"DaleTech" is the one hundred-sixty-fifth episode of King of the Hill. It was first aired on March 28, 2004. The episode was written by J.B. Cook and directed by Dominic Polcino.
Summary[]
Dale starts a security company. Meanwhile, Cotton is made a deputy police officer, and Hank tries to solve the mystery of who keeps coming in his house while he's at work.
Plot[]
While Hank is pouring coffee into his mug, he hears music coming from the Souphanousinphones' bathroom. Hank walks over to the window only to see Kahn in his bathrobe brushing his teeth. Kahn sees Hank and starts to take off his bathrobe, but puts it back on, and Hank reacts in disgust.
Hank, Bill and Boomhauer are in the alley drinking beer, and Dale places a sign on Hank's lawn saying, "PROTECTED BY Daletech" and hands Hank, Bill and Boomhauer pieces of paper for a subscription to Daletech, in which they all crumple the papers and throw them at Dale. Kahn comes to his vehicle to take out groceries, and Hank tells him to put a privacy hedge in front of his bathroom window, and Bill mentions Hank made him plant two hedges. Kahn agrees, then makes a statement about "keeping a Ferrari in a garage". Kahn walks off with his groceries and walks in the fashion of a model. Hank asks Dale if Daletech can do anything about the privacy hedge, but Dale says they are more into the invasion of privacy rather than the creation of it.
Hank asks Peggy to hurry up with his toast before Kahn takes his shower. Hank goes into the refrigerator to take out his grapefruit juice and notices that it is almost empty. Bobby says he had it and jokes around by saying he had it with a bowl of broccoli. Cotton enters the Hill residence into the kitchen with luggage and mentions Didi and G.H. are going to visit Didi's "folks", but he did not know how long they would be gone. Peggy asks him if he could stay with his war buddies, but he mentions that they were sent to retirement homes except for Topsy, who died six months ago. Cotton then attempted to put salt on his breakfast, but there was none. He blamed Peggy for there being no salt, and then pokes holes into the bags of flour, sugar, dog food, and their two-liter soda bottle with his pocketknife. Peggy then takes Hank to the driveway and talks to him and mentions senior daycare, which Hank was surprised by. Peggy mentions that several nurseries are being converted to accommodate seniors. Hank did not want to do that, and he says that Cotton is at "loose ends". It is then that Dale knocks over Hank's trash can. Dale attempts to pin it on someone else, and mentions he is glad that he is protected by Daletech, and Hank threatens to kick Dale's ass. Dale attempts to distract him by saying there is propane. When Hank looks in the direction of the alleged propane, Dale runs away to his house.
At the Hill residence, Peggy is creating a crossword puzzle for her Spanish class while Kahn is singing in the bathroom putting gel in his hair. Cotton stood on the table to look through the window and gets off the table. He asks Peggy what she is doing, and she mentions she is trying to come up with words for her Español class, that is four letters long. Cotton comes up with words that are not Spanish relating to his war experience. Peggy mentions that it needs to be Spanish, and Cotton comes up with Spanish words. But he starts to make Peggy crazy with his help. Peggy then takes Cotton to Strickland Propane, so that Hank can watch him. Hank then makes Cotton staple CharKing warranty cards to the owner's manuals and Hank walks away. Cotton walks into the showroom and sees a customer looking at a grill. The customer asks Cotton if the grill is self-cleaning, and Cotton tells the customer that it is, and he presses a red button on the grill that actually ignites the grill, causing the customer to scream, and also burned his eyebrows off. The customer walks out in a huff and Hank gets very angry with Cotton for losing a sale and burning a customer's eyebrows off.
