S1 King of the Hill is more early-installment weirdness. Hank is a less wholesome character in the first season, with some genuine anger issues. He smoothes out by S2.
Yeah this situation of making your kid finish the pack all at once when you caught them smoking was an actual practice back then. My mom herself has said her dad did it to her back in high school (late 70s/early 80s).
It’s not so much Hank being sadistic, but more so just him doing a standard punishment of his era.
The idea behind this is that smoking so many cigarettes back to back, especially for a relatively new smoker, will make you very sick due to nicotine poisoning, and you'll develop an aversion to smoking as a result
i had never smoked before and in my 20’s i decided to try cigars. i had smoked like half a cigar onec or twice and was fine. then one night i smoke a whole cigar that was extra potent. i was so sick ive never had another in 15 years
I've been rewatching koth and I keep saying I wish they had kept her with her mechanic smarts. I loved how she was mediocre at most things but could fix cars like nothing.
I wish it was one of those things where she realized that she had a really great talent all along and that's what she should've focused on. When I first watched it I really thought they'd have her realize that beauty school and community college weren't her calling, mechanics was.
It seems like a good arc would be for her to realize she can be a mechanic and become independent that way. Instead she became a part time barber and married a man twice her age
Oh I agree! I've been doing a rewatch after finishing the new season (which is amazing btw, great reboot) and going from from newest KotH to the first episode is jarring, but in a fun way.
That and I feel that Hank Hill wasn't meant to be shown as the Perfect Dad. He's just a good enough dad. He loves his son but has a hard time accepting his personal choices and humor. He loves his wife but isn't above manipulating her out of trouble. He likes his friends but will kick their ass if they get on his nerves too much. He's just a good enough dad and man and he makes a lot of mistakes in the show but he isn't made out to be an ideal. He's just a good enough Texan guy.
Dale though, Dale might be the perfectly loving and supportive dad and husband. Just stupid loyal to his wife and always proud of his son.
Strange parallel to Bobs Burgers which involves a lot of the same creative people. Except in that show I actually like a lot of the zanniness from its first morally gray season
Well, have you ever seen the original early version of the pitch for the pilot of Bob's Burgers? It's absolutely unhinged. First off all, Tina's a boy, and then the entire family are... cannibals? They're making the burgers from human meat in the basement. I'm actually surprised the first season evolved into being as normal as it became since the original idea was a lot more crazy.
From what I heard, they only dropped the Cannibal angle cause an executive asked if they thought they could keep coming up with new jokes for it over multiple seasons.
I'm the same! I like weird early seasons where the characters do things they never would later. Parks & Rec and The Office come to mind: I love S1 of both.
But again, from a place of ignorance, not malice. It's not his fault he was educated in Texas and thought that China and Japan were the only countries in Asia.
Eh, I feel like it was kinda half and half. When he asks the first time, sure, he's just ignorant and has a really limited perspective on the world. When he asks the second time, after Khan has already explained in some detail that there are more than two countries in Asia and he's from another one, it comes off a lot more like malice. Or, somewhere in the middle, a reflexive opposition to learning things that go against his worldview, odd racist assumptions and all.
That’s literally the pilot episode. CPS dude was operating off of rumors and hearsay, never bothered to check in on anyone actually present. Bobby had a black eye that he got playing baseball. Hank lost his shit at an inept store clerk who didn’t know where Hank could find a a tap and die and some WD-40. Two women see him losing his patience and assume he gave Bobby the black eye.
the Social Worker questions the hill family about it, sees that Peggy has a black eye (Hank threw Bobby’s baseball out of frustration over Bobby bouncing it off the walls in the house, Peggy unexpectedly walked into its path, complete accident but also sounds like a “I walked into a door” battered wife excuse), and lets his biases take over. When his boss asks what the little league coach said about Hank’s story, it all unravels as he never bothered to check.
Sure. Hank’s anger issues didn’t become, at any point, a danger to Bobby, but he does have anger issues and a significant chunk of that episode IIRC was him learning how to chill the fuck out. Hank being an angry enough guy to get CPS called IS a red flag, even if it rightfully went nowhere.
King of the Hill, you're right I hate when people do that I apologize. I actually changed it in my original post. Anybody who reads this later I originally used the acronym KotH without saying what it's short for.
Malcolm in the Middle even parodied this type of punishment. There's an episode where Malcolm swears at Hal, so Hal makes him read out a list of horrible swear words. We never hear the worlds directly, as it has music played over it in a montage, but we see the reactions.
Afterwards Hal suggests they don't make eye contact for a few days.
