that big, she is portrayed as such and very rarely hurts others.
* HeroicDog: In "Racist Dawg", Ladybird didn't get an issued command to drag a sleeping Bobby out from a lethal gas leak in their house at night. She did it anyway, but nobody makes a mention of this (and were more concerned by Bill performing CPR with his nacho-filled breath).
* MistakenForRacist: "Racist Dawg" has everyone believe that Ladybird is violently racist towards black people (and connect the dots that Hank must be too as dogs take after their owners) after attacking a black repairman. In the end, it turns out Hank subconsciously ''loathes'' repairmen doing his "job" at the house that Ladybird lashes out violently at them, regardless of their color.
* PerpetualFrowner: She wears a perpetually world weary expression, regardless of what's going on. This is very much TruthInTelevision as far as bloodhounds are concerned.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Colonel Cotton Lyndal Hill]]
[[quoteright:210:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/char_11491_725.jpg]]
->"I killed fitty men!"
Hank's father, a crotchety old man who doesn't seem to approve of anything Hank does. This war vet can never stop talking about how he killed "fitty" (50) men while in service. When it comes to impulsiveness, he's even [[UpToEleven got Peggy beat]]. Heaven help Hank. [[spoiler: His last appearance in the series sees him die from a horrible accident (or as he puts it, Tojo finally got him).]] Voiced by Toby Huss.
----
* AbusiveParents: Emotionally, to Hank.
* AccidentalMisnaming: Cotton never refers to Peggy by name, only by "Hank's Wife." This even extends to when he's trying to be nice to her.
* AxCrazy: It's a pretty fitting description for a man who thinks a loaded shotgun is the perfect birthday gift for a child.
* BackhandedCompliment: He may well have meant it to be sincere, but when he talks about how Hank is a better dad than he is, he says "If it's a contest [on which one of them is the better father], you win. You made Bobby! All I could make was you!"
* BadassGrandpa: He's in his mid 70s, but he's still a fully capable ass kicker.
* BeautyEqualsGoodness: He's one of the strangest looking characters in the series, and definitely one of the nastiest.
* BerserkButton:
** ''Never'' call him a Nazi.[[note]]Especially if you misuse the word "Nazi" to mean "someone who imposes allegedly unfair rules on you".[[/note]]
** He seems to view most anything Japanese, [[spoiler: with the exception of Michiko, the Japanese nurse who cared for him after the war]], with disdain, as in "Unfortunate Son" he refuses to sell a canoe which - [[UnreliableNarrator so he claims, anyway]] - belonged to Hitler after discovering the potential buyer is driving a Mitsubishi.
* BlackBeadEyes: His younger self did not have these. Whether he acquired them through age or shell shock is unknown.
* CharacterDeath: [[spoiler:Dies from a combination of burns, internal injuries, and an allergic reaction to shrimp in "Death Picks Cotton".]]
* ColonelBadass: Even if half his stories never happened he still qualifies several times over, especially if he really did beat an entire island of Japanese soldiers to death with a dismembered leg of his friend, Fatty, after getting his shins blown off (even though he achieved the rank of colonel after the war as a National Guardsman).
* ColonelKilgore: Loved killing Tojos and gutting Nazzies, though was technically not a colonel at the time.
* DemotedToExtra: In the first few seasons, Cotton appears in semi-frequently in cameos and flashbacks, with there usually being one or two Cotton-centric episodes per season. In the latter half of the series, Cotton shows up sporadically and his divorce happens off screen despite him moving from Houston to Arlen.
* {{Determinator}}: The man lost his shins and then taught himself how to walk again after the doctors sewed his feet to his knees. As Hank himself remarks, that's pretty damn heroic.
* DomesticAbuser: Cotton doesn't abuse women physically (when Cotton saw Peggy in a body cast, he chastised Hank for allegedly beating her), but does sexually harass them by smacking them on the butt, thinks women are little more than housewives and sex objects, and tried to keep Hank's mom down by verbally abusing her and making her do demeaning things. In a flashback to when he was married to Tilly, he was shown one time using her as a foot stool. Another episode had Cotton smashing a sink full of dishes with a chair while screaming at Tilly.
* DyingAlone: One by one, Cotton's geriatric war buddies kick the bucket over the course of the series. At the start of the show, he's in the company of several, but they soon succumb to poor health, such as Fatty's titular obesity, until Topsy is the last one to go, leading to Cotton fulfilling his bizarre dying wishes. [[spoiler:Then Cotton himself dies, after screaming at his son and driving him from the room, with only his much-hated daughter-in-law for company.]]
* EveryoneHasStandards: Cotton is an abusive father and husband. One time, he was even seen using Tilly as a footstool, and holds Peggy in ill regard. However, when he sees Peggy in her body cast following her near-fatal skydiving accident, Cotton immediately assumes it's Hank's fault and is disgusted with him.
--> "What'd you do to your wife? I didn't teach you that!"
* EvilOldFolks: On his worse days.
* FamousLastWords: During Cotton's last appearance in the series (apart from a few flashback cameos), when Peggy [[spoiler: says she hopes Cotton lives forever so he can stay in the hell he's created himself on Earth, Cotton replies, "Do ya now?" and dies just to spite her.]]
* FatBastard: Not as fat as most examples, but he's pretty rotund. And a huge bastard.
* FinalSpeech: [[spoiler: Delivers one to Peggy, presumably to get as much hate as possible out before he goes:]]
-->'''Cotton:''' [[spoiler:"This was supposed to happen to ''you!'' You're ''worthless!'' You're not even good enough to be married to my worthless, nothing of a loser SON!"]]
* GloryDays: Cotton would like you to know that he killed fitty men during World War II. And he would have kept at it if the Japanese hadn't shot off his shins.
* {{Gonk}}: Including a medical history, that's simply not credible.
* GroinAttack: Uses his shortness to his advantage and delivers these via headbutt.
* GrumpyOldMan: Oh, yeah. But you'd be grumpy too if you had to walk around with your feet sewed to you knees.
* HandicappedBadass: Had his shins blown off by Japanese soldiers in World War II, but still kicked ass and reached the rank of Colonel in the Texas Militia.
* HeroicResolve: As Hank lampshades in one episode, Cotton may be a lying jackass, but it's an indisputable fact that the man survived having his shins blown off, an act which required an unfathomable amount of willpower.
* HeyYou: As mentioned above, Cotton always calls Peggy as "Hank's Wife" and never bothered calling her by her name.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Cotton is a five-star jerkass all his life, which eventually culminates when he revolts against a proposed dinner of leftover lasagna given to him by Peggy, which he finds completely inadequate. [[spoiler: He and Bobby hightail it to the nice restaurant they shafted the two of them from going to so they can have a private date. But then Cotton has a PSTD freakout against an innocent sushi chef at the sight of him juggling knifes for show, bellowing that he's a Tojo threatening to kill him. The chef, unaware that Cotton's allergic to shrimp, flicks one into his mouth thinking it will calm him down. This causes him to go in to shock, and Cotton then is convinced the chef's out for blood. He pounces at the man with intent to put him in a death grip, but happens to leap on the boiling hot surface of the chef's grill, immediately melting the soles of his shoes. This causes Cotton to slip and collapse on top of it, which wreaks havoc on his delicate elderly frame. The resulting burns, allergic reaction, and internal injuries do irrecoverable damage to him and Cotton's condition slowly worsens, until he at last dies.]]
* HomeGuard: Joined the Texas State Militia after the war, eventually reaching the rank of colonel.
* IdenticalGrandson: Looks like a ''much'' older version of Bobby.
* {{Jerkass}}: And that's putting it mildly.
** HiddenHeartOfGold: Usually related to Bobby. Hank even puts that while Cotton hates most things, there's no doubt he loves Bobby. It's also see that while he treats most women as objects, the one woman he is not seen doing this to is his old Japanese lover, Michiko.
* KavorkaMan:
** Despite being a gonk, and having a less than appealing personality (and his shins "… blown off by a Japan man's machine gun"), he's been with three women that we know of: Hank's mother, a Japanese woman during WWII, and his current wife, Didi, who is a childhood friend of Hank's.
** He's admitted to bedding 273 women in the episode Junichiro was introduced. It's heavily implied in previous episodes that he's visited prostitutes a lot, which probably explains a good number of those women.
* LaughablyEvil: Well, "Laughably Jerkass" more likely, but still. Cotton isn't someone you want to meet if he exists in real life, but he is hilarious to watch.
* LargeHam: And how!
* MayDecemberRomance: Between Cotton and Didi. Didi and Hank even went to kindergarten together.
* PantsFree: In "Returning Japanese" he is shown in his uniform shirt and hat but without pants.
* ParentalNeglect: When he's not being abusive to women, he shows affection with a criminal disregard for his son's safety. When G.H. was less than a year old, he let him play with his loaded service pistol to learn to shoot,[[note]]It's heavily implied he was going to use the service pistol [[DrivenToSuicide to kill himself]], and only let G.H. fire it off at the last minute so he wouldn't be tempted.[[/note]] and he gave Bobby a loaded shotgun for his twelfth birthday (and used the gun to shoot a piñata).
* PerpetualFrowner: He usually only smiles when he's recounting his war stories, or tormenting people.
* PetTheDog:
** Most of his scenes with Bobby amount to these. For all his faults, he genuinely loves and respects his grandson (though the first episode featuring Cotton is kind of debatable, as Cotton was teaching his grandson to treat women like sex objects by slapping their butts and making sexist remarks).
** When he helped Peggy get her job back, and the time where he helped her in her rehab after the parachute incident. In the case of the former, he had no problem barking at her to make him 200 pancakes, but became visibly uncomfortable the moment she broke down sobbing.
** When he politely asked Peggy for a photo of Hank and Bobby to show to Michiko during their trip to Japan. He even thanked her.
*** Doubled as a PetTheDog moment for both of them, as Peggy actually defended Cotton's actions to Hank, rationalizing that no one would cheat on their 40 year old wife with an 80 year old ex-girlfriend.
*** At the end of the Japan two-parter, when he notices Bobby seems depressed because he's leaving behind the girl he met, he immediately tells the cab driver to stop so Bobby can say goodbye to her.
*** Really, his entire relationship with Michiko. He loved her dearly, fought like a tiger to stay with her, and when they reunite, is nothing but gentle and respectful towards her. Especially considering his usual treatment of women, it's seen that he really did love her.
** A small one. In a flashback, Hank and his friends were taken on a camping trip by their dads. Cotton led the Snipe Hunt with enthusiasm ("Not gonna sugar coat it: Some of you ain't comin' back"). Despite that, he kicked Eustice out of the group for talking during the Test of Silence and ordering the boy to get him a beer, seeing Cotton be involved in Hank's upbringing to ''any'' extent [[note]](that doesn't involve Hank getting yelled at, insulted, or traumatized, as seen in the pilot episode where Cotton responds to Hank's skinned knee with, "I got my shins blowed off by a Japanman's machine gun, so ''don't'' come crying to me with your problems, "Square Peg" where a crying Hank is forced to watch a bull have sex with a cow while Cotton laughs, and the rifle-aiming flashbacks from "How to Shoot A Rifle Without Really Trying")[[/note]] is rare and touching.
** "Next of Shin" also. He actually feels sorry for Hank being unable to get Peggy pregnant, to the point where he's willing to let Hank and Peggy raise Didi's child (though that part's certainly unfair to Didi). He also has a rare heart-to-heart talk with his son towards the end of the episode.
* [[PoliticallyIncorrectHero Politically Incorrect War Hero]]: He's an unbridled sexist. And damn proud of it.
* PunnyName: Named for the town of Cotton Hill, West Virginia.
* ObnoxiousInLaws: There's no love lost between him and Peggy.
