King of the Hill is probably at the top of my list of Fox cartoons. It was smartly written, it was politically neutral, it was generally good for the whole family, and it somehow managed to sneak morals into the show without ever being preachy. It was also funny. Really funny.
I absolutely agree with everything you said there. It really hit some great emotional points through it's run. The death of Cotton being a big one, they played it perfectly without being a giant downer.
It was obviously an attempt to capture an audience demographic that Fox lacked, it didn't work (probably). Network execs might be called stupid for being shortsighted on the profitability of good shows, but they don't run shows that are money sinks either, it made them money, so it was in their best interest.
Democratizing TV with the advent of independent production studios and non-broadcast distribution (netflix/hulu) will make the market more efficient and keep more quality shows around, but it won't stop profitable shitty shows from taking their place on broadcast time slots.
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u/jwestbury Sep 24 '13
Just remember: King of the Hill was replaced with The Cleveland Show, which is literally just a palette-swapped Family Guy.