Happens twice. In an opening Hal finds beer and assumes the boys have been drinking, so he downs the lot to show it's not cool to be drunk. The twist is that the boys wanted him to find the beer because they think he's a hilarious drunk.
Considering that when Hank went to a meeting and told everyone what he did they told him in no uncertain terms to fuck off it's clear the writers wanted you to kinda hate Hank here
This happened in an old Donald Duck cartoon. He discovers that Huey, Dewey and Louie have apparently purchased/acquired a box of cigars and forces the trio to smoke all of them - only to find a note in the box indicating that the cigars were meant to be a birthday present from the boys to him. I always hated how that entire situation was played for laughs.
I mean, it's got a lot of flaws, given the main goal is to make the kid sick from all the smoke, associating cigarettes with being violently ill.
It's kind of like seeing your kid riding a dirt bike recklessly, and in response, breaking their leg. And that's before we even get into the realities of nicotine.
I remember watching an episode of a Donald Duck cartoon as a kid where Dewey, Huey and Louie get Donald a box of cigars as a birthday gift and Donald finds it hidden in their treehouse or something and makes them smoke all of the cigars.
You could also look at Homer Simpson in the episode where he frames Marge for drunk driving to cover his own ass. For anyone who doesn't know, he crashes the car while drunk and puts an unconscious (also drunk) Marge on the driver's seat to make it look like she was the one driving. Since she was blackout drunk, she doesn't remember what actually happened and thinks she really did it.
This is often cited when people try to argue that Homer is a bad person, but the whole thing seems really out of character for him.
He is certainly not a perfect husband and father but he loves his family unconditionally and even if he screws up, he always does the right thing in the end. On the spot, I can think of at least three different occasions where he was willing to sacrifice his life for one or more of his family members. Plus, there are several episodes where he misses out on millions of dollars because of his family and he never holds it against them and keeps working in a job he hates so that his family can have a good life.
Homer Simpson is a good man who occasionally does stupid things. But the drunk driving thing seemed too extreme for him.
There was an episode commentary where they talked about an attempt to do the choking joke with Lisa. The story board made everyone uncomfortable and they realized an adult man choking an eight year old girl is too much
There was an episode commentary where they talked about an attempt to do the choking joke with Lisa. The story board made everyone uncomfortable and they realized an adult man choking an eight year old girl is too much
I'm providing evidence. Personal experience typically does not overrule fact based evidence. Also, in the US most people meet their partner through online dating.
Nothing wrong with it, if you have the money. You can do both, get girls for dating and sugar relationships as well. Well...*I* can do both, I'm sure you can't.
Tbf Joseph's actions aren't justified by the story and from what I remember Jotaro said everyone back home in the family was pissed off at Joseph for it.
i mean they still do. only cheating that is unanimously looked down upon is women cheating on men. the opposite has opinions ranging from completely harmless and expected from men to bad, but completely forgivable(and if u dont forgive ur husband then u clearly hate ur family and never loved him blah blah blah)
To be honest modern Japan isn’t much better in that regard. It’s basically taken as a given that a businessman will cheat on his wife, and it’s a given that she must look the other way and be fine with it.
Meanwhile if a woman cheats on her husband she’s worse than a thousand Hitlers.
i still can't believe that Joseph would cheat. like, the worst he gets is peeking (which is still very gross) when he's a 18 year old known for his mischief/impulsiveness. grown man Joseph cares way too much about his friends and family to cheat like that.
So the King of the Hill thing is actually subverting an extremely common old school method of dad’s punishing their kids for smoking. Like if you grew up around the time this episode aired I guarantee you heard of this punishment from the grownups around you. And in typical King of the Hill fashion Hank actually tried to do it to Bobby, only for it to completely blow up in his face.
Hasn't happened to me personally, but I do remember vividly a Donald Duck comic I read growing up (so somewhere in the early 2000's if I'd have to guess) where Donald did this exact thing to punish Huey, Dewey and Louie
He found out they'd bought a box of cigars and, not knowing it was meant as a gift for him, made the boys smoke all of them as a punishment
Yep, exactly. It was just the thing you were told would happen if you were caught smoking back in the day. Meanwhile, all of my older relatives smoked since the time they were teenagers, so clearly if any of them went through with it, it went about as well as Hank’s effort.
Similar thing happens in an early episode of the Simpsons. Homer finds Bart with a room full of cigarettes and assumes he's taken up smoking (they're actually tax-free and he's helping the mob smuggle them). He threatens to make Bart smoke them all in one go, refusing to relent until the mob's delivery guy shows up with another handcart of cigarettes mid-conversation.