* RacistGrandpa:
** Subverted. He's certainly not nice to anyone, but he does not antagonize people from countries America has ''not'' gone to war with as much, and does not use shallow stereotypes. He can tell at first sight that Kahn is Laotian, and does not make the same "Chinese or Japanese" assumption everyone else does. However, Cotton does think that Kahn is Hank's servant and orders him to make him a mai tai and get his luggage.
** He doesn't seem to have anything against Jewish people either. The first thing he said to Gary Kasner after their introductions was "Happy Hannukah" and mentions he served with a Jew in the Pacific Theater.
** On the other hand, he does seem to be less than fond of the Japanese until he discovers he has a half-Japanese son. When being examined by doctors to tell if he has senility and needs to be institutionalized, he attacks a Japanese doctor and takes his stethoscope for a war trophy.
* RankUp: Apparently started as private in the U.S. Army, was promoted to some sort of leadership position in the Pacific and ended his career a colonel with the Texas National Guard.
* RealAwardFictionalCharacter: Throughout his appearances, Cotton's decorations are slowly revealed. In "Returning Japanese", his uniform includes the Medal of Honor and American Campaign Medal. In "Cotton Comes Marching Home", his Silver Star is shown in a display case in the Arlen VFW. In Season 12, he shown wearing the third class, Commandeur, of the French Legion of Honour, the highest decoration in France and only awarded to a handful of Americans during the war.
* RealMenHateAffection: In his words, "Love's for sissies!"
* RetiredBadass: He's not in the army anymore, but even Hank is hesitant to give him a fight. At least part of that is childhood trauma, but mostly it's a recognition that Cotton can still kick his ass. He even knocked a young adult down with a headbutt after he called him a nazi.
* ScrewPolitenessImASenior: Though he didn't appear very polite in his younger days either.
* ShellShockedVeteran:
** Dale and cops tend to view him as this, usually encouraging them to help him in his more ridiculous schemes without thinking.
** A fit of PTSD when he sees a Hibachi chef juggling knives [[spoiler:makes him jump on the grill table and fall onto it back-first, giving him a mortal wound.]]
* ShirtlessScene: In John Redcorn's sweat lodge in "Returning Japanese".
* SmugSmiler: When he does smile, it's a rather unnerving self-satisfied smirk.
* StrawMisogynist
* StrongFamilyResemblance: Looks exactly like an old version of Bobby, who unlike his son and his daughter-in-law he actually gets along with.
* TheyReallyDoLoveEachOther:
** Cotton and Didi get a few spread out through the series. When Cotton is awarded a grave in the Texas State Cemetery, Didi comments it's a beautiful grave and that he deserves it. And when Cotton leaves a pregnant Didi, he goes into a homicidal rage when Hank tells him she's found a new man. Hank even points out that he really loves her.
** Cotton and Hank have some as well, such as in "Returning Japanese" when Cotton admits to Hank that he's a good son.
* UglyGuyHotWife: With Didi.
* UnreliableNarrator: Certain recountings of Cotton's past are rather questionable. Sometime it's boasting sometime he is just confused.
-->'''Cotton:''' You forgot Munich.\\
'''Peggy:''' You were never in Munich.\\
'''Cotton:''' I wasn't?
* UseYourHead: A favourite tactic of his and quite effective due to him missing his shins, since this places his head [[GroinAttack right at crotch level]] for most people.
* WhenHeSmiles: A kind one at least, during his last days alive with Bobby. His smile looks like one finds in a grandparent instead of a sadistic, arrogant smirk.
* YoungerThanTheyLook: Cotton was around thirty when Hank was born. In flashbacks seen in "Yankee Hankie" (set on the day Hank was born in 1959), he looks the exact same as he does in the present day only with brown hair. However, in scenes set only 15 years prior, he looks more like an extremely fit and slightly older version of Bobby.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Matilda Mae "Tilly" Hill]]
[[quoteright:197:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tilly_1913.jpg]]
Hank's biological mother.
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* ADayInTheLimelight: "The Unbearable Blindness of Laying", "Escape From Party Island", and "The Honeymooners".
* TheDitz: Hank says that he worries about her because she is an idiot for making stupid decisions such as marrying Cotton, dating another man before she broke up with her boyfriend and selling her gold to someone on TV.
* ExtremeDoormat: Actively seeks out men who are abusive towards her.
* FreudianExcuse: Being married to an emotionally, verbally, and sometimes physically abusive man for years, (Cotton once used her as an actual footstool), and only being able to seek comfort in glass figurines, may be the reason why in her later years Tilly makes spontaneous and often stupid choices. Now that she's free from Cotton, and no longer taking care of Hank, Tilly is free to live her life how she wants and is expressing out decades of repressed emotions, which channel into some questionable antics.
* HiddenDepths:
** As the series goes on, it shows she has terrible choice in men, and is constantly making spur of the moment extreme decisions without thinking of the consequences.
** Earlier in the show's history, though, Tilly admitted that she took several odd jobs during Hank's childhood, including a job as a taxi driver, in order to get out of the house. Hank simply believed that she was happily fulfilled in being a stay-at-home mom, and was quite shocked to learn this (when Tilly mentioned the taxi, Hank says that all he remembers is her owning a yellow car).
* GlurgeAddict: When trapped in a severely abusive marriage with Cotton, she became obsessed with unicorn figurines. Hank deeply loathes them until he realizes those figurines were the only thing that kept her going.
* IWasQuiteALooker: While she's not ugly (despite Cotton's claims), a flashback of Hank's birth shows her to have been a really pretty young woman with dark hair.
* LongBusTrip: She disappears from the series after one appearance in Season 5, and doesn't return until one of the unaired episodes almost 10 years later.
* LoveMartyr: She really goes out of her way for the love of something, whether its her figurine obsession or a whirlwind romance for a guy she's known for a few weeks.
* NiceGirl: Generally shown to be a sweet, if overly-passive, woman.
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: According to Hank's birth certificate in "Yankee Hankee", her name is Matilda Mae Hill.
* OutOfFocus: She appears far less than Cotton and is not introduced until well after he is. Although she made a handful of appearances in the first few years after her introduction, her absences became longer and longer as time went on to the point that it was easy to forget she existed.
* UglyGuyHotWife: While Cotton wasn't that bad-looking during his time in the army, by the time he married Tillie his appearance had already gone down the tubes. Couple that with his sharp temper, violent outbursts, misogynist beliefs, domestic abuse toward her, and parental abuse toward their son, it's amazing Tillie didn't divorce him far, far sooner.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Didi Hill]]
[[quoteright:185:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/didi_hill_1241.png]]
Cotton's 40 year old second wife.
----
* AbusiveParents: She seems to mean well, but her absent-mindedness and general stupidity results in her often neglecting G.H., including leaving him home alone because she simply forgot about him.
* BrokenBird: It's implied that Didi isn't happy in her marriage to Cotton but she's too meek to say anything about it. She constantly looks and sounds dazed and miserable whenever she's on-screen.
* CharacterizationMarchesOn: Following G.H.'s birth, she had moments where she was more assertive with Cotton.
* TheDitz: Most of the time, it's not clear if she's even aware of what's going on around her. Strangely, it makes her perfectly suited for Cotton, who's free to be as obnoxious as he wants.
* ExtremeDoormat: Most of her scenes make her look more like Cotton's servant than his wife.
* GagBoobs: Cotton paid for her boob job. He got a good price because they're both lefties.
* LongestPregnancyEver: [[AvertedTrope Averted]]. There were about six months between the air dates of the episode where Didi was revealed to be pregnant and the episode where she gave birth. Given that the only visible holidays between those episodes were Thanksgiving and Christmas, and how pregnant she was when it was revealed (at least a few months gone), the duration was quite realistic both in-universe and out of it.
* MayDecemberRomance: She's around the same age as Hank (Hank mentions that he went to kindergarten with Didi, and Didi asks Hank if he still likes finger-painting), yet was married to his father.
* PutOnABus: In the Season 8 episode "Daletech", Cotton is seen screaming at her to call her lawyer as she drives away before explaining that she and G.H. have gone to her parents' house for a few months. [[spoiler:Cotton's obituary]] claims her to be his ex-wife, confirming a divorce. She isn't seen again until a very brief appearance in the final season where the divorce never seemed to have happened, though it could be that they've got back together before his death or he died before the divorce was finalized.
* RoboSpeak: Speaks in a very monotone voice that makes it sound as though she's rehearsed her speech.
* TookALevelInBadass: Not much but she started getting more assertive with Cotton like demanding he take care of G.H. for her "me-time" to launder and pleasantly asking him to eat a certain way in front of the television.
* WhatDoesSheSeeInHim: After Cotton's death, she finally seems to acknowledge the fact that he was an awful man [[spoiler:and has actually admitted that, since marrying her new husband, she barely even remembers anything about him]].
* WhenSheSmiles: See the character image of her smiling? Yeah, that's a rare moment for her.
* UglyGuyHotWife
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Leanne Platter]]
[[quoteright:239:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/s_saga_9868.jpg]]
Luanne's ex-con mother. Was sent to jail for stabbing her father with a fork. Voiced by Pamela Adlon.
----
* TheAlcoholic: She's able to down an entire fridge of Alamo beer in just a couple of nights. And that's after rehab.
* AllAbusersAreMale: Averted.
* AxCrazy: Once she goes back to drinking, she loses it.
* BitchInSheepsClothing: Claims that she's changed. She hasn't.
* CoolBigSis: What Leanne wants Luanne to see and refer to her as.
* DomesticAbuser: Abused Hoyt throughout the marriage, which eventually resulted in him getting stabbed with a fork (which lead to her arrest). She starts abusing Bill once she starts drinking again.
* EvilCounterpart: To Peggy, in terms of a mother figure towards Luanne.
* GoldDigger: Downplayed; while she does spend all of Bill's money, it's mostly because he's too meek to say no and she's too clueless to realize that nice things cost money. However, she does seem to have this attitude towards Luanne and Hoyt.
* HairTriggerTemper: When she drinks. Poor, poor Bill...
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: If she hadn't spent Bill's money so freely, he could have afforded his medication and his toe fungus wouldn't have driven her back to drink.
* {{Jerkass}}: And the worst one in the entire series.
* KnightOfCerebus: Her one appearance marks one of the darker episodes in the series, taking all of the comedy out of Luanne's shattered home life and showcasing one of the rare examples of female-on-male abuse taken seriously on TV.
* LadyDrunk: She ''thinks'' she's a HardDrinkingPartyGirl, but she's too old, too violent, and has a serious drinking problem.
* ManChild: It is quite clear she doesn't want to be seen as a mother. She even yells at Luanne that she is no longer her "sister" before leaving.
* OffTheWagon: And it gets worse from there. She was already a jerk to Luanne. When she's drunk, she gets violent.
* ParentalNeglect: She's rather emotionally abusive towards Luanne. She was even okay with her daughter dropping out of college to get a job to support the two of them. This is mainly because she doesn't want to ''be'' a mother, as seen in the episode where she comes back and tries (emphasis on "tries") to be Luanne's CoolBigSis.
* StrongFamilyResemblance: Basically looks like a middle-aged Luanne, only with badly dyed hair.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Hoyt Platter]]
[[quoteright:141:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hoyt_7416.jpg]]
Luanne's biological father (even though earlier episodes revealed that Hoyt was a wussier, male version of Peggy). Was once thought to have escaped to an oil rig to get away from his abusive wife (and wouldn't come back until he got her death certificate in a fax), but a later episode revealed that Hoyt was in jail and, if he screws up again, he'll be there for life. Voiced by Johnny Knoxville.
----
* BitchInSheepsClothing: When he came back, he gave his sister Peggy ''two lottery tickets'' that were ''already scratched'' (and weren't even winning tickets). Things got worse from there until he was arrested again.
* ChronicVillainy: Seems incapable of passing up the opportunity to commit a crime.
* DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou: He's stinking in jail forever, Luanne.
