The Best Times Celebrities Came to Arlen, Texas in ‘King of the Hill’
No matter which A-lister deigned to appear on King of the Hill any given week, were any of them really bigger stars than the Billdozer? I’d like to see Snoop Dogg tie Arlen High School’s career touchdown record in his early 40s.
For a show explicitly about down-to-earth Middle Americans in a quiet corner of Texas that doesn’t usually show up on television, King of the Hill attracted an inordinate amount of super-famous guest stars during its original 13 seasons. Hank, of course, was never one to be dazzled by a celebrity, seeing as he’s been dealing with his a-hole cousin Dusty from ZZ Top as well as the family rock star’s pranks for who knows how long. But, for whatever reason, the show itself seemed to attract the most accomplished actors and musicians of the late 1990s to early 2000s to play characters distinctly unlike their celebrity selves.
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Here are the top celebrity cameos in King of the Hill history, starting with…
Snoop Dogg as Alabaster Jones
Seriously, whoever decided that the D-O-Double-G should play a white pimp who squares up against the Mack Daddy of Heimlich County in “Ho Yeah!” should have won an Emmy on the spot. I’m willing to bet that Long Beach, California builds their men with sterner stuff than the state of Oklahoma does, but even the real Snoop would be wise not to cross canes with Hank again. A swift kick in the ass ain’t nuthin’ but a G thang, either.
While she was still playing her most acclaimed role of Rachel Green on Friends, Aniston took a break from being a sophisticated fashionista and the love interest of a “doctor” to voice a nipple-ringed biker on her way to South Dakota to re-marry a man named Lumpy. In “Queasy Rider,” Aniston and Lumpy help to teach Hank and Peggy a thing or two about having the healthiest marriage on two wheels while imparting their disdain for “Rubbies” along the way. Then, barely a season later, Aniston’s real-life then-beau would make his own appearance on King of the Hill…
Funny enough, the two-time Academy Award winner is from a small city called Shawnee, Oklahoma, a fact that the Texans didn’t hold against him when he played Boomhauer’s brother in the episode “Patch Boomhauer.” Pitt’s roots probably helped him nail the unintelligible accent, and it likely explains why, in between his starring roles in mega-blockbusters like Ocean’s Eleven and Troy, Pitt took a pit stop to play the Boomhauer who married Katherine Hester, much to his brother’s dismay. Dang ol’ movie star, talkin’ bout marrying a man’s sweetheart.
The late, great Rickman’s performance as “King” Philip in “Joust Like a Woman” is funny for about a dozen different reasons, but my favorite few are that this episode aired barely a year after the first Harry Potter movie re-confirmed Rickman’s cinematic greatness, and that Rickman basically parodied his own performance as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves during his cameo. Never let it be said that Hans Gruber doesn’t know how to laugh at himself.
The level of hatred that Hank has for Celery Head is only matched by his love for Shotgun Willie, who appeared in just the fourth-ever episode of King of the Hill titled “Hank’s Got the Willies.” Not only did the country music legend sign on to appear in the series before it was a big hit, but his cameo is also the single most wholesome appearance from a celebrity in King of the Hill history as he helps Hank and Bobby find common ground and opens Hank’s eyes to who Bobby idolizes almost as much as Hank looks up to Nelson — his old man.