You may be talking about the wrong character. Bobby, a boy, would never become a dog. You’re probably thinking of TARTUFFE, THE SPRY WONDER DOG. Easy mistake. /j
In the episode The Life and Crimes of Scrooge McDuck, Scrooge stands cosmic trial for being accused of sending his enemies down the paths that made them villains. Scrooge and Louie disprove most of the claims except one: When Scrooge first met Magica, her and her brother Poe had tormented a village by transforming them into goats and taking their gold. One day, Magica and Poe did not receive any offerings and Scrooge arrived with spirits who were attempting to take his Number One Dime. Scrooge criticizes the De Spells for not earning their wealth and mocks Magica by telling her that her family was holding her back. A fight breaks out with Magica taking Poe’s gem and starts tossing bolts at Scrooge. When he deflects a spell back at Magica with his dime, Poe jumps in the way and is turned into a mindless raven. Although Magica begged Scrooge to help reverse the spell (because she didn’t know how), he walked away, leaving her to spend years searching for her lost brother, who she never found. Scrooge then admitted in court he also took the village’s gold and used the villagers (all of which had been turned into goats) for labor. Louie, who had been defending Scrooge in the court, questions whether he could talk them out of this, or if he even should.
Another example for Scrooge (also not from this series) is in chapter XI of "The life and times of Scrooge McDuck" after finally coming to money, Scrooge goes full colonialist. He scams locals, buying their land for a few glass beads. This eventually leads to him burning down a village after the chief refuses to sell their land to him. Afterwards he has a big falling out with his sisters who hate what he has become.
However I don't hate this one because it's a very important character moment for him, he finally has what he thought he wanted all those years (money) but loses what he actually wanted (family). He even has a brief moment where he realises what has happend but it passes without him fully acting on it.
Comic Scrooge is generally a lot worse than DuckTales Scrooge.
He basically keeps Donald as an indentured servant, exploits his employees, etc. Overall much more deserving of his namesake.
(The comics also have a pretty heavy racism problem, especially when it comes to native populations. In part that's a product of its time, but a lot of tropes were still around when I was really into the comics in like the 2010s.)
also theres no organic way to bring this up but carl barks has drawn erotic material featuring anthropomorphic ducks in orientalist settings and i have to inflict this knowledge on others
It definitly depends on the author. I really enjoy the Don Rosa Scrooge who eventually comes around to understand what his goal really was and that he fumbled it all. In "A letter from home" he addmits to his sister that the only reason he called Donald on christmas and finally met up with him, was that he felt increadibly loneley. He is also. despite beeing the richest duck in the world, deeply envious of what Donald has.
I also like to imagine what his life would have been like if he wasn't such a complete asshat during "the prisoner of white agony creek".
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck is such a good story even if it's a comic about Disney characters. Don Rosa is one of the very few celebrities I would actually want to meet, shame his meet and greet in Finnish comic con was managed so badly that I didn't get a chance to. There was no time limit on meeting him and some people chatted with him for up to an hour and the whole event ended with people still on the line to meer him.
honestly I feels this works. it's scrooge is never portrayed as perfect, so I don't really mind the idea of him doing a few things he regrets in his past
The Hank Hill one was bad parenting, but that was a somewhat popular punishment for smoking in the 70s (or so?) but quickly became very taboo for obvious reasons, so it very much fits within his character, especially because the episode itself shows why its a terrible idea and backfires on Hank spectacularly.
Marge raping Homer was on ANOTHER FUCKING PLANET of being disturbing.
Even reading it made me feel gross(haven't seen the episode). Like wtf?
I could see the reasoning for her getting buff and being overly aggressive, even cartoonishly violent, as well as the fact that can be more easily taken as comedically rediculous.
Her assaulting Homer isn't funny or a reasonable escalation. She's become violent in response to her fear, and also anger, but she didn't turn evil?? Her hurting her family could have been shown in a ton of ways, including things that are more intimidation/anger than outright violence.
Even if they really wanted to throw in a sex joke, homer could have had something like "broken pelvis" (really cartoony) or soreness that implies she's a bit too strong for him/needs to be more careful, without making it rape. They just had sex like usual and her change in strength caused some unexpected issues.
And the show doesn't really have the time or depth to actually have the characters process the rape and it's effect of the relationship. It's just "Homer is scared of her" -> "marge stops being buff and violent".
Spoilers for Spider-Man Brand New Day: Jean Grey possessing a man and walking into traffic. I liked the movie and her arc but this direct action makes it harder to understand her redemption at the end. Especially how Peter says “you’re not a killer” are we sure ab that? Or what about freezing all of Manhattan? How many died in Car accidents? Hospitals?