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: He sincerely loves Luanne (as shown in his last scene with Hank), but still seems willing to sell her out to avoid jail. A rare example of this trope making a character ''less'' sympathetic.
* TheGhost: Was this for most of the show's lengthy run, only being mentioned in a few episodes that concerned Luanne.
* LaserGuidedKarma: After getting Lucky to take the fall for a crime he committed, Hank and Peggy set him up to get his third strike.
* {{Jerkass}}: He's almost as bad as his wife in this regard.
* ManipulativeBastard: He uses his daughter's happiness of seeing him back to get away as an excuse for any stupidities he pulls on the Hills and her husband. In the end, karma gets him good and Luanne is led to believe he got a better position at the oil rig.
* {{Retcon}}: A jarring example. Originally Hoyt was a male version of Peggy who ran away and joined an oil rig to get away from [[DomesticAbuser Leanne]] and wouldn't return until her death certificate was faxed to him. When he finally made his appearance, he was shown to be a convict on his last strike and that the "oil rig" story was a lie, and he'd been gone for most of Luanne's life (originally, she was an adult still acknowledging just having seen him). He was such a manipulative bastard he would've even thrown his own daughter under a bus if it meant him avoiding jail.
* StupidCrooks: Not only does he commit random crimes for no good reason, but he fell for Hank and Peggy's obvious plan to get him his third strike.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Elroy "Lucky" Kleinschmidt]]
[[quoteright:231:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lucky_2999.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:244:Slipped on pee-pee at the [=CostCo=].]]
A 35 year old hillbilly introduced later in the series whose personal income consists primarily of nothing but personal injury suit victories. Becomes involved with Luanne, then later [[spoiler: marries and has a child with her.]] Voiced by Music/TomPetty.
----
* AscendedExtra: His most noteworthy scene in that episode was when he told the story of why he was called "Lucky" (he slipped on a spill while running for the bathroom in a department store and was paid off to avoid a lawsuit). His friends [[ThoseTwoGuys Elvin and Mud Dauber]], more prominently featured in that episode, are conversely DemotedToExtra.
* CharacterDevelopment: For all his faults he has a personal code of honor, sincerely loves Luanne (and later their daughter Gracie) and does try to improve himself with Hank and Peggy's help.
* TheDitz: He's definitely not all there. Hell, Luanne looks like a genius compared to him.
* EarlyBirdCameo: First appeared on "The Redneck on Rainey Street" as one of Kahn's new trailer trash friends.
* TheFriendNobodyLikes: Frequently lampshaded by Hank and Peggy, due to his laziness and lack of common sense of how to spend his settlement checks. The others only hang out of him out of pity and goodwill, and one of he only few sincerely loves him for who he is [[spoiler: is his wife Luanne.]]
* FrivolousLawsuit: His primary source of income.
* HiddenDepths: Despite his slovenly appearance and attitude, Lucky occasionally displays surprising wisdom and insight.
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: He's referred to exactly once by his given name.
* SimpleMindedWisdom: He's definitely no genius, but he has some unexpectedly deep thoughts from time to time.
* TheStoic: Incredibly laid-back most of the time.
* StrawLoser: He's a walking redneck stereotype with no job, no education, and no common sense who survives mostly on settlement checks. His original appearance was meant to demonstrate how far Kahn had fallen by hanging out with him. Then he and Luanne get involved...
* TookALevelInKindness: He was just a belligerent redneck in his first appearance, but became far more chill once he met Luanne.
* UglyGuyHotWife: Once he and Luanne are married.
[[/folder]]
----
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:Henry Rutherford "Hank" Hill]]
[[quoteright:180:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/download_8755.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:180:I sell propane and propane accessories.]]
->"I tell you what..."
The protagonist of the show, Hank is a propane salesman who loves his job nearly as much as he loves his family. He's pretty introverted and can't cope with emotion very well, but he's clearly [[OnlySaneMan the most level-headed of the cast]]. Voiced by series creator Creator/MikeJudge.
----
* ActionDad: Frequent ass kicker of both the figurative and literal varieties? Check. More physically fit than just about any other character in the show? Check. Survived a tornado by grabbing onto a freaking telephone pole? Check.
* {{Adorkable}}: Hank's excitement over mundane things and general sheepishness gives him a certain awkward charm.
* AesopAmnesia: Half the episodes in the entire show couldn't happen if Hank didn't forget the many, many times he learned to accept Bobby for who he is, or realized that his father was a selfish jackass.
* AlliterativeName: Except for the "R." in the middle of his name.
* BigApplesauce: [[spoiler:Hank was born in the ladies' room at Yankee Stadium. He is ''not'' pleased to learn about it.]]
* BigNo: Many times.
* BerserkButton:
** Also disrespecting propane in any way. He doesn't mind jokes about it though, in fact he finds propane-related comedy (that disses other forms of grilling fuel) hilarious. As seen in "Meet the Propaniacs."
** Don't do anything to his lawn.
* BoringButPractical: To the fullest possible extent. Hank actually ''prefers'' the boring, mundane parts of whatever he's involved in and would be happier if the "fun" or "exciting" parts could be downplayed or removed entirely. He is almost right all the time due to how said fun parts tend to be exaggeratedly portrayed to get his point across.
* BornInTheWrongCentury: Wonders when people stopped believing in hard work, honesty, decency, modesty, and plain old common sense. Of course, Hank's definition of decency, modesty, and common sense are all rather skewed.
* CallingTheOldWomanOut:
** Does this to his mother several times, from cheating on boyfriends to wondering what she saw in Cotton. Oddly, he's very slow in doing this to the much worse Cotton, mainly out of fear.
** In one of the first episodes, he told him to his face that he hated the old man. The problem is, it impressed Cotton.
* CannotSpitItOut: He has a really hard telling anyone that he loves them, including his own son. Combine this with his other uptight behavior regarding expressing emotion and you get why Bobby sometimes thinks Hank doesn't love him.
* CatchPhrase: He has a few.
** "I tell you what."
** "BWAAAAAH!"
** "God-dang it!"
** "I'm gonna kick your ass!"
** "Damn it, Dale/Bill!"
** "That boy ain't right."
** "I sell propane and propane accessories."
* ChasteHero:
** Hank is one despite being married and in his forties (since "chaste" does not mean the same thing as "celibate"). He has the same obliviousness to female attention, whether from his wife or any other woman. He is quite embarrassed by any display or mention of sexuality (male or female), and runs out screaming when he accidentally enters the porn section of a video store; in what is perhaps the best illustration of this side of his character, when he meets two young female nudists, he winds up giving them a sales pitch on the benefits of propane heating for their summer home.
** He was traumatized by an attractive StalkerWithACrush female cop who pulled him over on a trumped-up charge just so she could grope him. He wound up singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" under his breath the whole time to get himself through it.[[note]]This is probably a more realistic reaction than what [[AllMenArePerverts male characters usually get slapped with on television]].[[/note]]
** [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in one episode where Buck says, "Oh, don't worry Hank, I know you don't have sex." A clearly annoyed Hank says, "Well, that's not quite…" before deciding to leave well enough alone.
** Hank does display some more "standard" male traits now and then; in "Luanne Virgin 2.0", when he sees Peggy in [[SexySoakedShirt a wet baptismal gown, underwear visible]], he takes her back to their truck to (symbolically) deflower her again.
* ChickMagnet: Hank is occasionally this, much to his chagrin.
* TheComicallySerious: A lot of the humor in the series comes from Hank trying to keep his diginity at the sheer quirkiness (and sometimes insanity) of those around him.
* DeathGlare: This, and a well placed threat, is his favorite tools when dealing with abrasive jackasses.
* DefrostingIceKing: Hank undergoes subtle CharacterDevelopment throughout the series that sees him become a little more flexible in his convictions, open to compromise (though still by no means easily malleable), and more receptive to affection from friends and family than he was when the show began.
* DopeSlap: Occasionally hands them out to Bill or Dale, usually in the form of arm punches.
* EmbarrassingTattoo: Has one on the back of his head that has Bill's name on it as thanks to the latter for bailing him out during a farewell party during their younger days (though Hank got the tattoo while he was drunk and couldn't remember why when he found out), though he gets it removed at the end of the episode. [[spoiler:Only to get it tattooed again, far more crudely]].
* EnragedByIdiocy: Or a lack of common sense. Mentions this specifically in an episode where he had to take anger management classes in order to lift a restraining order Dale had placed on him, saying that he didn't have an anger problem but an "idiot problem".
* FantasyForbiddingFather: While Hank does love his son, he does often forbid Bobby doing or participating something that he considers "Un-American" or "feminine".
* FourTemperamentEnsemble: The Melancholic.
* {{Flanderization}}: In the early seasons, though Hank was still very straitlaced, he did have some more "normal" moments such as his being an avid guitar player and a fan of classic rock. These interests vanished as the series progressed, leaving him with little ''other'' than being uptight. For example, in a later episode, he puts on safety goggles just to move a hammer from position to another on a pegboard. Before this, he had never worn goggles for actual woodworking.
* FreudianExcuse: Some of Hank's unwillingness to show emotion stems from him breaking his ankle during the state championship football game when he was a teenager. He believes that it was punishment from God for the way he showed off and bragged about the touchdowns he made before the accident, and thus refuses to show any other emotion out of fear that something similar will happen. Having an AbusiveParent didn't help either. Whenever Hank showed any emotion, his father would come down hard on him for it, calling it a sign of weakness. Cotton even called Hank a sissy for telling him he loved him [[spoiler:while he was on his deathbed.]]
* GoodOlBoy: Of the sympathetic, generally positive variety.
* GoodOldWays:
** If something is not traditional, Hank considers it wrong, and he doesn't have to think any further about it. This is often PlayedForLaughs.
** This culminates when a "Hip Christian Group" leader points out to Hank that Jesus had long hair, only for Hank to say only because he wasn't his father. That's right, Hank knows better than the father of Jesus, God.
** This goes so far that when Peggy tells Hank that her new friend "Caroline" is a man in drag, he simply doesn't understand the concept of a man wanting to dress like a woman. Not only this, Hank goes on thinking Caroline is a actually a woman despite the explanation, [[WeirdnessCensor because it's the only circumstance he can realistically fathom]].
* GoodParents: He doesn't understand why Bobby has unmanly hobbies, and isn't very good at showing him affection, but he ''does'' love his son. He also does love Luanne as a surrogate daughter; it just takes way more coaxing to bring that feeling out from him. His discipline toward Bobby is that he doesn't want him to be mocked or unprepared at the world when he grows up.
* HatesBeingTouched: Anything more intimate than a handshake is bound to make him squirm, to the point that his niece Luanne went to hug him and he reflexively steered her toward Peggy instead. He does warm up a little as the series goes on.
* HonorBeforeReason:
** Hank adamantly refuses to see a doctor whenever he isn't feeling well because he thinks it's a either a sign of weakness or makes him lazy, because if he admits that he's sick, then that means he won't be able to go to work. In the first season, he refused to see a doctor about his constipation, or discuss it with anyone else, because he's too squeamish to discuss bathroom problems. This was despite the fact that he hadn't had a bowel movement in ''days''.
** In another episode, he throws his back out and still refuses to see a doctor and attempts to simply go about his normal routine, even though his back hurts so much can't even stand up straight and spends all day hunched over at a near-right angle. When he does finally get goaded into seeing a doctor, the only two options he suggests are to get workman's compensation and bedrest or to take painkillers for the nerve pain so he can go on working. Hank rejects the idea of workman's comp since he views it's only for pregnant women or lazy government leeches who can't be bothered to do their jobs. He is also is offended at the idea of painkillers, which he sees as little better than taking crack cocaine (even angrily accusing his doctor of being "Dr. Feelgood" for attempting to prescribe them).
** In the episode, "Ho Yeah" Hank believed that the angry pimp chasing him would obey the red traffic light, only for the pimp to drive through much to Hank's shock.
