"Cotton ain't no funny at all, man... Dang ol' POW camp... bamboo shoots... talkin' 'bout puttin' 'em under his dang fingernails... freak me out about that."
"Hank, you won the big game. So I'm buying you and all your friends...HOOKERS! Go on, pick yourself a live one!"
It wasn't just that Myspace episode that showed Mike and co were somewhat behind the times. Get your freak off aired on 2002 yet the band the fore skore was a lampoon of 90s era boy bands, thought I think the idea was hank was listening to an old album of there's and didn't realize they had reworked their image to try and appear "mature" when he saw them in concert.
But a few other things are a little behind the curve too like Bobby playing what appears to be a tomb raider game on an N64 (an impossibility IRL btw)
Still even though the writing could come off as out of the loop sometimes it still had a lot of heart and effort behind it even towards the end as the show began showing the cracks in its hull the way Simpsons around its season 12 and 13 did
IIRC, the MySpace episode was probably one of the rejected scripts from Season 8 or 9 that got produced for Season 13 to save money since they were on a tighter budget. The boy band in Get Your Freak Off actually does kind of make sense since the boy bands of the late 90's were still a thing in 2002 but they were on their way out.
Bobby playing Tomb Raider on N64 was probably one of those minor goofs like the Sega Saturn on The Drew Carey Show. In the early seasons, Drew had it because he's a gamer IRL and it just became an iconic part of the set. Later seasons from the early 2000's had him playing Halo and what sounded like a Grand Theft Auto game on the Sega Saturn.
I admit i wasn't "Into" this series, however what I saw of it's strongest strength was also it's largest weakness (outside of Peggy, holy shit she was an annoying god damn cunt)
The fundamental premise is that "Hank is a good person, probably better than 90% of us" and that many of the "Conflicts" come from him not being "Up to date" with culture, which means that Hank most of the time can never really be "in the wrong" since none of what he does wrong is malicious per say, nor that many of the people he interact with are malicious just that it is a bit of a culture clash.
That seems like a particularly hard line to walk since you have to balance both sides being "in the wrong" without looking like they are being purposefully assholes.
One thing I always liked was how the majority of fanon surrounding the show actually could make sense and explain some of the flaws of the show.
Some of the common headcanons that I liked are listed below.
1. Hank Hill is a literal sperg but is on the higher-functioning end so he was able to make it out on his own in the real world. Between undiagnosed autism and Cotton as a father, this is part of why Hank's so eccentric and has the hangups he's known for.
2. Peggy suffered brain damage when she fell from the plane. It wasn't enough to impair her in any cognitive or intellectual way, but it was enough to fundamentally change her personality and make her the egotistical pseudo-intellectual in the later seasons. In the first three seasons, she was a lot more grounded with only a few "Peggy" moments.
3. Dale Gribble knows about John Redcorn and has the entire time, but intentionally feigns total ignorance since he loves Joseph and Nancy too much to rock the boat. He's also well aware that while John Redcorn is Joseph's father, he's Joseph's real dad.
4. Bill suffers from a lot of PTSD related to both his abusive childhood and the abusive marriage to Lenore. This is part of why he crashed and burned as badly as he did. He may have some sort of underlying condition that exacerbated it.
5. Boomhauer is a Texas Ranger and his mentions of being on Workman's Comp in the early seasons was a cover story. More specifically, Dale is one of his confidential informants because he trusts Boomhauer and wants to keep certain unsavory figures away from the Gun Club. This may have been part of why Mad Dog went to prison.
6. Relating to the above, Boomhauer was the one who actually called in the Texas Rangers when Debbie died but Peggy took the credit because she's a fan of Walker. Because he's a close friend of the potential suspects, he can't work on the case.
I deserve all the puzzle pieces for this one, but it's all just for fun anyway.
