15 Trivia Tidbits About Bobby Hill
Robert Jeffrey “Bobby” Hill from King of the Hill is widely ranked as one of the best cartoon child characters in existence. Rightly so, because this often passive yet surprisingly confident little boy (for now) has such an endearing authenticity about him. The only child of the Hills can be wickedly funny one moment and soul-crushingly sweet the next; Bobby will both mock and love the shit out of his propane-selling dad.
Here are some trivia tidbits about the boy who ain’t right, aspires to become a prop comedian and once worried about being a slut…
Click right here to get the best of Cracked sent to your inbox.
He Has Been Discussed in a Psychology Book
In their book, Abnormal Child Psychology, two psychologists wrote about the misconception that eating sugar can lead to a child developing ADD/ADHD. They mention the episode “Peggy’s Turtle Song,” where Bobby gets misdiagnosed with ADD by the school nurse after eating three bowls of cereal topped with all the sugar for breakfast.
Pamela Adlon Is the Only Voice Artist of the Show Who Has Won an Emmy
The actor behind Bobby won an Emmy for the episode “Bobby Goes Nuts,” making her the only artist from the show who’s nabbed the coveted award. It’s also the episode where Bobby yells the famed line, “That’s my purse! I don’t know you!”
He Is a Meme God
Ranking high as one of the most memeable kid characters in animation history, Bobby has been splattered across the internet thanks to all the fun action and dialogue he’s had over the years. There is, of course, the classic “That’s my purse!” meme:
There’s also the hilarious “I’m your little candy man” one:
And then there are the countless memes of Bobby just reacting to some random thing that could fit almost any situation:
He Has a Cameo in ‘Idiocracy’
Both Bobby and his dad can be spotted in Mike Judge’s 2006 sci-fi comedy Idiocracy, at the bottom of Clevon’s family tree. Clevon, of course, is the man with an IQ of 84 who can’t stop making babies at the beginning of the movie.
The Fan Theory That Suggests Hank Hill Isn’t Bobby’s Biological Father
The folks at Ranker wrote a piece laying out the reasons why, according to fans, Bobby isn’t Hank’s biological son. First, there’s apparently the fact that Hank himself has mentioned his “narrow urethra,” and the doctor later tells him he’s got a low sperm count. Next is how Bobby looks more like Bill than Hank (and Bill has admitted to sleeping with Peggy once). Bill also passes on a family recipe to Bobby in “Blood and Sauce,” and he annoys the living daylights out of Peggy even though he’s a pretty decent fella.
On top of that, fans have suggested that Dale’s ignorance over John Redcorn being the very obvious father of Dale’s son, Joseph, is a deliberate joke by the creators to make us laugh at that whole scenario — all the while missing the same thing that’s going on between Bill and the Hills.
He Has Been Described as the ‘Anti-Bart’
In the book People of the Century, Bart Simpson’s influence on pop culture is discussed at length. However, Bobby’s significance gets mentioned as well because Bobby is, in many ways, the opposite of Bart, albeit just as influential.
Adlon Was Pregnant in a Lot of Bobby’s Scenes
Adlon told Good Morning America that she had all three of her daughters while filming the series and said she was pretty sure she was pregnant when she voiced the scene below:
You Can Find His Double Butter Cookies Recipe Online
As the cooking show Binging with Babish states, “We need only listen to the wisdom of Lama Sanglug” when it comes to making the perfect, buttery chocolate chip cookies. Lama Sanglug’s secret? Lots of butter.
He Is a Legend in Hong Kong
In 2022, the Kkplus toy store in Hong Kong opened a King of the Hill pop-up with Bobby at the center of it all. The exhibit featured a life-size model of Bobby, shoutouts to the boy’s famous memes and a complete replica of his room, with even his baseball bat set in the corner.
Kkplus
Adlon Had to Do Her Audition with Her Face Hidden
The actress said that when she went in to audition for the voice of the young and innocent Bobby, co-creator Greg Daniels asked her to turn around because, according to him, her face would’ve been too distracting. In another interview, she explained that the creators only wanted to look at images of Bobby while they listened to her read the part and that none of the auditions were recorded on tape.
The ‘King of the Hill’ Writer Who Related to Bobby
Canadian screenwriter Norm Hiscock (Trailer Park Boys, The Kids in the Hall, Parks and Recreation) wrote 11 episodes of King of the Hill, including the one where Bobby yells about purses. In an oral history, Hiscock said that he liked telling stories about Hank and Bobby’s relationship because he could relate to the sweet kid. “Bobby was a sensitive boy who was open to things, whereas Hank was more close-minded, so Bobby would drive him crazy,” Hiscock explained. “That, for me, was the heart of King of the Hill, and I could certainly relate to that. My dad had his philosophy on living, and my philosophy was not his. So if I said something, it sounded like crazy talk. Bobby was the same; he was this wild card that Hank didn’t really understand.”
He Once Appeared on ‘The Tonight Show’
Or at least, his voice did. When Adlon went on Jimmy Fallon’s show, both she and Bobby were welcomed. It immediately prompted her to go into Bobby’s voice as if he was actually there, sitting on the couch.
The Bobby Hill Interview in ‘Fox Kids’ Magazine
One Redditor found and shared a screenshot from an old interview in a 1999 issue of Fox Kids magazine in which Bobby answered some questions for their readers. The quirky Q & A goes like this:
Fox Kids: What’s your favorite after-school snack?
Bobby: I’ve been known to eat a fruit pie. But let’s not pigeonhole it to just after school.
Fox Kids: Hot lunch of brown-bag it?
Bobby: It is not an either-or situation. I like to eat the brown bag lunch while the hot lunch cools off.
Fox Kids: Do you have a nickname at school?
Bobby: Porkpockets. But I try not to answer it.
Fox Kids: What’s your favorite class?
Bobby: Is lunch a class?
Why Adlon’s Voice Works
As the voice artist once told NPR, it all had to do with the fact that Bobby never hits full puberty. “The thing about women playing boys is that we’re not going to age, and we’re not going to go through puberty in the middle of a long-running series,” Adlon explained. “I used to take over for a lot of boys whose voices would crack and change. My voice is on the lower resonance scale, so I just naturally go into the boy mold.”
Viewers would actually get to see what Adlon describes play out with the character of Joseph, as Brittany Murphy voiced him pre-puberty and Breckin Meyer took over the role post-voice cracking.
The Revival Will Likely See Bobby All Grown Up
With Hulu set on reviving the show, actor Stephen Root (Bill) told Screen Rant that the new season will see a time jump and that our favorite Texan boy will be all grown up. Further details aren’t out yet, but here’s hoping that we’ll get to see more of Bobby’s killer dance moves, as well as the delightful return of Tartuffe, the Spry Wonder Dog.