** When the doctor first diagnosed his narrow urethra, he laid out a whole host of options meant to help Hank and Peggy conceive. Hank quickly shot down the idea of boxer shorts, alternative sexual techniques, and dismissed in vitro fertilization as "science run amok." Thus, the fact that they were never able to conceive the bigger family they wanted is entirely his fault. Over a decade later when he and Peggy were very much ready for more children he did relent and make attempts to increase his sperm count, but eventually gave up for a wide variety of reasons (embarrassment over what he had to do, Bobby becoming visibly upset at the idea of a sibling, and Cotton impregnating a women at the age of 70).
-->'''Hank:''' ''(To Peggy)'' If you wanna keep trying, you can keep trying by yourself.
* {{Hypocrite}}:
** Chided Dale about having Joseph enrolled in a private school by saying he was doing it more for himself, but then Dale turned it around and asked if Hank was more worried about Joseph, or that the middle school football team was losing its star player. Still, at least Hank didn't deny it and still said it should be Joseph's choice.
** Hank is often dismissive of his mother's judgment, with one of the main arguments being her marriage to Cotton, yet Hank is just as often cowed by Cotton's emotional abuse. A lot of episodes have focused on Hank's unwillingness to call Cotton out on his behavior and his desire to get Cotton to show ''any'' kind of approval.
* InnocentBigot: Comes across as this to Khan the moment they first met, particularly in the infamous "are you Chinese or Japanese" segment. In Hank's defense, at the time the show aired, immigration from Laos was so rare as to be basically unheard of. Even currently, it's so rare, the census form only lists "Asian/Other."
* InnocentlyInsensitive: Pretty much Hank's defining character trait. He's a good husband and a well-meaning father (even if he is still a major BumblingDad), but a lot of the comedy in the show deals with his stubbornness to think beyond his traditional GoodOlBoy value system and how insecure it often makes Bobby and how upset it makes his wife. To be fair, he usually mellows on issues by the end of each episode, and is a lot more level-headed than your average [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Homer Simpson]] or [[WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy Peter Griffin]].
* JerkassHasAPoint: While many are put off by his catchphrase, "that boy just ain't right" in regards to Bobby, he is correct that ''something'' is off about Bobby, particularly in early episodes. To wit, Bobby responds to the pheromones from a fire-ant queen like a fire ant would. Bobby once spent an entire episode baiting squirrels and other animals so he could shine a flashlight up their rectums (admittedly, with future aspirations of being a proctologist.) And Bobby's just plain... odd. Also, he has tried, on numerous occasions to get Bobby to learn self-defense, since he knows bullies target weakness, and he can't always be protecting the boy.
* LiteralAssKicking: When Hank is angered, his standard threat is to "kick your ass". On the rare occasions he actually goes through with it, he proves that he meant it ''literally''.
** When Jimmy Wichard puts Bobby's life in danger, he almost exclusively assaults Jimmy in the posterior with his foot.
** In another episode, where Hank was constipated and Peggy recommended that he try acupuncture. Hank said that if anyone tried to do that on him, he would kick the guy's ass. Later, he reluctantly tries the procedure. He quickly becomes dissatisfied and goes to kick the acupuncturist's ass with the needles still in him.
* MenAreUncultured: Played with in that he's clearly pretty intelligent; he just thinks of "high culture" as snobby, effeminate, moronically redundant, and needlessly extravagant.
* NeverGetsDrunk: A partial example; he drinks so much Alamo Beer it has no effect on him anymore...but on the rare occasion he's seen drinking something stronger, he gets hammered pretty quick.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Bill's nervous breakdown in "Pretty, Pretty Dresses" was somewhat instigated by Hank. The first few times he tried to talk to Bill about Lenore never coming back, he stopped when Bill was about to cry. This wasn't because he didn't want to hurt Bill's feelings, but because Hank doesn't deal with emotions. After destroying the gifts and tree Bill had gotten for Lenore, he was more then happy to finally go home after Bill told him he didn't feel anything with absolutely no emotion. It's extremely obvious that Bill was far from okay, yet Hank took it as a sign that everything was okay and left. The next day, Bill started acting like he was Lenore himself. Hank realizes what he has done and later in the episode impersonates Lenore to make it right.
* NotSoAboveItAll:
** Became addicted to a video game based on propane because it allowed him to ascend to ranks such as "manager", even though he was aware that his time playing the game should've been spent helping Bobby prepare for the Presidential Fitness Test. Hank only snapped out of it thanks to Peggy collaborating with the game's designers to destroy it.
** An earlier example is when he and Bobby get swept up in [[MillenniumBug [=Y2K=]]] fever in "Hillennium". Peggy briefly becomes frazzled as well, but that was because she realized her current computer was a piece of junk and none of her musings were on hard copy.
* NotSoDifferent: Hank and his [[spoiler: Japanese half-brother, Junichiro.]]
* ObliviousToHints: Is very much so. When Peggy tells him to get over Bobby being asked out by a girl rather than the other way around, she points out they would've started dating earlier if it was acceptable for women to make the first move. A flashback shows Hank talking about something he's going to do with a truck on Friday night and Peggy flirtatiously states she isn't doing anything - he's not quick on the draw there.
* OnlySaneMan: Sometimes. His hyper-mundane personality makes him eccentric in his own right, amongst most people he is, paradoxically, too normal to be normal. But when he's next to Bill, Boomhauer, and especially Dale, he looks normal by comparison, and he is typically the one who has to fix everything when their bizarre antics get out of hand.
* OnlySaneEmployee: Hank's job at Strickland Propane. Pretty much runs the place, thanks to this.
* PapaWolf: A good way to make the typically straight-laced Hank lose his temper would be to threaten Bobby or Luanne.
* ParentalSubstitute: To Luanne, albeit begrudgingly.
* PerpetualFrowner: Peggy says he has it even in his sleep.
* ProgressivelyPrettier: Not exactly "prettier" (he would beat the tar out of anyone who had the temerity to use that word), but in the first season, Hank's face had more lines as if he was either older or just really depressed most of the time, and when he got angry, he could look thuggish. As the art style evolved over the seasons, Hank actually began to look younger and his visual anger was a lot more restrained.
* RealMenHateAffection: Unless it involves his dog, Ladybird, his lawn, or his truck. Tellingly, these are all things that can't emote back, or in Ladybird's case, can't emote back in a way that would make Hank uncomfortable. Hank doesn't mind expressing affection as long as he doesn't have to deal with a human response.
* TheReliableOne: The real reason Buck values Hank so highly. Even ''Kahn'' recognizes that if he's in serious trouble, he should call his "stupid redneck neighbor".
* SeriousBusiness:
** Propane and propane accessories. Justified because it's his livelihood, and he's easily the most knowledgeable person about propane in a town that relies on it for heating and cooking.
** He also takes meat preparation very seriously, to the point that his response to someone who takes their steak well-done is to politely ask them to leave.
* SpitTake: Hank consciously avoids these.
* TheSpock: Prefers to keep things as they are and act rationally.
* StayInTheKitchen:
** Hank had the unfortunate tendency to display a belief in this during the earlier seasons. "Peggy's Turtle Song" was all about him being ecstatic over Peggy deciding to become a full time housewife and mother when Bobby was (mistakenly) diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. Hank professed that "family values" were back in the Hill house. This was until he realized how much Peggy loved being a teacher and that she was stagnating.
** In the much maligned ThanksgivingEpisode, where he began praising Bobby's cooking, Hank had earlier said to Peggy that Bobby would have no desire to find a wife if he learned to cook and clean for himself. Hank had pretty much instigated Peggy's paranoia over Bobby "replacing" her by implying he only married her just so he would have someone to cook and clean for him (which, of course, says loads about Peggy's self-esteem), though like the above episode, Hank realized he made a mistake by implying this.
** In "Junkie Business", he refuses to hire Maria Montalvo, a highly-qualified grill associate, because she's an attractive woman. Instead, he hires a drug addict, which [[HoistByHisOwnPetard backfires spectacularly]]. That and the fact that she had no idea who Troy Aikman is.
* TheStoic: Hank keeps his emotions very guarded most of the time, maintaining a level temper. A quick way to rouse him to anger is to [[EnragedByIdiocy do idiotic things around him]], screw with his truck or lawn, or, above all of those, threaten Peggy, [[PapaWolf Bobby, Luanne, or Ladybird]]. This is also his greatest flaw, as he overdoes it a bit and comes off as unusually wound up relative to everyone else.
* StrongFamilyResemblance: Although he resembled his dad a good bit when he was a kid, Hank's facial structure is very similar to his mother's as an adult.
* TeamDad: He is the undisputed leader of his buddies, doing his best to keep them from falling into chaos. Unusually for the trope he doesn't assume the position due to being older (as he, Dale, Bill and Boomhauer are all the same age), he's just by far the most sensible and responsible friend they've got and they all respect and admire him enough to let him steer the ship. When things do go wrong for them it's usually because they didn't involve Hank and the solution to their problems is usually calling Hank.
* TrademarkFavoriteFood: Loves Alamo Beer to the point that he's rarely seen drinking anything else. To go with it, usually steak, medium-rare [''[[SeriousBusiness only]]''].
* WeirdnessCensor: Hank sometimes refuses to believe things that are so unusual or exotic as to not make sense to him. In the case of Peggy's drag queen friend Caroline, Hank continues to believe Caroline is a woman even after the explanation (then again, his dad was known to make mustard gas for V-J Day).
* WellDoneSonGuy: He really does want his father to show him some hint of approval. His totally unwarranted loyalty and admiration for Buck seems to stem from the need for some kind of father figure who's at least ''slightly'' less of a {{jerkass}} than Cotton as well.
* WhatTheHellHero: Peggy does this to Hank multiple times. Such as:
** When he punished Bobby for cigarette smoking by making him smoke a whole carton (which led to all of the Hills becoming addicted to tobacco). This might be a case of in-universe ValuesDissonance, since in the '50s this was a popular punishment to make children hate smoking. Hank is so old-fashioned that he just didn't know this was out of practice and frowned upon until Peggy told him. Even then, it wasn't until the peer support meeting that the Hills attended that Hank really learned that it was wrong and was called a monster.
** When he was pretty much making a ventriloquist dummy to function as the son that Bobby isn't.
** His willingness to exploit Kahn's manic depression by withholding his medication in order to get him to construct a state of the art grill for Strickland Propane.
** Setting up Luanne with a guy he picked out just so he wouldn't have to deal with her being overly emotional after Buckley broke up with her, and so he could get his den back.
** When interviewing perspective job applicants at Strickland Propane, Peggy chastizes Hank for some of the (illegal) questions he's going to ask the applicants, such as whether or not they are Christian. She also gets on his case about his refusal to hire a qualified female applicant. [[spoiler: And for good reason as the man he hired turns out to be a drug addict.]]
** For being gung-ho about Strickland Propane getting a company softball team and wanting her on it, despite the fact that she was already on a team (an all female team) and he never once went to one of her games.
** A non-Peggy example came from a Little League coach who chastised Hank for not supporting Bobby enough, specifically stating "I haven't given up on Bobby the way you have." Hank actually admits that he ''did'' give up on Bobby being a baseball player because he was so bad, but not supporting him simply made it worse.
* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: "It Came from the Garage" reveals that Hank has a phobia of bats. Naturally, he has to [[FaceYourFears sail underneath a bridge where hundreds of them live]] in order to save Bobby in the same episode.
* WithFriendsLikeThese: Multiple times, Hank gets exasperated by the idiotic antics of his friends. However, when push comes to shove, Hank proves that he really cares about them when they get into really bad trouble.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Margaret "Peggy" Hill (née Platter)]]
[[quoteright:210:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/char_6989_4107.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:210:Two-time Substitute Teacher of the Year.]]
->"In my opinion..."
