King of the Hill is one of those adult animated classics that is really built for rewatches, and that is especially true of its very few Thanksgiving inspired episodes. It’s a rare feat for a TV series to have a Thanksgiving Day special, and even rarer for an animated series to do so. For whatever reason, adult animated series outside of Bob’s Burgers have largely avoided doing annual send ups to the food eating holiday. But in the case of shows like King of the Hill, when a Thanksgiving episode is done it’s usually knocked well out of the park.
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King of the Hill has only had a handful of Thanksgiving episodes over the course of its 13 season run, and each of them was distinct in their own way. They rarely focused on just the Thanksgiving holiday itself, and often dove into chaos before their respective ends. But the best in this regard is “Happy Hank’s Giving” from Season 4. This episode had all of the best elements of King of the Hill and distilled into a tiring airport story that really pushed Hank to his mental limits. But even with all of that, it was still a happy Thanksgiving for all.
What Makes This King of the Hill’s Thanksgiving Episode the Best?
King of the Hill has really only had four episodes adjacent to the Thanksgiving holiday, and fewer of them have been explicitly about celebrating it. There are episodes such as Season 3’s “Nine Pretty Darn Angry Men” that is more focused on the fallout between Hank and his father following a Thanksgiving dinner, and is set more on the Black Friday after as Hank is trying to convince the rest of the men within a focus group that a fancy looking lawnmower is actually quite dangerous and unruly.
There’s “Spin the Choice” from Season 5, which is set on the day itself and sees John Redcorn trying to instill the real meaning of the suffering behind the holiday to Joseph…only for Bobby to be influenced instead. It’s got a hilarious Peggy story in the background as she makes everyone play her made up game, and it’s a great showcase for John Redcorn, but it’s not involving of the entire cast that we’ll see in the best King of the Hill Thanksgiving story.
That’s also the same case for “Goodbye, Normal Jeans” from Season 7. Though this one teases a Thanksgiving dinner, it all falls apart through the weeks before as Peggy grows jealous of how well Bobby is doing in Home Economics class. He’s doing well in cleaning and cooking, and it’s to the point where even Hank praises how far he’s come. But once again, it’s a great story for the Hill family but does not have anything to do from the rest of the cast like the best episodes of the series.
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Season 4’s “Happy Hank’s Giving” combines the entire cast in the airport in various little vignettes, and that’s what makes it the best of these Thanksgiving episodes overall. The Hill Family is attempt to head to Peggy’s mother’s house for the holiday, but are caught in the airport much longer than they expected due to a mix of bad luck and bad weather. It turns out other members of the cast also had their travel plans delayed, so we get to see how each of them reacts to the situation,
Hank tries his best to be optimistic even when everything else is against him, and never really loses his being a good person in the process. There’s a moment where he almost gives in to selfishness when trying to board an already packed shuttle to a nearby hotel, but instead gives it to another family that he had lied to before. What had kept him going was the promise of turkey (cooked with propane), and even that’s eventually taken away when it’s blown up after being mistaken for a bomb. It leads to one of the most hilarious moments in the series overall as Hank screams that it’s a turkey before helplessly watching it explode.
But as the episode comes to an end, every character gets together in the airport as they’ve all been stranded there. Worse for wear, they wrangle up whatever food they were able to gather and sit together to enjoy Thanksgiving as best as they can. It’s a heartwarming ending that King of the Hill is just so great at, and it’s a perfect encapsulation of what makes the food holiday worth celebrating too. Because while some years might lead to fights among your family, the best ones are when people are able to just gather together and enjoy each other’s company no matter how terrible life has been up to that point.
If that’s the vibe you’re looking for, there’s no better King of the Hill episode to watch this Thanksgiving.
