Long live the 'King'

I’m a New England Patriots fan, and Hank Hill is a Dallas Cowboys fan.

I’m more or less human, and Hank Hill is an animated character.

But by God, I love that man. And I am sorry to see him go.

You should be, too. When “King of the Hill’’ ends its 12-year run tomorrow with a one-hour finale at 8 p.m. on WFXT-TV (Channel 25), it will be a farewell to a particular kind of middle-age Everyman we don’t see much of anymore on television.

We’ll also be waving goodbye to a brand of character-driven whimsy that is all the more precious as the face of TV animation increasingly belongs to the mean-spirited likes of “Family Guy’’ and “South Park.’’

“King of the Hill’’ was the rare TV comedy that dared to take its own sweet time. In this, it mirrored its protagonist. Hank Hill just wanted the world to slow down, so he could catch his breath, for goodness sakes. He lived by an old-fashioned code. Really old-fashioned. “You can’t just pick and choose which laws to follow,’’ he once explained. “Sure I’d like to tape a baseball game without the express written consent of Major League Baseball, but that’s just not the way it works.’’

None of your fancy-schmancy “ambiguity’’ or “ambivalence’’ for Hank. He would say “I tell you what’’ in his Texas drawl, and then he would tell you what, and in no uncertain terms, too. Yet the genius of “King of the Hill’’ was that it managed to simultaneously challenge and reaffirm Hank’s authority in a way that both mapped and commented on the complicated shifts in the cultural landscape.

“He’s upset about how America is changing, and he doesn’t know what to do about it,’’ co-creator Greg Daniels said in January 1997, when the show made its debut. “The theme of the show is populism and common-sense Americans versus the silly elite.’’

The series arrived at an interesting moment. The culture wars were simmering. Much of Red State America had not reconciled itself to the fact that Bill Clinton, painted by critics as the embodiment of ’60s-style baby-boomer self-indulgence, was beginning his second term as president. Meanwhile, the Fox network was hoping to finally find the right show to sandwich between its two big Sunday-night hits: “The Simpsons’’ and “The X-Files.’’

Along came Mike Judge, who had created and voiced MTV’s dismally unfunny but hugely popular “Beavis and Butt-head,’’ and Daniels, a comedy writer who had roomed with Conan O’Brien at Harvard, with a new animated sitcom about a propane salesman in the fictional small town of Arlen, Texas.

The ratings fortunes of “King of the Hill’’ waxed and waned over the years, but now, as it wraps up its run, it stands as the second longest-running animated series in TV history, behind only “The Simpsons.’’ But the two shows couldn’t be more different. Whereas “The Simpsons’’ sprints through scenes that are bursting with jokes and cultural allusions, “King of the Hill’’ sort of ambled along, picking up laughs and stray bits of wisdom with seeming inadvertence.

Whereas “The Simpsons’’ is full-on, take-no-prisoners satire, with an über-buffoon, Homer Simpson, at its center, “King’’ had a more complicated relationship with its central figure and the wider culture.

An episode from 2003 illustrated that relationship. Hank had been fretting about the sinister influence of popular music on his son, Bobby, so he forced the boy to join a church youth group. To Hank’s surprise and dismay, the youth group turned out to consist of hard-edged skate punks. But there was still another twist that challenged Hank’s assumptions: The punks were deeply religious, with Christian-themed earrings and tattoos.

Bobby was entranced, and made plans to attend a Christian rock concert called “Messiahfest’’ with his newfound friends. Hank was alarmed. He didn’t want him to be quite that religious. He forbade him to go, but Bobby snuck out of the house. When Hank caught up with him, they had a heart-to-heart in which Hank told Bobby he didn’t want God to be a fleeting fad.

It was back to church in a suit and tie for young Bobby. Still, the lines were no longer quite so clear in Hank’s world.

He was the assistant manager of Strickland Propane, and man, did he love his work: Hank had a passion for propane the way Richard Burton had a passion for Liz Taylor. And his relationship with his lawn also bordered on the carnal. “Why would anyone ever smoke weed when they could just mow a lawn?’’ he once asked.

Although Hank was technically in management, his sensibility (a word Hank would have no use for) was blue collar all the way. He had a potbelly, and he had earned that potbelly. He drank Alamo beer with his buddies in an alleyway behind his house. Fashion-wise, once he pulled on a white T-shirt, Hank pretty much felt he was good to go.

He was Archie Bunker without the prejudices, Ralph Kramden without the unhinged temper tantrums - though he did share their aversion to social change. When a young rock singer challenged straitlaced Hank with “Hey man, Jesus had long hair!’’, Hank replied firmly: “That’s because I’m not his father.’’

In his awkward, emotionally constipated way, Hank was devoted to his wife, Peggy, a substitute Spanish teacher and Boggle champion who remained serenely (if mistakenly) confident of her brilliance and beauty. Hank fretted constantly about Bobby, whose eccentricities often prompted the father to mutter: “That boy ain’t right.’’

Hank was loyal to, though often frustrated by, his friends. They would have broken the spirit of a lesser man. Consider Dale Gribble, a pest exterminator and Hunter S. Thompson look-alike whose company was called Dale’s Dead-Bug. Dale saw conspiracies around every corner yet somehow failed to notice that his wife, Nancy, cheated on him for more than a decade.

There was hapless, perpetually depressed Bill Dauterive, an overweight, balding Army barber who couldn’t quite understand why he was so unlucky in love (though he did get to date former Texas governor Ann Richards in one episode). And then there was the mysterious, shaman-like Jeff Boomhauer. Like Kramer on “Seinfeld,’’ Boomhauer was called only by his last name. He was literally incomprehensible, mumbling and slurring his words as if he had marbles in his mouth.

Animated series rise or fall on the strength of their voice actors, and with one glaring exception, the voices on “King of the Hill’’ were first-rate. The inimitable Kathy Najimy, for instance, was a comic wonder as Peggy. The exception was Brittany Murphy, whose cloying performance as the voice of Hank’s live-in niece, Luanne Platter, ranked her, in my book, up there with Barney the Dinosaur and Georgette from “The Mary Tyler Moore Show’’ among the most annoying voices in TV history.

But the spotlight, thankfully, was usually on Hank. He was less the captain of his destiny than the guy down in the engine room, making sure the pumps and compressors were working OK. He was . . . well, let Hank describe himself.

“Dang it, I am sick and tired of everyone’s asinine ideas about me,’’ he once exclaimed. “I’m not a redneck, and I’m not some Hollywood jerk. I’m something else entirely. I’m . . . I’m complicated!’’

You tell ’em, Hank. Tomorrow night, I’ll be toasting your greatness. Anyone got an Alamo beer?

Don Aucoin can be reached at aucoin@globe.com.