Peggy is Hank's wife, to whom he is HappilyMarried. Impulsive and ditzy, she causes trouble for the family with hare-brained ideas. She and Hank stay loyal to each other no matter what though. Voiced by Kathy Najimy.
----
* ActionMom:
** Something she's demonstrated numerous times when it comes to defending Hank, Bobby, or Luanne. Sometimes she has to defend one from the other. To the point that she handed Leanne Platter a humiliating beat down, to successfully conning a smug con man, to shaming the Alamo Beer Company into apologizing for tainted beer, to threatening three grown men with a ''wooden spoon''. Buck is actually afraid of her.
** We've seen her defend Luanne from Hank, Hank from Bobby, Bobby from Hank, and Hank from Luanne. She generally will not let any member of her family be disrespected, even if it's by each other.
* AlliterativeName: Her maiden name was Peggy Platter.
* BrainyBrunette: Somewhat (though not as much as she thinks).
* BunnyEarsLawyer: She's mediocre at just about everything, but she's ''really'' good at Boggle, and has a surprising affinity for selling real estate.
** She's also an excellent softball pitcher, almost striking out a former major league player.
* CantTakeCriticism: Criticism is something she ''never'' considers or contemplates in later seasons, being too much of a KnowNothingKnowItAll to even consider her faults. If anything it just make her more determined to prove her arguments are right.
* CatchPhrase "Hoo Yeah!"
* [[CallingTheOldManOut Calling the Father-in-Law Out]]: With Cotton on his deathbed and tormenting Hank, she gives him a ''ruthless'' talking to.
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: She can rival Luanne in this regard depending on the episode.
* CryingWolf: In "Peggy's Fan Fair", no one would believe her when she realized Music/RandyTravis stole her song lyrics, and in "Pigmalion", no one would believe her about Trip Larson being bad news.
* {{Determinator}}: Partially deconstructed. Her belief that she can do anything through sheer willpower proves to be entirely wrong a lot of the time and gets her into a great deal of trouble. On the other hand, there are occasions where Peggy justifies this mentality, most notably in "Peggy Makes the Big Leagues." Also, clinging to that belief is probably the only thing that allowed her to come out of her childhood as relatively mentally healthy as she did. See FreudianExcuse below.
* DistressedDamsel: Subverted in some episodes, played perfectly straight in others.
* {{Flanderization}}:
** Her ego, originally a mild quirk, eventually became her defining character trait, so much so that her backstory had to be rewritten to explain her narcissistic tendencies (see FreudianExcuse below).
** Remember when her Spanish was initially considered to be pretty good? Hard to believe that later in the series, her Spanish "abilities" would end up with her accidentally kidnapping a Mexican girl while taking her class on a field trip. She is only able to prove her innocence when Hank convinces her attorney to let her plead her case in her own Spanish words to the judge.[[note]]Let's just say, it was ''not'' because she presented her side in a "good light" that [[WordSaladHumor convinced him it was an accident]]...[[/note]]
* FreudianExcuse: Peggy grew up with a cold, unpleasable, overly critical mother who constantly told her everything she did was wrong. In her adult years, Peggy believes she is the absolute best at everything she does. She ''has'' to believe this, because it's the only way she can convince herself that her mother was wrong and she's not completely worthless.
* TheFriendNobodyLikes: It's been noted on more than one occasion that Hank's friends generally only associate with her because she's Hank's wife; Dale flat-out admitted on at least one occasion that he can't stand her. It's not like she is fond of them either.
** Except Bill who's her StalkerWithACrush.
* GeniusDitz: Peggy believes herself to have a high IQ. She actually does seem to be pretty smart in some ways, but her total inability to ever consider the possibility that she might be wrong about anything means she ends up acting on a ''lot'' of really stupid ideas.
* HiddenDepths: She might seem like an egotistical jerk who just suffers from unwarranted self-importance. Well, she kind of is. But her constant insistence that she's a genius in the face of all evidence makes a lot more sense, and even becomes ''slightly'' sympathetic, once you find out how her mother always treated her.
* IWasQuiteALooker: Much to Bobby's surprise.
* ItsAllAboutMe: Peggy's worst moments spring from this.
** In "Little Horrors of Shop", she isn't happy that Hank is a successful shop teacher because it's ruining her chance for a third Substitute Teacher of the Year award. She ends up piggybacking off of Hank's popularity to win the award.
** In "Goodbye Normal Jeans", Bobby starts helping around the house thanks to Home Ec. Hank is happy, but Peggy gets jealous because he's a better homemaker than her. She goes so far as to steal the Thanksgiving turkey Bobby made.
** In "Maid in Arlen", Bill falls for Kahn's mother, but they get broken up by Kahn and Bill gets depressed again. Peggy's too busy bitching about how Laoma personally betrayed her by planning to move into a retirement home to care about anything else.
* TheKirk: Much, ''much'' more impulsive than Hank, but still more buttoned down than Bobby.
* KnowNothingKnowItAll: To a ridiculous degree, especially when it comes to her Spanish speaking ability. She thinks she's "very fluent." She barely knows enough to teach a middle school Spanish class.
* LargeHam: Hooo Yay!
* MamaBear: To both Bobby, Luanne, and Ladybird.
* MyBelovedSmother: Can be this to Bobby and Luanne (babying them and making decisions).
* {{Narcissist}}
* NewJobEpisode: Rivals Homer Simpson in this regard. Though Peggy works as a substitute teacher, journalist, and real estate saleswoman for some time, she also dabbles in grocery bagging, sculpture, rollerblading and restaurant owning.
* ParentalSubstitute: To Luanne, to the point that some first time viewers assume that Luanne is Bobby's sister.
* PluckyGirl: Nothing gets Peggy down for long.
* {{Pride}}: Be it substitute teacher, housewife or softball player, Peggy can't see herself as not the best.
* ProgressivelyPrettier: In the beginning of the series, Peggy had eyes that almost looked like dots and was drawn rather lackluster. Later seasons had her with a more bright-eyed look and with more vivid coloring with a touch of raspberry-colored lipstick.
* {{Retcon}}: Peggy went from being born in Montana and raised in Arlen to being born and raised in Montana. This complicates episodes that have Hank and Peggy as HighSchoolSweethearts.
* SmallNameBigEgo: She seems to think she's some kind of giant in the teaching world, despite being a small town substitute who won an inconsequential local award twice in a row.
* SmarterThanYouLook: There ''is'' evidence that suggests that she's pretty clever, it's just that her ego is so big that it hardly ever shines through.
* TooDumbToLive: In "Fun with Jane and Jane", Luanne manages to escape a cult posing as a sorority. Peggy, who's currently hung up on the fact that she has no friends, drags Luanne back and even joins them herself, not knowing or caring that they plan on sending the girls off to a farm to make preserves.
* TookALevelInDumbass: She started off smarter and more sensible than Hank. Post-Flandarization, she's a clueless KnowNothingKnowItAll.
* TookALevelInJerkass: In Seasons 1 and 2, Peggy was a genuinely nice, if quirky, housewife. In Season 3, she started to show a little ego, but was otherwise the same. From Season 4 onward, she's a ''huge'' KnowNothingKnowItAll, and often an inconsiderate jerkass.
* [[WellDoneSonGuy Well Done Daughter Girl]]: After Peggy's mom was retconned from being an overbearing perfectionist housewife to a coldhearted rancher. Her mother apparently never forgave Peggy for abandoning their ranch, even after Peggy singlehandedly saved the ranch to prove herself.
* [[WithFriendsLikeThese With Wives Like Her]]:
** Tends to fall into this at times when the situation benefits her ("Little Horrors of Shop" and "Racist Dawg" are two prime examples).
** Much earlier in the show, Peggy used to associate with a group of unnamed housewives, but chances are she stopped doing so because their 1950s mentality when it came to talking about sex and the fact that they had nothing better to do but talk about clipping coupons didn't really click with her.
* WomanChild : Will sometimes act like a spoiled teenager. Even once mimicking Bobby when both were mad at Hank.
* WomenAreWiser:
** A notable aversion. Although she occasionally does have to let Hank know when he's being a jerkass, for the most part he's nicer, more competent and more practical than she is, and regularly has to rescue her from the results of her own [[ZanyScheme zany schemes]]. However, there have been times where Peggy is able to function in a situation a lot easier than Hank does, either due to his willing inability to deal with emotions or because it's some cultural event that clashes with Hank's "old days" mind set.
** The best example of this played straight is when Peggy learns that Hank has paid sticker price for every car he's bought for the past twenty-five years. For years, Hank was led to believe he was being offered "special deals" on the cars until Peggy got involved in buying a new car and watched Hank pay full price on a car she was going to pay $2,500 less on.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Robert Jeffrey "Bobby" Hill]]
[[quoteright:267:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_p184316_n316340_cc_v4_aa_513.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:267:Pictured: a boy, not right.]]
->"Hey Dad! I'm Creator/SophiaLoren!"
Bobby is Peggy and Hank's 13-year-old son, who wants to break into the entertainment business. Since he's kind of effeminate and has some strange interests (by his family's standards), Hank fears for the boy's future. He'll be all right, though. Voiced by Creator/PamelaAdlon.
----
* BigEater:
** His appetite is as bizarre as it is large. Cotton, in charge of a boot camp, once attempted to punish Bobby for his appetite by making him eat a stack of leftovers and run-off. Bobby didn't mind in the slightest.
** In another episode, where Bobby started eating at a New York Style deli, he wound up getting gout from the food. Even when his gout got so bad he couldn't walk and needed a scooter to get around, he still kept going back for more.
** He once ate a 72-ounce steak in under an hour to spite his vegetarian girlfriend he broke up with. He did get sick after eating it, though.
** Getting sick after eating something ridiculous seems to be a pattern with Bobby: he once devoured an entire platter of [[{{Foreign Queasine}} lutefisk]], and as a result befouled the church bathroom so strongly that it led to the whole church burning down. Cotton is of course blamed for the arson. "Look for the man with the terrible smell!"
* BigFun
* BookDumb: His grades tend to hover around the C and D range, and a few episodes focus on his failing a class or exam. But he also has an encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture and arcane trivia.
* BunnyEarsLawyer: His dad and neighbors don't think much of him because he's a dull-witted, vaguely effeminate chubby kid with a strange sense of humor. But Bobby has shown a broad range of talents over the years.
** He's a crack shot with a gun. He's so good that he carries Hank though a shooting competition, scoring a perfect shot everytime while Hank struggles to hit the target.
** As well as a professional level golfer, making a hole in one on his first attempt.
** And capable of violence when pushed, as when he caught Joseph kissing Connie. Bobby furiously punched his bigger, more muscular friend in the jaw. Twice!
* CampStraight: Oh yes. Even without Hank's rigid view on masculinity Bobby's interests and mannerisms are feminine, such as tending roses and skipping around, but he also fancies himself something of a KidAnova and dates several girls over the course of the show.
* CatchPhrase: "I was just trying to help". It's actually a fairly depressing one to have since it's always said after Hank gets angry with him.
* CharacterizationMarchesOn: Bobby was initially a slow, confused kid who didn't have much in the way of personality. His effeminate characteristics and odd charisma quickly became his defining traits.
* CheerfulChild: In one episode, Hank remarks that every time a bully starts after Bobby, he does some prop comedy, like sticking French fries up his nose, and makes friends with the bully. Of course, Hank considers this to be disappointing.
* ChickMagnet: Oddly enough. Mostly attributable to his confidence and charisma.
* TheChosenOne: Bobby may or may not be the reincarnated spirit of the Lama Sanglug.
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: He's in a world all his own most of the time.
* CrossdressingVoices: His voice actor is Pamela Segall Adlon, who has done voicework for a lot of boy characters (and a few girl characters, like [[WesternAnimation/{{Recess}} Spinelli]] and [[WesternAnikation/PepperAnn Margaret Rose "Moose" Pearson]]).
