King of the Ant Hill

King of the Ant Hill
Air date	May 4, 1997
Written by	Johnny Hardwick and Paul Lieberstein
Directed by	Gary McCarver
Episode guide
Previous	"Keeping Up With Our Joneses"
Next	"Plastic White Female"

"King of the Ant Hill" is the eleventh episode of King of the Hill. It was first aired on May 4, 1997. The episode was written by Johnny Hardwick and Paul Lieberstein, and directed by Gary McCarver.

Summary

To take care of his lawn in time for Cinco de Mayo, Hank fires Dale as his exterminator, who does not take it well and goes out of his way to sabotage his lawn. Meanwhile, Bobby ends up becoming something of a slave for the ants he's keeping as pets.

Plot

Hank is lawn obsessed. He is one proud man of his mower, his grass, and his entire layout. He would gladly sacrifice his life for his lawn. When the Cinco de Mayo block party approaches, he decides that Dale's weekly spraying onto the lawn is harmful after talking to Peggy about the problem, so he lets him go. Hank later decides to upgrade his lawn to the expensive St. Augustine grass.

Dale is livid, Hank is one of three customers that he has as regulars. He goes the distance, to prove to Hank that he could still maintain the beautiful lawn, with holistic measures. Hank declines. Dale sets up the trap to win Hank back and get a bit of revenge in the meantime. He maps out a schedule to set out Fire Ants onto the prized grass. Meanwhile, Hank is the envy of all the neighborhood, especially Kahn, who is always competitive with Hank.

Hank attempts to deal with the problem himself by introducing parasitic ant killing flies, but Dale releases the flies in the night. Hank then tries driving over the ant hill, to no avail, and by the next morning, the lawn is covered end to end in fire ant hills. He begs Dale for help, and Dale saturates the lawn with pesticides, completely destroying it in the process.

Meanwhile, Bobby has discovered the Queen ant, and her workers coming in and out of their nest and captures a jar full. Days go by, with Bobby feeding them a sugar diet, and becoming hypnotized by the Queen's powerful pheromones. The Queen demands Bobby set her free, and Bobby is hesitant, at first, but complies with the Queen's orders.

The next day, Hank is heartbroken. He has no shred of grass left on his dirt lawn now. Dale has completely ruined his beautiful trophy lawn. Peggy goes on over to Nancy's house to talk about the Cinco de Mayo block party. Nancy offers her some sugar, but they are out, so Peggy volunteers to go on down to the basement and grab a bag. On her way down, she notices a strange display of fire ants, and wanders over for a look. She sees that Dale has a map drawn out, with all of the dates and times of release for the ants. Next to the map, is a huge tank of the remaining Fire Ants. She confronts Dale, then heads home to tell Hank.

In the alley, Bobby releases the ants and as he talks proudly of the insects, the ants circle around and head straight for the unwitting boy. Peggy tells her husband what his neighbor has done, and he is furious. Just as Hank is set to beat Dale up, he hears Bobby call his name. Hank orders Bobby to stand back and wait a minute, but when Bobby tells Hank that it is an urgent situation, Hank turns, and sees his son is covered, from head to toe with fire ants. He was attacked when he decided to obey the Queen and release her and her subjects. Dale yells for Bobby to take his hand and be still. Bobby obliges, the fire ants all scramble onto Dale, and subsequently sting him all at once.

Hank is relieved that Dale is immune to the fire ant bites as Dale wakes up. He thanks Dale for saving his boy's life, declaring them even for the lawn issue. As Cinco de Mayo rolls in, Hank is depressed, and decides to stay indoors. Peggy is dancing around him, offering him one of her Margaritas. Hank is annoyed and corrects her on the pronunciation of the drink's name. The doorbell rings, and Peggy calls him to the door, and all of his friends and neighbors are out there, holding squares of beautiful, plush, green lawn. They all pitched in to replace Hank's lawn, knowing how much it meant to him. He also reconciles with Dale and thanks him, claiming that if it weren't for Dale's paranoid and hateful nature, Hank never would have known how much beating a friendship could survive. The squares didn't cover the entire area, but Hank is on his riding mower, detailing sections as the credits roll.

Characters

• Hank Hill
• Peggy Hill
• Bobby Hill
• Luanne Platter
• Dale Gribble
• Nancy Gribble
• Jeff Boomhauer
• Bill Dauterive
• Kahn Souphanousinphone
• Minh Souphanousinphone (non-speaking)
• Connie Souphanousinphone (cameo)

Trivia

• The episode name is a pun on the series name.
• Contrary to the episode, fire ants do not cause significant damage to St. Augustine grass, rather, the Chinch bug is the likely culprit. However, the fire ants at best constructed highly visible ant hills before Dale caused significant damage with his chemical spray.
• In this episode, it seems as though Bobby knows that Dale is not Joseph's real father. He asks Joseph, "You mean, Dale Gribble's truck?", but this is never mentioned again. However, in a later episode when Nancy is listing everyone who knows about her affair with John Redcorn, she says "...and maybe Bobby".
• Kahn says that in Laos, they have a thing called "karma" (Lao: ກັມ), he explains the Hinduism and Buddhism principle of "cause and effect", wherein actions of an individual influence the future of that individual. Theravada Buddhism is the largest religion in Laos, which is practiced by two-thirds of the population.
• Buckley and Luanne are apparently dating again after the breakup in "Luanne's Saga", as Luanne tells Peggy that Hank will only let Buckley shoot a .22 caliber instead of a .38 caliber at the Cinco de Mayo block party.
• At the beginning of the episode, the ant on Dale's truck is upside down (the way it usually is) but then, later, is right side up. The position of the ant changes throughout season one. After that, it is always upside down. (They actually make fun of this on the DVD commentary)
• Throughout the episode, Peggy often refers to her neighbors as gringos while she herself is white.
• When Dale raises his hat up, he has a full head of hair. A receding hairline, to be exact.
• Dale's license plate number is LXD 352.
• The scene where Peggy's in Dale's basement and discovers his ongoing plot to destroy Hank's lawn spoofs the Silence of the Lambs (1991) ending wherein Buffalo Bill has a night vision point-of-view of Clarice.
• In the credits when Hank is mowing his new, lawn, he is whistling the tune to "Streets of Laredo".

Goofs

• The abdomens on the ant queens (and Dale's truck) are not accurate; only termite queens look like that, whereas ant queens retain their shape.
• When Dale is arguing with Hank about the fire ants' attack method, his pesticide tank disappears, then reappears gray instead of orange.
• When Hank chases Dale for planting the fire ants to ruin his lawn, he had shoes on when he was sitting on his sinking lawn chair, but when chases Dale around the "Dale's Dead Bug" van, Hank is barefoot and has mud on the cuffs of his jeans. According to a deleted scene reel on the first season DVD set, there was supposed to be a scene where Hank loses both of his shoes as he's running on the wet mud pit that used to be his lawn (with Kahn ragging on him for being a barefoot hillbilly), but it got cut before it aired (possibly for time and pacing).

Gallery