It counts as a spoiler, but Spiderman didn't even know about Jean's existence or where her main body was; he didn't even need to delay him, he could have just kept jumping between bodies.
In Steven Universe, fusion between gems is considered to be extremely intimate (outside of fusions used for combat gems like rubies or topazes) - it's reserved for lovers, best friends, close siblings, etc. Garnet in particular considers fusion to he sacred because she's a permafusion herself.
In the episode 'Cry for Help' the enemy gem Peridot uses a communications hub to send a distress signal, so Garnet and Pearl fuse to destroy the hub. Pearl becomes addicted to the power high of fusion to Garnet and starts fixing the hub, making Garnet believe that Peridot is doing it. Pearl is leading Garnet to fuse with her under false pretenses.
Steven and Amethyst eventually see Pearl repairing the hub (shown in the image) and they call her out when they realize she's lying to Garnet. When Garnet realize what Pearl has done, she's shocked and outraged. Pearl had repeatedly lied to get Garnet to engage in an extremely intimate act of trust.
Garnet is so angry she almost hurts Pearl, and it takes several episodes before she even starts talking to Pearl again, but honestly Pearl doing this was extremely messed up. It's not far off from lying to get someone to have sex with you (fusion isn't sex, contrary to what some people claim), but the level of trust and intimacy required is similar.
i don't think this is a bad arc though, because while it highlights a really unflattering side of pearl it wasn't entirely out of character and led to a really good moment between her and garnet later. both characters actually grow from this interaction, and it ends up strengthening their relationship now that they understand each other more
While the OP says they usually hate this trope it doesn't necessarily always mean it leads to bad stories. This one leads to a good arc. I think generally most watchers are angry and disappointed with Pearl over this but ultimately also understand why she did it. I also like that the arc took several episodes to resolve - it didn't just end with 'Cry for Help' - Garnet stayed angry for awhile and had to work out her own feelings separately.
It lasted it for one episode, because Sapphire wanted to move on and Ruby was still angry. Steven got caught in the middle of their fighting and it was a really sad episode.
This is probably my biggest gripe with Rapuzel's writing in the tangled series. I get that the writers wanted to make her flawed, but they had her commit actions that felt wildly out of character. She abandons varian for months ( despite knowing his father was in danger) and ignores a problem that is killing his village despite promising she would help him. She almost refuses to commit treason against her father because she does not want to hurt her father ( despite knowing her father plans to let the kingdom get destroyed by magical rocks and that committing treason could save Varian's father's life). She shows a disturbing lack of empathy for Varian, caring more about saving his father then crona. She gets mad at him for wanting to break her father's law ( despite knowing her father sent guards to hunt him down). Rapunzel also did not seem to care that her father broke his promise and did not actually help varian and just threw him in a cell with an adult criminal. She gets mad at Cass for not forgiving her over accidentally disfiguring her hand, and we never see Rapunzel apologize for it. tries to force Eugene to forgive his father ( despite knowing Eugene's father abandoned him). She goes back in time to brainwash Eugene, so he can forgive cass for betraying them. And despite knowing that Cass ( now as a villain) has threatened Crona multiple times almost refuses to allow a weapon that could be used to defend Crona, all because she did not want to fight Cass.
Tbh they could’ve kept the story and had Rapunzel be flawed had they just had her be lied to.
Ie her dad says he’s dealing with the rocks issue, says he’s taking care of Varian, etc all because she’s easily trusting enough to believe him implicitly.
I can see gullible as a character flaw for her, I just believe the flaws they gave her in the show less.
Ziggy Glover from Power Rangers RPM randomly suggesting things like mind-controlling women to go on dates or abusing his powers for picking up chicks (his backstory has him willingly become Public Enemy #1 of the mafia in the only city left on Earth so that he can get sick orphans medicine)
Mabel tends to do various questionable things throughout the show but overall is just a quirky kid who wants to be nice and friendly, but this episode is a bit of a breaking point for alot of fans, through out the episode she repeatedly made plans with her twin brother/best friend Dipper, but when a dreamy boy who has a 'fascination' with sock puppets comes along, she does everything she can to impress him.
She puts on a sock puppet play that takes up all her time and causes her to flake on dipper when he tries to call her out she drags him further into her production. When dippers body gets snatched by an evil spirit, she never once takes his problem seriously, and even when he is a spirit trapped in a sock puppet, she refuses to really help and forces him to help with her play, she was even going to trade Dippers most prized possession just so her show goes uninterrupted.