* EvenNerdsHaveStandards: One of the dispute he has with Connie is that she is a bookworm and they both have a laugh at how geeky both of their attempt to break up (Bobby took Hank advice on how to fire people and Connie wrote a short essay to explain it) is. He also see a bunch of twenty years old men trying to cast a spell on him after refusing to drink dog's blood and admits that even he wants to give them wedgies.
* ExtravertedNerd: Despite his geekyness and unpopularity, he is very talkative and engages in a lot of social activities and school functions, has attended and hosted parties, and has gone out with several girls.
* FatIdiot
* {{Flanderization}}: He became a ''lot'' more immature in the later episodes.
* GeekyTurnOn: In "Rodeo Days", after seeing a rodeo clown do an acrobatic stunt:
-->''"Wow, I don't think even Kerri Strug could do that while wearing cowboy boots. Mmm … Kerri Strug in cowboy boots …"''
* ImprobableAimingSkills: Best shot in the family.
* {{Keet}}
* KiddieKid: Although it [[DependingOnTheWriter kind of depends on the writer]].
* MadeOfIron: Or as Hank puts it, mush. Cotton repeatedly tries to break Bobby's spirit in a boot camp by overfeeding him with leftover food mixed with one another, have him sit on an ice cube with just underwear on, and imprison him inside a small concrete cell for ''days''. Despite all this, Bobby brushes them all off with ease, all in an effort to build him up into a man. Hank explains that he's like mush- You can't build it up, but it's all give and you can't break it down either.
* MoralityPet: For Cotton.
* TheMcCoy: Pretty much completely driven by impulse.
* MistakenForGay: By Hank, who doesn't understand why his son doesn't like sports or anything considered "manly" (though the last episode "To Sirloin with Love" does reveal one manly thing he can do that doesn't embarrass Hank: [[spoiler:grill beef]]). Various episodes have shown that Hank does actually believe that his son is gay, and he's noticeably relieved when Bobby shows interest in Connie.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Bobby's actions in "Born Again on the Fourth of July" are directly responsible for the residents of Rainey Street and Milton Street to escalate their rivalry to a full-blown war. In his defense, he does try to fix things once he sees the results of his actions.
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: The only time his full name is shown was on a shelf. Apparently, his other nickname is "Butch", though that's never been used elsewhere, either.
* SoapBoxSadie: He frequently gets invested in various social and/or political causes. Rather than being used to deliver {{Author Tract}}s, his activism is handled fairly realistically; like your average 13-year-old, he's admirably idealistic and passionate, but he's also ill-informed and myopic, usually just wholeheartedly buying into whatever his peers or teachers tell him to believe without applying any critical thinking to the matter.
* StrongFamilyResemblance: In his flashbacks, Cotton looks like an older, taller, fitter Bobby. His facial resemblance to Hank is likewise much more obvious in flashbacks to when Hank was younger.
* TooDumbToLive: Sometimes, he does get involved in a lot of things that he knows are bad, but goes along with it as he's trying to find a hobby/interest that won't disappoint his father. He's also shown really poor judgment when it comes to animals, such as playing with a colony of fire ants or trying to befriend a raccoon.
* TrademarkFavoriteFood: Fruit pies, though he'll eat pretty much anything.
* WellDoneSonGuy: Bobby sometimes tries to make his father proud of him when it appears that Hank doesn't love him enough. He became terrified of the idea of having a baby sibling because he thought the only reason Hank and Peggy were proud of him was because he didn't have any siblings to be compared to (as Hank has a narrow urethra and a low sperm count, making it impossible for them to have another child). The very first episode actually stated that Bobby was afraid Hank doesn't love him all the time.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Luanne Platter]]
[[quoteright:210:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/luanne_platter_-_2378.jpg]]
->"Class was cancelled today and the library was closed. I love college!"
This is Peggy's niece; the Hills took her in early on in the show, partially to get her away from her horrible mother. Luanne isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer (at least in the later episodes. Earlier ones showed that she had a lot of technical skill when it came to fixing cars and some episodes show that she can think for herself in a crisis). Voiced by Creator/BrittanyMurphy.
----
* AcquiredSituationalNarcissism: In "My Hair Lady" and "Manger Baby Einstein."
* BareYourMidriff
* BewareTheNiceOnes:
** Despite her lack of intelligence and sometimes childish behavior, Luanne's proven to be a force to be reckoned with. Her highlights include how she handled the Hills' collective cigarette addiction, threatening Cotton for sexually harassing her, tackling an irate woman from harming Peggy, her competency at kickboxing, deciding to have her baby her way rather than listen to what others want her to do, and forcing everyone to give her the wedding gifts she never received.
** "Peggy's Pageant Fever" is a prime example of Luanne being mean on purpose. When Peggy dumps her for a professional stylist, Luanne starts nonchalantly doing things to screw with Peggy's daily routine. Although by the end credits, they've made up and Peggy lets Luanne use her hair to prepare for her beauty school classes, even though Peggy now has hair like a troll doll. [[spoiler: The moment Luanne's out of the room, she starts evilly snickering to herself with clasped hands because she did it on purpose.]]
* BaldWomen: She lost her hair in the Mega-Lo Mart explosion at the end of Season 2. Very notable in that, while other cartoons would have Luann's hair fully grown by the next episode, ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'' actually showed her hair slowly growing back over the course of several episodes.
* BrainlessBeauty and {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: In the later seasons.
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: She's a sweet-natured ditz with a big heart and a thick skull, both of which made her able to go the distance against George Foreman's daughter Freeda in the boxing ring.
* TheDitz
* DumbBlonde: In later episodes. In the early episodes, she had some smarts (i.e., she knew how to fix a car and she was good at styling hair), but she wasn't like Lisa Simpson when it came to brains.
* {{Flanderization}}: Particularly grating because of her initial character development as a young woman who desperately wanted to ''avoid'' becoming a redneck.
* FreudianExcuse: The way Peggy sort of began to dominate her life by making nearly all her decisions, as well as Luanne's gradually growing stupidity, could be seen as instigated by the way her birth mother walked out of her life for good after she acted like a complete whore and tried to kill Peggy. With Leanne's permanent absence, Luanne latched onto Peggy as a permanent substitute for a mother figure and started regressing to a more childlike intellect. This stopped (granted she's still dense) after she became a mother herself, and decided that she needed to stop relying on Peggy for everything in order to raise her child with Lucky and give her the childhood she'd been denied.
* GagBoobs and {{Gainaxing}}:
** When she jumps up and down, which makes Hank uneasy.
** This was parodied in a short made for the Emmy Awards where she got a wardrobe malfunction because of this.
* GenkiGirl
* HairOfGoldHeartOfGold: Young, sweet, innocent (how much is innocence and how much is [[TheDitz just plain stupidity]] is admittedly an exercise for the reader), blonde.
* InnocentFanserviceGirl:
** In one episode, she starts a Bible study class at a swimming pool. She ''thinks'' that she's reaching out to people; in reality, they just want to see her in a bikini and enjoy the hugs she gave out as rewards.
** Same thing when she got into boxing. She didn't learn until too late that the only reason guys came to see her was because they had a fetish for seeing a hot, under-dressed woman box.
** Averted in "Return to La Grunta," where she becomes self-conscious after several golfers sexually harass her. Luanne even dresses in unflattering clothes to discourage them, without success.
* KindheartedSimpleton
* MayDecemberRomance: Luanne is around 20 and married Lucky who is 35.
* MsFanservice: Invoked in-universe in "The Trouble with Gribbles", when she temporarily replaces Nancy as the TV weather girl.
* OddFriendship: Bonds with Bill over their barber skills in "My Hair Lady." She even gets fired trying to stand up for him to their boss. This actually extends as far back as Season 1's "Plastic White Female," though it's never really foregrounded.
* PunnyName: Luanne shares her full name with a dish at Southern cafeteria chain Luby's: [[http://www.flickr.com/photos/shellyd/83586853/ The "Lu Ann" Platter]].
* TookALevelInDumbass: By the time Season 2 aired, she had done some serious level grinding, and it got worse from there.
* WrenchWench: Part of her initial characterization. In the pilot, after Hank spends most of the episode trying to find out why his truck won't start, she offhandedly mentions she borrowed it, noticed the fuel filter was clogged and blew it clear. When Hank's truck is seized as evidence and taken apart after a junkie tries to steal it, she puts it back together.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Ladybird]]
Hank's and the Hills' old female dog. It is no exaggeration to think Hank likes her more than Bobby or Luanne.
-----------------------
* BigFriendlyDog: While not exactly that big, she is portrayed as such and very rarely hurts others.
* HeroicDog: In "Racist Dawg", Ladybird didn't get an issued command to drag a sleeping Bobby out from a lethal gas leak in their house at night. She did it anyway, but nobody makes a mention of this (and were more concerned by Bill performing CPR with his nacho-filled breath).
* MistakenForRacist: "Racist Dawg" has everyone believe that Ladybird is violently racist towards black people (and connect the dots that Hank must be too as dogs take after their owners) after attacking a black repairman. In the end, it turns out Hank subconsciously ''loathes'' repairmen doing his "job" at the house that Ladybird lashes out violently at them, regardless of their color.
* PerpetualFrowner: She wears a perpetually world weary expression, regardless of what's going on. This is very much TruthInTelevision as far as bloodhounds are concerned.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Colonel Cotton Lyndal Hill]]
[[quoteright:210:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/char_11491_725.jpg]]
->"I killed fitty men!"
Hank's father, a crotchety old man who doesn't seem to approve of anything Hank does. This war vet can never stop talking about how he killed "fitty" (50) men while in service. When it comes to impulsiveness, he's even [[UpToEleven got Peggy beat]]. Heaven help Hank. [[spoiler: His last appearance in the series sees him die from a horrible accident (or as he puts it, Tojo finally got him).]] Voiced by Toby Huss.
----
* AbusiveParents: Emotionally, to Hank.
* AccidentalMisnaming: Cotton never refers to Peggy by name, only by "Hank's Wife." This even extends to when he's trying to be nice to her.
* AxCrazy: It's a pretty fitting description for a man who thinks a loaded shotgun is the perfect birthday gift for a child.
* BackhandedCompliment: He may well have meant it to be sincere, but when he talks about how Hank is a better dad than he is, he says "If it's a contest [on which one of them is the better father], you win. You made Bobby! All I could make was you!"
* BadassGrandpa: He's in his mid 70s, but he's still a fully capable ass kicker.
* BeautyEqualsGoodness: He's one of the strangest looking characters in the series, and definitely one of the nastiest.
* BerserkButton:
** ''Never'' call him a Nazi.[[note]]Especially if you misuse the word "Nazi" to mean "someone who imposes allegedly unfair rules on you".[[/note]]
** He seems to view most anything Japanese, [[spoiler: with the exception of Michiko, the Japanese nurse who cared for him after the war]], with disdain, as in "Unfortunate Son" he refuses to sell a canoe which - [[UnreliableNarrator so he claims, anyway]] - belonged to Hitler after discovering the potential buyer is driving a Mitsubishi.
* BlackBeadEyes: His younger self did not have these. Whether he acquired them through age or shell shock is unknown.
* CharacterDeath: [[spoiler:Dies from a combination of burns, internal injuries, and an allergic reaction to shrimp in "Death Picks Cotton".]]
* ColonelBadass: Even if half his stories never happened he still qualifies several times over, especially if he really did beat an entire island of Japanese soldiers to death with a dismembered leg of his friend, Fatty, after getting his shins blown off (even though he achieved the rank of colonel after the war as a National Guardsman).
* ColonelKilgore: Loved killing Tojos and gutting Nazzies, though was technically not a colonel at the time.
* DemotedToExtra: In the first few seasons, Cotton appears in semi-frequently in cameos and flashbacks, with there usually being one or two Cotton-centric episodes per season. In the latter half of the series, Cotton shows up sporadically and his divorce happens off screen despite him moving from Houston to Arlen.
