2025 saw the return of "King of the Hill" on Hulu, and "South Park" taking off the gloves and making headlines. We also got a pretty decent new season of "Futurama" that seems to have totally flown under the radar. I thought I'd take a post to talk about all three.
"King of the Hill" returns after a sixteen year break, and there have been some major changes. The characters have all aged in real time, so Hank (Mike Judge) and Peggy (Kathy Najimy) are now retirees and Bobby (Pamela Adlon) is twenty-one and running a Japanese-German fusion restaurant. On top of that, the Hills have been living in Saudi Arabia for over a decade for Hank's work, and are just now returning to a vastly changed Arlen, Texas. This means that the dynamics of the show have changed, with the generational divide now as prominent as the cultural one. And yes, the cultural divide is still in play. There's a whole episode where Hank has an existential crisis over the fact that he enjoys soccer.
The show doesn't look quite the same - the switch to digital has taken some of the hand-drawn imperfections out of the animation, similar to "The Simpsons." It also doesn't sound quite the same, with several recasts and some of the actors having noticeably aged. Johnny Hardwick passed away after voicing Dale for some of the episodes, so Toby Huss fills in for the rest. However, the important parts are still there. World-weary Hank has to deal with plenty of new aggravations about modern life while adjusting to retirement. Peggy continues to mangle foreign languages and struggles with keeping her inner busybody in check. Bobby is doing great, but still has to deal with his childhood bully and is still nursing a crush on Connie (Lauren Tom), who is now a university student.
"South Park" has been going strong for over twenty years now, despite taking a few years off here and there. Not much has changed since the late 2000s, when I was last regularly watching, as far as I can tell. However, after a 2024 that only offered the "End of Obesity" special, we got a full season in 2025, and Trey Parker and Matt Stone are not pulling their punches. After years of only indirect criticisms and fairly mild lampooning of Donald Trump, the season premiere came out swinging. There was no mistaking that MAGA and the Trump administration were the primary targets, with Trump himself in a relationship with Satan, and JD Vance rejiggered into Tattoo from "Fantasy Island." There is also gratuitous nudity, deepfaking, and a talking penis. Subsequent episodes tackle ICE, Charlie Kirk, Labubus, Brendan Carr, Peter Thiel, and Benjamin Netanyahu.
I appreciate that Trey Parker and Matt Stone are fighting the good fight while much of the news media feels like it's in retreat, but aside from the shock value I didn't get much out of these episodes. "South Park" and its edgelord tactics were never really to my tastes, and I was only ever a regular viewer for a few seasons when I was pretty much watching Comedy Central 24/7. I watched this newest batch of episodes to keep up with the discourse, and "South Park" is pretty much the same as it always was, just with updated targets. The method of mockery hasn't changed, and the characters haven't evolved at all. The episodes with Satan in a relationship with Trump recycle some of the same jokes from the episodes with Satan and Saddam Hussein. And I get that that's the point, but it still feels old hat.
Finally, I think it's worth noting that "Futurama" just wrapped up its second season on Hulu, and proved that it's still the nerdiest cartoon currently running. Sure, "Rick and Morty" may have taken the animated science-fiction sitcom to new and disturbing places, but "Futurama" devoted an entire episode, "The Numberland Gap," to incredibly geeky math jokes. It even brought Georg Cantor along for the ride. There have been a few minor developments in the "Futurama" status quo - Amy (Lauren Tom) and Kif (Maurice LaMarche) are now raising three kids, and Fry (Billy West) and Leela (Katey Sagal) are in a long term relationship, but otherwise the Planet Express gang seems to be doing well. There were some very mediocre seasons over the years, since "Futurama" has been bouncing between platforms and revived multiple times, but this year was one of the good ones.
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