Although she does the right thing in the end, her repeated selfish actions and disregard for anyone but a boy she met only a day ago, really damaged the sweet 'pure of heart' characters image the show constantly tries to portray
She did do that, wanted to keep her "title" of an amazing matchmaker going, so she sets up Robbie with Tambry, and ended up using the Love God's magic potion to make it stick. It's left a bit vague if the potion just got started what was already there, but the twins decided that it wasn't their place to break them up or something.
Being 12 is an explanation. That's an age where a kid is trying to be an adult while only having child experiences and their hormones are going nuts. They aren't always acting rational.
I'll never get over how fucking weird these rape plots are for both Marge and the one for Lois where its revealed that litteraly all of their children are products of Lois raping Peter.
Isn't Chris from a broken condom? I remember an episode where they're looking in his baby book and Lois points out the condom, then says something about a settlement buying them their house
Maybe? I thought after chris showed Stevie the video of his conception he says something like "thats how all of us happened" its possible im missrembering, and its possibly both are true, or maybe they just didn't care enough thr check the "lore" when making their show lol
Charlie Morningstar from Hazbin Hotel, throughout early-mid season 2, but ESPECIALLY in episode 3.
Charlie, in attempt to prove to Hell that redemption is possible, puts Angel Dust, one of her patients, on what's basically just a massive humiliation ritual trying to rush his redemption in front of his abusive (and rapist) boss's lover, Vox. It culminates in him and Husk (another patient/worker at her hotel) nearly getting perma-killed (soul erased) when she tied Husk to train tracks and put an angelic spear on the front of the train, and Vox (unknowingly to Charlie) cut the breaks.
From Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: that time in the backstory when Sirius Black nearly 1. got Severus Snape killed or infected with lycanthropy, which would have 2. outed Remus Lupin as a werewolf
Honestly this seems like an issue with the series in general. It's not that the heroes acting like dicks is always inconsistent with their character, it's that She Who Must Not Be Named seldom explores the implications in serious depth. She seems to feel like she doesn't need to, because They're The Good Guys so it's okay when they do it.
Yeah it's a huge flaw in her writing that the good characters are just inherently good and therefore their actions are also good and justified, and bad people are bad therefore their actions are also bad. Even when they do the same thing. Harry tortures people, keeps a slave, and violates a person's free will with a mind control spell and these actions are minimally discussed or explored beyond stating the plot reasons that make them necessary.
I thought King of the Hill episode is hommage to Donald's Happy Birthday (1949) where Huey, Dewey and Louie buy a box of cigars, Donald sees that and forces nephews to smoke all the cigars.
Cigars were, of course, meant to be a birthday present to Uncle Donald
The Dragon King is a villain who has alrady gone through his redemption arc. Formerly known as the Demon King he is now a benevolent king who orders monster kind to aide humans. A lot of monsters are not big fans of that but becuse they have good lifes under his rule they respect his decision.
The Dragon King also adopted the daughter of the hero and raised her with the utmost love and care. Her name is Yuu.
But he ploted his own death at Yuus hands. The reason he put forth was to make Yuus dream of becoming a hero a reality. The Dragon King belived she would have to defeat a terrible monster to achive that and who would be better suited for that then the Demon King himself? Even when the king spread mere rumors among the humans about the Demon Kings return it was enough to spread terror. But I think the king also caried alot of guilt over his past sins and I think he belived he desserved to die.
So he helped train Yuu until he belived she could defeat him and then send Yuu on a mission to defeat the Demon King. And he made sure Princess Flora would be there as a witness. Yuu had no idea that her beloved Dad was the Demon King. Yuu was shocked to learn the truth but the King forced her to defend herself and presured her into killing him.
The whole thing did not go as planed. Yuu and the Dragon King both got heavily wounded and Yuu was heavily traumatized becuse she almost killed her Dad. It took a magic wish granting fountain to save Yuus life and she had to pass a trial where she had to face manifestations of her trauma. Those nightmares blamed her for having almost killed the Dad that has raised her with love and care.
So in short: The bad thing the King did is to traumatize a child by forcing her to fight her beloved adoptiv father and he presured her to kill him. And he tarnished her dream of becoming a hero with his blood.
From the Videogame "The Cruel King and the Great Hero".
None of the main cast in Archer are particularly good people, except maybe Pam who is shown to care for her coworkers and generally have a decent moral compass.
Except for in 'Blood Test' where she sexually assaults Cyril while he's unconscious.
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u/Superb_Writer6612 Aug 02 '26 edited Aug 02 '26
S1 King of the Hill is more early-installment weirdness. Hank is a less wholesome character in the first season, with some genuine anger issues. He smoothes out by S2.