* {{Determinator}}: The man lost his shins and then taught himself how to walk again after the doctors sewed his feet to his knees. As Hank himself remarks, that's pretty damn heroic.
* DomesticAbuser: Cotton doesn't abuse women physically (when Cotton saw Peggy in a body cast, he chastised Hank for allegedly beating her), but does sexually harass them by smacking them on the butt, thinks women are little more than housewives and sex objects, and tried to keep Hank's mom down by verbally abusing her and making her do demeaning things. In a flashback to when he was married to Tilly, he was shown one time using her as a foot stool. Another episode had Cotton smashing a sink full of dishes with a chair while screaming at Tilly.
* DyingAlone: One by one, Cotton's geriatric war buddies kick the bucket over the course of the series. At the start of the show, he's in the company of several, but they soon succumb to poor health, such as Fatty's titular obesity, until Topsy is the last one to go, leading to Cotton fulfilling his bizarre dying wishes. [[spoiler:Then Cotton himself dies, after screaming at his son and driving him from the room, with only his much-hated daughter-in-law for company.]]
* EveryoneHasStandards: Cotton is an abusive father and husband. One time, he was even seen using Tilly as a footstool, and holds Peggy in ill regard. However, when he sees Peggy in her body cast following her near-fatal skydiving accident, Cotton immediately assumes it's Hank's fault and is disgusted with him.
--> "What'd you do to your wife? I didn't teach you that!"
* EvilOldFolks: On his worse days.
* FamousLastWords: During Cotton's last appearance in the series (apart from a few flashback cameos), when Peggy [[spoiler: says she hopes Cotton lives forever so he can stay in the hell he's created himself on Earth, Cotton replies, "Do ya now?" and dies just to spite her.]]
* FatBastard: Not as fat as most examples, but he's pretty rotund. And a huge bastard.
* FinalSpeech: [[spoiler: Delivers one to Peggy, presumably to get as much hate as possible out before he goes:]]
-->'''Cotton:''' [[spoiler:"This was supposed to happen to ''you!'' You're ''worthless!'' You're not even good enough to be married to my worthless, nothing of a loser SON!"]]
* GloryDays: Cotton would like you to know that he killed fitty men during World War II. And he would have kept at it if the Japanese hadn't shot off his shins.
* {{Gonk}}: Including a medical history, that's simply not credible.
* GroinAttack: Uses his shortness to his advantage and delivers these via headbutt.
* GrumpyOldMan: Oh, yeah. But you'd be grumpy too if you had to walk around with your feet sewed to you knees.
* HandicappedBadass: Had his shins blown off by Japanese soldiers in World War II, but still kicked ass and reached the rank of Colonel in the Texas Militia.
* HeroicResolve: As Hank lampshades in one episode, Cotton may be a lying jackass, but it's an indisputable fact that the man survived having his shins blown off, an act which required an unfathomable amount of willpower.
* HeyYou: As mentioned above, Cotton always calls Peggy as "Hank's Wife" and never bothered calling her by her name.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Cotton is a five-star jerkass all his life, which eventually culminates when he revolts against a proposed dinner of leftover lasagna given to him by Peggy, which he finds completely inadequate. [[spoiler: He and Bobby hightail it to the nice restaurant they shafted the two of them from going to so they can have a private date. But then Cotton has a PSTD freakout against an innocent sushi chef at the sight of him juggling knifes for show, bellowing that he's a Tojo threatening to kill him. The chef, unaware that Cotton's allergic to shrimp, flicks one into his mouth thinking it will calm him down. This causes him to go in to shock, and Cotton then is convinced the chef's out for blood. He pounces at the man with intent to put him in a death grip, but happens to leap on the boiling hot surface of the chef's grill, immediately melting the soles of his shoes. This causes Cotton to slip and collapse on top of it, which wreaks havoc on his delicate elderly frame. The resulting burns, allergic reaction, and internal injuries do irrecoverable damage to him and Cotton's condition slowly worsens, until he at last dies.]]
* HomeGuard: Joined the Texas State Militia after the war, eventually reaching the rank of colonel.
* IdenticalGrandson: Looks like a ''much'' older version of Bobby.
* {{Jerkass}}: And that's putting it mildly.
** HiddenHeartOfGold: Usually related to Bobby. Hank even puts that while Cotton hates most things, there's no doubt he loves Bobby. It's also see that while he treats most women as objects, the one woman he is not seen doing this to is his old Japanese lover, Michiko.
* KavorkaMan:
** Despite being a gonk, and having a less than appealing personality (and his shins "… blown off by a Japan man's machine gun"), he's been with three women that we know of: Hank's mother, a Japanese woman during WWII, and his current wife, Didi, who is a childhood friend of Hank's.
** He's admitted to bedding 273 women in the episode Junichiro was introduced. It's heavily implied in previous episodes that he's visited prostitutes a lot, which probably explains a good number of those women.
* LaughablyEvil: Well, "Laughably Jerkass" more likely, but still. Cotton isn't someone you want to meet if he exists in real life, but he is hilarious to watch.
* LargeHam: And how!
* MayDecemberRomance: Between Cotton and Didi. Didi and Hank even went to kindergarten together.
* PantsFree: In "Returning Japanese" he is shown in his uniform shirt and hat but without pants.
* ParentalNeglect: When he's not being abusive to women, he shows affection with a criminal disregard for his son's safety. When G.H. was less than a year old, he let him play with his loaded service pistol to learn to shoot,[[note]]It's heavily implied he was going to use the service pistol [[DrivenToSuicide to kill himself]], and only let G.H. fire it off at the last minute so he wouldn't be tempted.[[/note]] and he gave Bobby a loaded shotgun for his twelfth birthday (and used the gun to shoot a piñata).
* PerpetualFrowner: He usually only smiles when he's recounting his war stories, or tormenting people.
* PetTheDog:
** Most of his scenes with Bobby amount to these. For all his faults, he genuinely loves and respects his grandson (though the first episode featuring Cotton is kind of debatable, as Cotton was teaching his grandson to treat women like sex objects by slapping their butts and making sexist remarks).
** When he helped Peggy get her job back, and the time where he helped her in her rehab after the parachute incident. In the case of the former, he had no problem barking at her to make him 200 pancakes, but became visibly uncomfortable the moment she broke down sobbing.
** When he politely asked Peggy for a photo of Hank and Bobby to show to Michiko during their trip to Japan. He even thanked her.
*** Doubled as a PetTheDog moment for both of them, as Peggy actually defended Cotton's actions to Hank, rationalizing that no one would cheat on their 40 year old wife with an 80 year old ex-girlfriend.
*** At the end of the Japan two-parter, when he notices Bobby seems depressed because he's leaving behind the girl he met, he immediately tells the cab driver to stop so Bobby can say goodbye to her.
*** Really, his entire relationship with Michiko. He loved her dearly, fought like a tiger to stay with her, and when they reunite, is nothing but gentle and respectful towards her. Especially considering his usual treatment of women, it's seen that he really did love her.
** A small one. In a flashback, Hank and his friends were taken on a camping trip by their dads. Cotton led the Snipe Hunt with enthusiasm ("Not gonna sugar coat it: Some of you ain't comin' back"). Despite that, he kicked Eustice out of the group for talking during the Test of Silence and ordering the boy to get him a beer, seeing Cotton be involved in Hank's upbringing to ''any'' extent [[note]](that doesn't involve Hank getting yelled at, insulted, or traumatized, as seen in the pilot episode where Cotton responds to Hank's skinned knee with, "I got my shins blowed off by a Japanman's machine gun, so ''don't'' come crying to me with your problems, "Square Peg" where a crying Hank is forced to watch a bull have sex with a cow while Cotton laughs, and the rifle-aiming flashbacks from "How to Shoot A Rifle Without Really Trying")[[/note]] is rare and touching.
** "Next of Shin" also. He actually feels sorry for Hank being unable to get Peggy pregnant, to the point where he's willing to let Hank and Peggy raise Didi's child (though that part's certainly unfair to Didi). He also has a rare heart-to-heart talk with his son towards the end of the episode.
* [[PoliticallyIncorrectHero Politically Incorrect War Hero]]: He's an unbridled sexist. And damn proud of it.
* PunnyName: Named for the town of Cotton Hill, West Virginia.
* ObnoxiousInLaws: There's no love lost between him and Peggy.
* RacistGrandpa:
** Subverted. He's certainly not nice to anyone, but he does not antagonize people from countries America has ''not'' gone to war with as much, and does not use shallow stereotypes. He can tell at first sight that Kahn is Laotian, and does not make the same "Chinese or Japanese" assumption everyone else does. However, Cotton does think that Kahn is Hank's servant and orders him to make him a mai tai and get his luggage.
** He doesn't seem to have anything against Jewish people either. The first thing he said to Gary Kasner after their introductions was "Happy Hannukah" and mentions he served with a Jew in the Pacific Theater.
** On the other hand, he does seem to be less than fond of the Japanese until he discovers he has a half-Japanese son. When being examined by doctors to tell if he has senility and needs to be institutionalized, he attacks a Japanese doctor and takes his stethoscope for a war trophy.
* RankUp: Apparently started as private in the U.S. Army, was promoted to some sort of leadership position in the Pacific and ended his career a colonel with the Texas National Guard.
* RealAwardFictionalCharacter: Throughout his appearances, Cotton's decorations are slowly revealed. In "Returning Japanese", his uniform includes the Medal of Honor and American Campaign Medal. In "Cotton Comes Marching Home", his Silver Star is shown in a display case in the Arlen VFW. In Season 12, he shown wearing the third class, Commandeur, of the French Legion of Honour, the highest decoration in France and only awarded to a handful of Americans during the war.
* RealMenHateAffection: In his words, "Love's for sissies!"
* RetiredBadass: He's not in the army anymore, but even Hank is hesitant to give him a fight. At least part of that is childhood trauma, but mostly it's a recognition that Cotton can still kick his ass. He even knocked a young adult down with a headbutt after he called him a nazi.
* ScrewPolitenessImASenior: Though he didn't appear very polite in his younger days either.
* ShellShockedVeteran:
** Dale and cops tend to view him as this, usually encouraging them to help him in his more ridiculous schemes without thinking.
** A fit of PTSD when he sees a Hibachi chef juggling knives [[spoiler:makes him jump on the grill table and fall onto it back-first, giving him a mortal wound.]]
* ShirtlessScene: In John Redcorn's sweat lodge in "Returning Japanese".
* SmugSmiler: When he does smile, it's a rather unnerving self-satisfied smirk.
* StrawMisogynist
* StrongFamilyResemblance: Looks exactly like an old version of Bobby, who unlike his son and his daughter-in-law he actually gets along with.
* TheyReallyDoLoveEachOther:
** Cotton and Didi get a few spread out through the series. When Cotton is awarded a grave in the Texas State Cemetery, Didi comments it's a beautiful grave and that he deserves it. And when Cotton leaves a pregnant Didi, he goes into a homicidal rage when Hank tells him she's found a new man. Hank even points out that he really loves her.
** Cotton and Hank have some as well, such as in "Returning Japanese" when Cotton admits to Hank that he's a good son.
* UglyGuyHotWife: With Didi.
* UnreliableNarrator: Certain recountings of Cotton's past are rather questionable. Sometime it's boasting sometime he is just confused.
-->'''Cotton:''' You forgot Munich.\\
'''Peggy:''' You were never in Munich.\\
'''Cotton:''' I wasn't?
* UseYourHead: A favourite tactic of his and quite effective due to him missing his shins, since this places his head [[GroinAttack right at crotch level]] for most people.
* WhenHeSmiles: A kind one at least, during his last days alive with Bobby. His smile looks like one finds in a grandparent instead of a sadistic, arrogant smirk.
