King of the Hill may never have matched the Emmy count of The Simpsons, but it was hardy enough to last twelve years and survive threats of cancellation until, after 253 produced episodes, the Mike Judge animated series ends this Sunday to make room for the Family Guy spin-off series The Cleveland Show. Though its absence will leave us with a profound paucity of bored cartoon characters slowly lifting beer to their mouths, at least it's amassed enough memorable footage to tide us over until Judge sucks it up and mounts Beavis and Butthead Do America as a stage musical. (Here's hoping.) In memoriam, KOTH's greatest achievement after the jump.
King of the Hill did holiday episodes better than any show since Roseanne, and the episode when a Y2K-fearing Hank buys Bobby toilet paper for Christmas is a beautiful entry in the Clark Griswold Traumatizing Yuletide playbook. While that episode, unfortunately, yielded no YouTube hits, here's another example that shows how much KOTH holiday episodes deserved an Emmy over anything involving, say, four-time Emmy-winner Garfield the Cat. Admittedly, Lorenzo Music has a sultry speaking voice, but is it really four times more lovable than the one-time-winning Hill? Our resentment burns like overcooked lasagna.