The end of January marked the 21st anniversary of the animated television series “King of the Hill.” Written by Greg Daniels and Mike Judge, the show followed the Hank Hill family through their daily lives in a small town in Texas.
The show remains popular on YouTube with some of the better episodes racking up thousands of views.
In real life, I’ve met people like Hank Hill, a down-home type who’d rather sell propane than work on Wall Street, Dale Gribble, who believes every historical event has a conspiracy theory attached to it, and the naïve yet loveable son of Hank and Peggy, Bobby Hill.
I’ve been a fan of animated cartoons since I was a kid. I remember getting up early on Saturday mornings to watch our favorites – Southern sheriff “Huckleberry Hound” and the dim-witted cavemen Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble.
One cartoon pre-dates most of the others – Popeye. Some of his cartoons go back to the mid-1930s, and the backgrounds and animation are still as richly detailed as when they were drawn. The brutal fighting and the cavalier way women are treated make us cringe, but back then, Popeye made me actually consider eating spinach.
When I got a little older, I loved watching the “Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.” Witty and funny, Rocket J. Squirrel was the smart one and Bullwinkle his dull-witted yet loveable sidekick.
The segment “Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat” never got old. We knew Bullwinkle would never pull a rabbit out of that hat, but we could always hope.
It wasn’t until I was a bit older that I came to value Mr. Peabody’s dry wit and his escapes through history with young Sherman.
I enjoyed the “Fractured Fairy Tales” segments on the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, but I appreciate them so much more now that I’m older.
As told by the iconic voice of Edward Everett Horton, the fairy tales never turned out the way they did in the fairy-tale books. The wolf wasn’t big and bad and Red Riding Hood wasn’t an innocent little girl skipping through the forest.
My sadistic side loved “Tom and Jerry.” The mouse always got away with pulling the wool over the cat’s eyes, but Tom never stopped trying to catch Jerry. What’s amazing is the creators, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, wrote these entertaining shorts without any dialogue.
The backgrounds and sets are richly drawn, the colors deep and gorgeous, and the musical score ranges from classical music to violins, flutes and bassoons written especially for the cartoon. There’s some disturbing racial stereotypes in some of the cartoons, but the action always centers on Tom and Jerry.
But of all the cartoons, I’ll always take time to watch Bugs Bunny. Voiced by the multi-talented Mel Blanc, that rabbit is smart, witty and always gets the last laugh, especially over Daffy Duck. My all-time favorite skit is the one between Bugs and Daffy when it’s rabbit season vs. duck season. If you’ve never seen the episode, jump onto YouTube, take a look and make sure you watch to the end when Bugs turns rabbit season into goat season, pigeon season and dirty skunk season.
Bugs will lead you to another animated cartoon with no talking, only beautiful music – the never ending battle between Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, with a little help from the Acme Company. That in turn, will lead you to two of my personal favorites in the Bugs Bunny catalog, the loud-mouthed Foghorn Leghorn and the volcanic Yosemite Sam.
Whether it’s laughing at Bugs or agreeing with Hank Hill, nothing beats watching these richly drawn, funny and timeless characters. So do yourself a favor – hop on over to YouTube and take a stroll down Loony Tunes Lane.
That’s all folks.
This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.