"Three Days of the Kahndo" is the twenty-seventh episode of King of the Hill. It was first aired on February 15, 1998. The episode was written by John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky, and directed by Lauren MacMullan. The name of the episode is a pun on the film Three Days of the Condor.
Summary[]
The Souphanousinphone's and Hill's go to Mexico for a vacation but things quickly turn sour thanks to Kahn taking advantage of Hank and Dale making an unannounced drop in.
Plot[]
Minh boasts of her family's upcoming luxury trip to Mexico, where they will stay in a beautiful "mitad" duplex condo with Kahn's brother and family. Neither Minh nor Peggy knows the meaning of the word "mitad," and it is soon forgotten. A short time later, Kahn learns that his brother has backed out of the vacation, leaving him to pay the entire rent for the condo. He offers the Hills the opportunity to join his family on the trip. Peggy talks Hank into going along, as she is especially anxious to replace a paper mâché pear she purchased as an exchange student. Kahn arrives at the condo first. The manager of the resort, Jacinto, shows Kahn around the unit. Jacinto explains that "mitad" means half--meaning Kahn must share the downstairs portion with Hank. Thinking quickly, Kahn tells Hank that the luxurious upstairs condo is for the Hill family. The next morning, Peggy, Luanne, and Minh tour a Mexican marketplace in search of papier-mache pears and illegal beauty secret supplies. Meanwhile, Connie and Bobby notice a curio shop that sells fireworks. They purchase a giant firecracker labeled "La Bomba," not realizing that it is only a promotional display mockup, then light it and slip it inside the sign of an Italian fast-food restaurant. Taking cover behind a metal dumpster, the pair expectantly wait for an explosion that never comes.
Meanwhile, Peggy and Minh find a vendor who sells Peggy a papier-mache pear. The vendor hands Peggy a nicely wrapped box and asks her to deliver it to a friend just across the border. Peggy takes the package, but moments later, Minh fears she has been tricked into transporting drugs.
Dale shows up at the condo unannounced, luggage in hand. Jacinto walks by and notices the Hills living inside the upstairs unit. A few moments later, the police arrive. Peggy, Bobby and Luanne panic, believing they are about to be arrested. Hank tells the police his family has nothing to hide... but their actions hint otherwise. Hank, Dale and Kahn are brought before a magistrate, who orders them to pay Jacinto 10,000 pesos (the payment was originally 8,000 pesos). Their identification is confiscated and will only be returned when the money is paid. Believing the border guards will let them back into the U.S. because they are Caucasian, Hank and Dale decide to head towards the checkpoint with the Asian Kahn confined to the trunk. But the threesome panic at the border crossing and run off. They trade their belongings for mopeds and make their way to the Rio Grande. After crossing the river with a group of illegal aliens, the men are spotted by border police. Dale jumps the border fence and runs. Kahn also clears the fence, but Hank cannot do so unaided. Kahn extends his hand and yanks him up and over. Kahn later muses how he, an immigrant, helped smuggle an American into the United States.
The end credits run over a shot of the fake La Bomba firecracker, still tucked into the Italian restaurant sign.
Characters[]
- Hank Hill
- Peggy Hill
- Bobby Hill
- Luanne Platter
- Dale Gribble
- Joseph Gribble
- Jeff Boomhauer
- Bill Dauterive
- Kahn Souphanousinphone
- Minh Souphanousinphone
- Connie Souphanousinphone
- Monsignor Martinez
- Magistrate
- Jacinto
- Kahn's unnamed brother (Tid Pao's father or Phonsawan's father)
Trivia[]
- The episode name is a play on the phrase "Three days of the Condor".
- The word "Kahndo" is also a play on "Kahn" and "Condo"
- Peggy was an exchange student in Oaxaca, Mexico.
- In this episode, La Leche del Sol (Translation: "Milk of the Sun"), is illegal in the United States. When the police come to door, everyone eliminates their contraband items by flushing them down the toilet. However, in "The Trouble with Gribbles", Luanne gives the cream to Nancy.
- Speeding up while another car attempts to pass on the left, like Peggy does on her way to Mexico, is against Texas law.
- It is unknown if the Hotel manager got the money the judge ordered Hank to pay or if something else was worked out.
- The way Mihn wrongfully profiled the Mexican who Peggy agreed to deliver a package for as a drug smuggler bore a striking resemblance to an episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show called "He's So Heavy...He's My Brother," where Mary Richards was asked to deliver a package for a Mexican immigrant and who her friend and neighbor Rhoda Morgenstern wrongfully suspected was a drug smuggler as well. Like Peggy's package, which turned out to contain just a pear, this Mexican immigrant's package was also shown to not have drugs, but instead two candles. However, while Peggy was asked to deliver the package to the United States during her trip to Mexico, Mary was asked to deliver the package to Mexico while still in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
- Mary Tyler Moore would later guest star on King of the Hill by voicing the local minister, as well as Minnesota native, Karen Stroup in "Revenge of the Lutefisk". However, while Rev. Stroup would become a recurring character on the show, Moore did not continue to voice her after this appearance.
- A firecracker the size of La Bomba would most likely blow the entire front of that building to pieces.
- Once Hank is convinced to go to Mexico he remarks "I guess it's buenos dias Mexico," which causes Peggy to chuckle and say, "Hank you just said good God's in Spanish." This is actually incorrect. Good Gods in Spanish translates to Buenos dioses. However, Peggy is shown often throughout the series to have a limited understanding of Spanish even though she proclaims herself to be fluent.
- A border patrol agent tells Hank to pull his car to the side of the road. However, Peggy is the one driving.
- When Dale tells Hank of the conditions of a Mexican prison, which they believe they will both soon be going to if they are caught leaving Mexico after being convicted, Hank reveals that he suffers from Paruresis, also known as Shy Bladder Syndrome.
- Peggy claims to be fluent in Spanish yet didn’t realize Mitad in Spanish translates to half. This becomes a common theme throughout the rest of the series.
- The unnerving sequence under the closing credits where the viewer waits for La Bomba! to explode (Spoiler alert: it doesn't) may be a tribute to a similar sequence that opened Orson Wells's 1958 film "Touch of Evil" which showed a timebomb detonating inside a car, a sequence that went on for over 3 minutes.
Goofs[]
- In the scene where the Hills are at their room at night Peggy is shown to have white socks with her shoes.
- The mopeds used for the escape are loosely modeled after Puch Maxi mopeds; however, when Hank goes to start the moped back up, he kicks the pedals backwards as if it were a Tomos moped, instead of forwards like on a puch.