Hank takes Cotton to a daycare center that is transition to accommodate senior citizens. Inside the building there are still nursery rhyme murals painted on the walls. Cotton asks the female faculty member where he could "transition into his underpants", and the female faculty member asks him if he had an accident. Cotton then notices a sign that says they accept Blue Cross. Hank tells Cotton it is an activity center and that it will be fun. Hank leaves and the faculty member gives Cotton a box of apple juice. Later, Cotton makes a scene. The same female faculty member screams when there is paint in her hair, and the rest of the seniors are sleeping during their "nap time", and Cotton refuses to. Male nurses tackle him, but he hits them with a chair, and says he can outfit, out-drink and outdo anyone he knows. Police officers come in and take it easy on him.
In the alley, Dale reads the newspaper and sees an article about a murder in Detroit and he makes a remark about it not being protected by Daletech. A police vehicle approaches, with Cotton in the back. Hank approaches the vehicle and asks the officers in the car how much trouble is Cotton in. They tell him he is not in any trouble now that they got him out of that nursery school, and that they made Cotton an auxiliary policeman. The police officers leave. Cotton then says that he is the eyes and ears of Rainey Street, but Dale says that Daletech is the eyes and ears of Rainey Street. Bill joins the conversation, and Cotton asks if he is sassing him, then handcuffs Bill.
Cotton says that he is in charge of keeping peace now, and that if nobody is up for it they better be ready to talk to him and a whip Cotton calls Sergeant Whippy. Dale is in his basement, looking out his basement window with his binoculars, and he is worried Cotton would endanger Daletech and that nobody would buy it. Nancy asks him to add softener when the washer dings, and Dale says he would add the softener on the ding. Hank informs Peggy about Cotton's new job as an auxiliary policeman, and Peggy mentions that Cotton has a terrible human rights record. Hank mentioned that he checked with the police and that Cotton has no police authority. Hank notices that the coffee table was moved, and Hank tells Cotton to crack down on who is drinking his grapefruit juice and moving his coffee table.
Bobby and Joseph are riding their bikes and Cotton stops them and says that Rainey Street is on lockdown until he finds out who drank Hank's grapefruit juice and moved his coffee table. Bobby mentions that he and Joseph were going to shout swear words down a sewer pipe. Dale comes out of his house and tells Cotton that they looked like bad eggs. Cotton told Dale that he was trying to find out who drank Hank's grapefruit juice, and he told Dale to put his finger down his gullet. Dale mentions that he is allergic to citrus fruits and that he wishes he was not because of how much Bill talks about how good grapefruit juice is.
Cotton and Dale go to Bill's house so Cotton could interrogate Bill about whether or not he drank the grapefruit juice. He wonders why a person who does not like juice has a juicer, and Bill says it was a wedding gift. Cotton turns on the juicer, and Bill's body hair burned out the motor in the juicer. Cotton rummages through Bill's stuff and Dale says that Bill broke down and implicated Boomhauer as the possible culprit. Cotton and Dale go to Boomhauer's place and interview Boomhauer while he was changing the oil in his car. Cotton would often mess with the jack holding up Boomhauer's car, and Boomhauer says he likes mangoes. Cotton called Boomhauer's car a jalopy and leaves. Dale tells Boomhauer that adds insult to injury.
Meanwhile, at the Hill residence, Hank could not get toilet paper, then he walks in the kitchen, and says that the toilet paper goes over front. Peggy says Hank is acting like Cotton, and Luanne said that Cotton cracked her driver's license in half for not using her turn signal with his whip. Bobby says Cotton made him go to bed at 3:30 in the afternoon. Hank had never seen Cotton that energized in a long time, and mentioned facts like Luanne never uses her turn signal and Bobby gets cranky around 4:00 in the afternoon. Hank opens the refrigerator to get a beer and when he closes it, he sees Kahn through the window in the shower. Kahn taunts Hank that he is wearing a bikini made of suds, prompting Hank to walk away.
