That time King Of The Hill visited my hometown
The animated comedy (now set for a reboot on Hulu) took a rose-colored detour to Wichita Falls, Texas, in 1999

“Wichita Falls is the greatest place I’ve ever been in my life.”
A naïve Bobby Hill utters this statement during a visit to Wichita Falls, Texas, after a Dairy Queen server throws in an extra move before handing the young man his Blizzard. While King Of The Hill is a fictionalized amalgamation of a lot of small towns across the South and Southwest, including the Dallas suburb of Richardson, the show itself visits many real places throughout the state: Houston, Dallas, Corpus Christi, and, most consequently for yours truly, my podunk hometown of Wichita Falls.
With the long-running comedy officially returning to Hulu, there’s certainly no shortage of political ideologies that the writers can examine and satirize all these years later, not to mention plenty more of Texas to explore. Mike Judge and Greg Daniels’ series excels at offering insights into the people and issues of small-town living, with an exclusively North Texas feel. Honestly, any of the characters presented on King Of The Hill could be plucked from my hometown, and the show’s visit to the small city feels like a true acknowledgment of not only its existence but its place in Texas history.
For current and former residents of Wichita Falls, the episode “Hank’s Cowboy Movie,” which first aired in April 1999, feels like a time capsule that can be visited again and again. And with the municipality hardly showing up as a blip on the cultural radar, representation of the small city is hard to come by, much less one as meaty as this King Of The Hill installment.
What led Hank and Bobby Hill to my neck of the woods in 1999 was the Dallas Cowboys’ training camp, which was hosted by Wichita Falls for three unfruitful years after the populace dazzled team owner Jerry Jones with its submission tape. In “Hank’s Cowboy Movie,” the father and son take a trip to see the Cowboys do their thing in-person, checking out the local digs and fast-food joints along the way.
Not to be confused with Wichita, Kansas, Wichita Falls is a city of around 100,000 people that’s a 15-minute drive from the Oklahoma border. It’s known for its former status as an oil boomtown, building the World’s Littlest Skyscraper (long story short: we were scammed), originating a beverage called the red draw, and hosting the annual Hotter’n Hell Hundred. The eponymous falls are manmade, with the red clay soil coloring the water an unseemly brown. Quite literally, one of the city’s biggest attractions is a giant pile of dirt.
In a 1978 article published by Texas Monthly, being a “full-time resident of Wichita Falls” was named amongst the worst jobs in the state, alongside highway button layer, blast furnace tender, and chicken sexer. It’s a town where little happens, forcing teenagers to pass the time wandering around Walmart or hanging out in parking lots. This local’s in-depth tour sums it up pretty well (unfortunately, his references to the city’s widespread drug problem are not understated).