What is King of the Hill?

King of the Hill is an American animated sitcom created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels about propane salesman Hank Hill and his family in Arlen, Texas, which aired on Fox from 1997 to 2010.

Where did King of the Hill come from?

Mike Judge conceived the show in 1995 based on his time living in suburban Texas, and Fox paired him with Greg Daniels, who rewrote the pilot. It premiered on Fox on January 12, 1997.

What does King of the Hill mean?

Online, King of the Hill refers both to the show itself and to a family of fan formats built from its quotes and characters, most notably the 'I Sell Propane and Propane Accessories' snowclone.

How do you use King of the Hill?

Fans typically caption Hank Hill stills with the 'I sell X and X accessories' pattern or edit clips of Hank, Dale, Bill and Boomhauer into YouTube Poop remixes and reaction images.

Is King of the Hill still popular?

The show holds a large legacy fandom online, with a subreddit that had grown to nearly 15,000 subscribers by October 2013 and a Facebook interest page approaching 1.2 million likes by the same period.

King of the Hill

1997animated seriesclassic

Published September 4, 2026

King of the Hill is an American animated sitcom created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels that debuted on Fox on January 12, 1997, following propane salesman Hank Hill and his neighbors in the fictional town of Arlen, Texas. The show ran for 13 seasons and spawned a lasting online afterlife of quotable catchphrases, YouTube Poop edits and dedicated fan hubs that outlived the 2010 finale.

tv show memes catchphrase memes snowclone memes youtube poop memes animation memes

Overview

King of the Hill's online life is mostly built on quotable Hank Hill lines and the show's dry, character-driven humor, which fans have chopped into image macros, soundboards and remix videos for over two decades1. The best-known snippet is Hank's deadpan 'I Sell Propane and Propane Accessories,' which grew into the snowclone 'I Sell X and X Accessories' as early as 2003, usually pasted onto stills of Hank standing in front of his Strickland Propane truck4.

The subtler tone of the show is a big part of why it stuck around online. Urban Dictionary entries from the 2000s already framed it as 'a well-developed and cleverly written' cartoon whose satire flew over the heads of Family Guy fans, an early signal that the fandom saw itself as an in-group defending the show from being underrated2. That reputation for restraint fueled a steady stream of fan art, screenshot blogs and edits rather than the loud macro cycles other Fox cartoons produced.

By the early 2010s the show was also a favorite target for YouTube Poop editors, who sliced Hank, Dale, Bill and Boomhauer dialogue into surreal remixes. KYM noted more than 65,000 YouTube search results for 'King of the Hill Poop' by October 2013, one of the larger poop corpora on the platform at the time4.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

Fox (TV broadcast) / YouTube and Tumblr (viral spread)

Creator

Mike Judge and Greg Daniels

Date

1997

Mike Judge, already known for MTV's Beavis and Butt-head, came up with the concept for King of the Hill in 1995, loosely based on his own time living in suburban Texas3. Fox paired him with Greg Daniels, who rewrote the pilot with a heavier focus on character development. Judge liked the rewrites enough to give Daniels a full co-creator credit rather than the usual developer credit3.

The series premiered on Fox on January 12, 1997 as a mid-season replacement and pulled in about 8.6 million viewers across its first 12 episodes3. Season two turned out to be its ratings peak, drawing 16.3 million viewers and finishing as the 15th most-watched show of the year4.

How It Spread

The show's online fandom started building almost immediately after launch. One of the earliest fan sites went up on Geocities on October 19, 1997, offering character bios, episode lists and a soundboard of clips from the series4. Two Usenet groups, alt.tv.king-of-hill and alt.conspiracy.black.helicopters, spun up around the same time as gathering points for Dale Gribble conspiracy jokes.

Behind the scenes, John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky took over as showrunners in 2002 for season seven, at which point the characters stopped aging and some backstories were quietly rewritten4. Season ten in 2005 was originally pitched as the finale, but Fox reversed course after the show held onto its audience through pre-emptions and light network promotion. Writing in SFGate, Tim Goodman noted that Fox 'told everybody involved with the show to get back to work' rather than let the series die, and slotted its 11th season behind The Simpsons at 8:30 p.m.1. The show ultimately ran through the 2008-2009 season, with four unaired episodes finally airing in May 2010 in syndication and on Adult Swim3.

After the finale, the fandom shifted to social platforms. The first single-topic Tumblr for the show launched on March 1, 2010, focused on quotes, screenshots and fan art4. The /r/KingOfTheHill subreddit followed that November and had grown to nearly 15,000 subscribers by October 2013. A second Facebook interest page had picked up close to 1.2 million likes by the same date, keeping the show in circulation years after Fox pulled the plug4.

How to Use This Meme

The most common King of the Hill format is the 'I sell X and X accessories' snowclone: pair a Hank Hill still with any hobby, subculture or product name to imply flat, professional enthusiasm4. Screenshots of Hank, Dale, Bill and Boomhauer standing in the alley drinking beer are also a standing template for reaction images and 'four types of guy' captions, while YouTube Poop editors typically loop or splice short dialogue clips into absurd remixes4.