Hank, Dale, Bill and Boomhauer are in the alley, hearing Cotton yelling and using his whip. After hearing the whip loudly, Boomhauer and Bill run away. Dale comes up with a plan to have a neighborhood meeting to blow off steam in private. Hank agreed to it. During the meeting, Bill says that Cotton pulled his belly hairs with a juicer, and Bobby says that Cotton keeps trying to make Bobby call Connie a communist. Dale goes into their closet where Cotton is hiding. Cotton comes out of the closet wondering if the grapefruit juice was messed with, and Hank asked him if he thinks he insures his juice. Cotton handed them a box of handcuffs so that all of them could cuff themselves. Hank takes the whip and demands for Cotton to quit as he is not a real police officer. Cotton sadly hands over his badge and hat and leaves in a depression, while Dale comes out of the closet and hands out business cards to everyone advertising Daletech.
Hank, Bill, and Boomhauer, drinking in the alley they do not talk, and Dale brings balloons advertising Daletech. He mentions an extra surveillance package, and for an extra $30 a month a closed circuit to Bill's house. Dale asks Hank where Cotton was, and Hank says Cotton is making macaroni art at the Sunset Day Center, where he was before he was a policeman. Hank goes to the daycare, and Dale went with him with his Daletech balloons. Kahn and Minh speed walk past Hank's driveway, and he told Hank that he would take a shower in half an hour. Down at the Sunset Day Center, Cotton was doing finger painting. Hank and Dale come, and Dale ties the string to one of his balloons on Cotton's wrist. Hank and Dale take Cotton to the Hill residence, Dale offered to babysit him because he did not like to see him in the day center. Cotton, depressed, watches a children's show, which by the time Dale offered him a sandwich, the show ended. Dale covers Cotton's face with a throw pillow. When Cotton pushes it away, he was back to his normal self. Cotton then smelled hair gel on the throw pillow. He then realized that somebody was monkeying around in the Hill residence, and he hired Daletech.
Cotton and Dale pretend to leave the Hills' house to go to The Sunset Day Center. They drive Dale's DaleTech truck around the corner to catch someone on the surveillance camera in the house. Shortly after leaving, they discovered that Khan and Minh were the ones who broke in the Hill residence and were touching everything.
Dale and Cotton go to the Souphanousinphones' house, and Kahn answers the door, and Cotton carried the pillow in which the unfamiliar smell came from and interrogated him. Kahn denied that he did that until Cotton said that he could smell grapefruit juice on Kahn's breath and the throw pillow with his hair gel smell. Dale then got security footage and put it in the video tape player. On the tape Kahn and Minh walk into Hank's kitchen, opens the refrigerator and Kahn drinks the grapefruit juice straight from the carton Kahn and Minh then impersonate Hank and Peggy. Kahn then confessed and begged Cotton to not tell Hank. Cotton tells Kahn to get Hank his privacy hedge and that Kahn would pay for and plant it. Dale also made Kahn subscribe to a year of Daletech services.
At the end of the episode, Kahn plants the privacy hedge in front of his bathroom window, and Hank did not even know that there was a case. Cotton did old fashion police work. Hank said that Rainey Street thanks Cotton, and Cotton thought Hank was impersonating an officer. After that, Cotton leaves. Hank asks Kahn why he thought it was funny to break into his house for grapefruit juice as the two men start planting Khan's privacy hedge in front of his bathroom window. To save face, Kahn simply responded it was a popular prank back in Laos, and there is even a TV show about it.
Characters[]
- Hank Hill
- Peggy Hill
- Bobby Hill
- Cotton Hill
- Luanne Platter
- Dale Gribble
- Bill Dauterive
- Jeff Boomhauer
- Kahn Souphanousinphone
- Minh Souphanousinphone
- Nancy Gribble
- Joseph Gribble
- Benson
- Benson's partner (voiced by Scott Klace)
- Connie Souphanousinphone (mentioned)
- Topsy Toppington (mentioned)
Stinger Quote[]
- Cotton: [yelling] "I'm not sleepy!"
Trivia[]
- Cotton states that Topsy passed away six months prior to this episode (This would make it about January or December in the episode).
- Cotton is seen watching the children's television show Teletubbies.