* YoungerThanTheyLook: Cotton was around thirty when Hank was born. In flashbacks seen in "Yankee Hankie" (set on the day Hank was born in 1959), he looks the exact same as he does in the present day only with brown hair. However, in scenes set only 15 years prior, he looks more like an extremely fit and slightly older version of Bobby.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Matilda Mae "Tilly" Hill]]
[[quoteright:197:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tilly_1913.jpg]]
Hank's biological mother.
----
* ADayInTheLimelight: "The Unbearable Blindness of Laying", "Escape From Party Island", and "The Honeymooners".
* TheDitz: Hank says that he worries about her because she is an idiot for making stupid decisions such as marrying Cotton, dating another man before she broke up with her boyfriend and selling her gold to someone on TV.
* ExtremeDoormat: Actively seeks out men who are abusive towards her.
* FreudianExcuse: Being married to an emotionally, verbally, and sometimes physically abusive man for years, (Cotton once used her as an actual footstool), and only being able to seek comfort in glass figurines, may be the reason why in her later years Tilly makes spontaneous and often stupid choices. Now that she's free from Cotton, and no longer taking care of Hank, Tilly is free to live her life how she wants and is expressing out decades of repressed emotions, which channel into some questionable antics.
* HiddenDepths:
** As the series goes on, it shows she has terrible choice in men, and is constantly making spur of the moment extreme decisions without thinking of the consequences.
** Earlier in the show's history, though, Tilly admitted that she took several odd jobs during Hank's childhood, including a job as a taxi driver, in order to get out of the house. Hank simply believed that she was happily fulfilled in being a stay-at-home mom, and was quite shocked to learn this (when Tilly mentioned the taxi, Hank says that all he remembers is her owning a yellow car).
* GlurgeAddict: When trapped in a severely abusive marriage with Cotton, she became obsessed with unicorn figurines. Hank deeply loathes them until he realizes those figurines were the only thing that kept her going.
* IWasQuiteALooker: While she's not ugly (despite Cotton's claims), a flashback of Hank's birth shows her to have been a really pretty young woman with dark hair.
* LongBusTrip: She disappears from the series after one appearance in Season 5, and doesn't return until one of the unaired episodes almost 10 years later.
* LoveMartyr: She really goes out of her way for the love of something, whether its her figurine obsession or a whirlwind romance for a guy she's known for a few weeks.
* NiceGirl: Generally shown to be a sweet, if overly-passive, woman.
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: According to Hank's birth certificate in "Yankee Hankee", her name is Matilda Mae Hill.
* OutOfFocus: She appears far less than Cotton and is not introduced until well after he is. Although she made a handful of appearances in the first few years after her introduction, her absences became longer and longer as time went on to the point that it was easy to forget she existed.
* UglyGuyHotWife: While Cotton wasn't that bad-looking during his time in the army, by the time he married Tillie his appearance had already gone down the tubes. Couple that with his sharp temper, violent outbursts, misogynist beliefs, domestic abuse toward her, and parental abuse toward their son, it's amazing Tillie didn't divorce him far, far sooner.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Didi Hill]]
[[quoteright:185:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/didi_hill_1241.png]]
Cotton's 40 year old second wife.
----
* AbusiveParents: She seems to mean well, but her absent-mindedness and general stupidity results in her often neglecting G.H., including leaving him home alone because she simply forgot about him.
* BrokenBird: It's implied that Didi isn't happy in her marriage to Cotton but she's too meek to say anything about it. She constantly looks and sounds dazed and miserable whenever she's on-screen.
* CharacterizationMarchesOn: Following G.H.'s birth, she had moments where she was more assertive with Cotton.
* TheDitz: Most of the time, it's not clear if she's even aware of what's going on around her. Strangely, it makes her perfectly suited for Cotton, who's free to be as obnoxious as he wants.
* ExtremeDoormat: Most of her scenes make her look more like Cotton's servant than his wife.
* GagBoobs: Cotton paid for her boob job. He got a good price because they're both lefties.
* LongestPregnancyEver: [[AvertedTrope Averted]]. There were about six months between the air dates of the episode where Didi was revealed to be pregnant and the episode where she gave birth. Given that the only visible holidays between those episodes were Thanksgiving and Christmas, and how pregnant she was when it was revealed (at least a few months gone), the duration was quite realistic both in-universe and out of it.
* MayDecemberRomance: She's around the same age as Hank (Hank mentions that he went to kindergarten with Didi, and Didi asks Hank if he still likes finger-painting), yet was married to his father.
* PutOnABus: In the Season 8 episode "Daletech", Cotton is seen screaming at her to call her lawyer as she drives away before explaining that she and G.H. have gone to her parents' house for a few months. [[spoiler:Cotton's obituary]] claims her to be his ex-wife, confirming a divorce. She isn't seen again until a very brief appearance in the final season where the divorce never seemed to have happened, though it could be that they've got back together before his death or he died before the divorce was finalized.
* RoboSpeak: Speaks in a very monotone voice that makes it sound as though she's rehearsed her speech.
* TookALevelInBadass: Not much but she started getting more assertive with Cotton like demanding he take care of G.H. for her "me-time" to launder and pleasantly asking him to eat a certain way in front of the television.
* WhatDoesSheSeeInHim: After Cotton's death, she finally seems to acknowledge the fact that he was an awful man [[spoiler:and has actually admitted that, since marrying her new husband, she barely even remembers anything about him]].
* WhenSheSmiles: See the character image of her smiling? Yeah, that's a rare moment for her.
* UglyGuyHotWife
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Leanne Platter]]
[[quoteright:239:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/s_saga_9868.jpg]]
Luanne's ex-con mother. Was sent to jail for stabbing her father with a fork. Voiced by Pamela Adlon.
----
* TheAlcoholic: She's able to down an entire fridge of Alamo beer in just a couple of nights. And that's after rehab.
* AllAbusersAreMale: Averted.
* AxCrazy: Once she goes back to drinking, she loses it.
* BitchInSheepsClothing: Claims that she's changed. She hasn't.
* CoolBigSis: What Leanne wants Luanne to see and refer to her as.
* DomesticAbuser: Abused Hoyt throughout the marriage, which eventually resulted in him getting stabbed with a fork (which lead to her arrest). She starts abusing Bill once she starts drinking again.
* EvilCounterpart: To Peggy, in terms of a mother figure towards Luanne.
* GoldDigger: Downplayed; while she does spend all of Bill's money, it's mostly because he's too meek to say no and she's too clueless to realize that nice things cost money. However, she does seem to have this attitude towards Luanne and Hoyt.
* HairTriggerTemper: When she drinks. Poor, poor Bill...
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: If she hadn't spent Bill's money so freely, he could have afforded his medication and his toe fungus wouldn't have driven her back to drink.
* {{Jerkass}}: And the worst one in the entire series.
* KnightOfCerebus: Her one appearance marks one of the darker episodes in the series, taking all of the comedy out of Luanne's shattered home life and showcasing one of the rare examples of female-on-male abuse taken seriously on TV.
* LadyDrunk: She ''thinks'' she's a HardDrinkingPartyGirl, but she's too old, too violent, and has a serious drinking problem.
* ManChild: It is quite clear she doesn't want to be seen as a mother. She even yells at Luanne that she is no longer her "sister" before leaving.
* OffTheWagon: And it gets worse from there. She was already a jerk to Luanne. When she's drunk, she gets violent.
* ParentalNeglect: She's rather emotionally abusive towards Luanne. She was even okay with her daughter dropping out of college to get a job to support the two of them. This is mainly because she doesn't want to ''be'' a mother, as seen in the episode where she comes back and tries (emphasis on "tries") to be Luanne's CoolBigSis.
* StrongFamilyResemblance: Basically looks like a middle-aged Luanne, only with badly dyed hair.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Hoyt Platter]]
[[quoteright:141:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hoyt_7416.jpg]]
Luanne's biological father (even though earlier episodes revealed that Hoyt was a wussier, male version of Peggy). Was once thought to have escaped to an oil rig to get away from his abusive wife (and wouldn't come back until he got her death certificate in a fax), but a later episode revealed that Hoyt was in jail and, if he screws up again, he'll be there for life. Voiced by Johnny Knoxville.
----
* BitchInSheepsClothing: When he came back, he gave his sister Peggy ''two lottery tickets'' that were ''already scratched'' (and weren't even winning tickets). Things got worse from there until he was arrested again.
* ChronicVillainy: Seems incapable of passing up the opportunity to commit a crime.
* DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou: He's stinking in jail forever, Luanne.
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: He sincerely loves Luanne (as shown in his last scene with Hank), but still seems willing to sell her out to avoid jail. A rare example of this trope making a character ''less'' sympathetic.
* TheGhost: Was this for most of the show's lengthy run, only being mentioned in a few episodes that concerned Luanne.
* LaserGuidedKarma: After getting Lucky to take the fall for a crime he committed, Hank and Peggy set him up to get his third strike.
* {{Jerkass}}: He's almost as bad as his wife in this regard.
* ManipulativeBastard: He uses his daughter's happiness of seeing him back to get away as an excuse for any stupidities he pulls on the Hills and her husband. In the end, karma gets him good and Luanne is led to believe he got a better position at the oil rig.
* {{Retcon}}: A jarring example. Originally Hoyt was a male version of Peggy who ran away and joined an oil rig to get away from [[DomesticAbuser Leanne]] and wouldn't return until her death certificate was faxed to him. When he finally made his appearance, he was shown to be a convict on his last strike and that the "oil rig" story was a lie, and he'd been gone for most of Luanne's life (originally, she was an adult still acknowledging just having seen him). He was such a manipulative bastard he would've even thrown his own daughter under a bus if it meant him avoiding jail.
* StupidCrooks: Not only does he commit random crimes for no good reason, but he fell for Hank and Peggy's obvious plan to get him his third strike.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Elroy "Lucky" Kleinschmidt]]
[[quoteright:231:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lucky_2999.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:244:Slipped on pee-pee at the [=CostCo=].]]
A 35 year old hillbilly introduced later in the series whose personal income consists primarily of nothing but personal injury suit victories. Becomes involved with Luanne, then later [[spoiler: marries and has a child with her.]] Voiced by Music/TomPetty.
----
* AscendedExtra: His most noteworthy scene in that episode was when he told the story of why he was called "Lucky" (he slipped on a spill while running for the bathroom in a department store and was paid off to avoid a lawsuit). His friends [[ThoseTwoGuys Elvin and Mud Dauber]], more prominently featured in that episode, are conversely DemotedToExtra.
* CharacterDevelopment: For all his faults he has a personal code of honor, sincerely loves Luanne (and later their daughter Gracie) and does try to improve himself with Hank and Peggy's help.
* TheDitz: He's definitely not all there. Hell, Luanne looks like a genius compared to him.
* EarlyBirdCameo: First appeared on "The Redneck on Rainey Street" as one of Kahn's new trailer trash friends.
* TheFriendNobodyLikes: Frequently lampshaded by Hank and Peggy, due to his laziness and lack of common sense of how to spend his settlement checks. The others only hang out of him out of pity and goodwill, and one of he only few sincerely loves him for who he is [[spoiler: is his wife Luanne.]]
* FrivolousLawsuit: His primary source of income.
* HiddenDepths: Despite his slovenly appearance and attitude, Lucky occasionally displays surprising wisdom and insight.
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: He's referred to exactly once by his given name.
* SimpleMindedWisdom: He's definitely no genius, but he has some unexpectedly deep thoughts from time to time.
* TheStoic: Incredibly laid-back most of the time.
* StrawLoser: He's a walking redneck stereotype with no job, no education, and no common sense who survives mostly on settlement checks. His original appearance was meant to demonstrate how far Kahn had fallen by hanging out with him. Then he and Luanne get involved...
* TookALevelInKindness: He was just a belligerent redneck in his first appearance, but became far more chill once he met Luanne.
* UglyGuyHotWife: Once he and Luanne are married.
[[/folder]]
