Yes, it's two months late, but I'd like to pay my respects to the recently departed show King of the Hill, animation legend Mike Judge's ode to a man with the strictest adherence to a bygone set of values in today's strange, affected modern world.

Truly, Hank Hill is one of the most morally rigid and complex characters on television reflective of the American experience.  He leads a cast of fully realized characters, in a scrupulously created world, one that was consistent, nuanced, and continuatively complex from Day One.  Be it Joseph Gribble's paternity, Buck Strickland's debauchery, or Peggy's big feet, it was there from the beginning and fully explored throughout the show's run.

The characters were rich, and the culture clashes fantastically rendered.  Arlen, Texas became as real as any town, and while a kind of willing provincialism cast a cultural torpor on Hank and his brethren, the show still managed to convey the goodness and broadness in the American heartland often mistaken for closemindedness and simplicity.  The show gently mocked attitudes left and right, and became a fantastic guidepoint to mid-American values ranging across the Clinton and Bush years.  In years to come, I predict the show will find itself a cultural time capsule.

Anyway, as we say goodbye to Hank, Peggy, Bobby, Luanne, Boomhauer, Bill, Dale, Kahn, and the rest, let's take one more moment to swig some Alamo...

Yes, it's been almost a year since the historic American Presidential Election of 2008, but this is still awesome!

Who says life doesn't imitate art (or animation)?

And of course, who can forget The Simpsons taking on the (not so) epic 1996 fight to lead the free world?