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Robert Jeffrey "Bobby" Hill is a character on the animated series King of the Hill and is voiced by Pamela Adlon. Born September 29, ca.1985, he is the 13-year old only child of Hank and Peggy Hill.

Character biography

The character is stated to stand only 4 feet 11 inches tall. He is also described as overweight. Bobby does poorly in most sports and is generally not useful with his hands. The exception to this is an ability as a marksman, which is displayed in "How to Fire a Rifle Without Really Trying" and "To Kill a Ladybird" where he shoots a raccoon believed to be rabid. These qualities make him a comic foil to his ex-high-school-football-playing, tool-savvy father. They are different in most respects with the few things Bobby is good at, like shooting a gun or dancing, being areas where Hank is weak or mediocre. Coincidentally those are areas where Dale Gribble excels at. Despite differences their relationship is close and Bobby considers his father to be his hero. He is also friends with Joseph Gribble and next-door neighbor Connie Souphanousinphone. Bobby wants more than anything to be a prop comic like his hero "Celery Head" (a parody of Carrot Top), but has also aspired to be a "ladies' man", plus-size model, stand-up comic, proctologist and a salesman of "propane and propane accessories". In the episode "Won't You Pimai Neighbor?" it is implied he may even be the reincarnated Buddhist Lama "Sanglug". The London Free Press states that he "might be the most complex, fully formed kid in TV history."

In later seasons he served as the mascot for his middle school football team, the Tom Landry Longhorns. His father is occasionally embarrassed by Bobby's ineptitude in other sports, activities, and in his behavior ("That boy ain't right"), but Bobby most of all wants his father to be proud of him. Hank spent years thinking Bobby was gay, or possibly asexual, but this presumption was put to rest when Connie's father caught her and Bobby together half-naked, and while Hank was obligated to yell at Bobby, he was also pleased by this development.

Bobby is a very kind, caring, lovable, and good hearted character. Although his personality disappoints Hank, Bobby is at the same time a crack rifle shot, is a professional-level golfer, and is also skilled at Dance Dance Revolution. Further, Bobby can be pushed into spontaneous anger, as when he punched the larger, more muscular Joseph for kissing Connie. Bobby has many of his irritating grandfather's more positive traits, such as joviality, body design and the knack of romancing girls with surprising ease.

Middle name

There is some debate over Bobby's middle name. Some believe it to be Jeffrey, as stated in the episode "Bobby Slam" when a very drunk Peggy said she wanted to name him Jeffrey but Hank would not let her. While some claim his full name is revealed on a trophy shelf built by Hank when Bobby was a baby to be Robert "Butch" Hill in the episode "Torch Song Hillogy", however Hank merely hoped his son's nickname would be "Butch". In "Pregnant Paws" it is revealed that Bobby doesn't know his middle name and in "Love Hurts and So Does Art", Peggy, while filling out forms for Bobby at the hospital, says, "We sure gave him a dumb middle name."

In the Season 1 DVD of the show, Bobby's character bio is given as Robert "Bobby" Jeffrey Hill, and during a character commentary in one of the episodes, Peggy refers to Bobby as Robert Jeffrey Hill.

In Season 13, episode 13 ("Nancy Does Dallas"), Peggy refers to Bobby as "Robert Jeffrey Hill".

Late bloomer

While he is older than Connie and Joseph, Bobby is a classic example of a late bloomer. He has not yet experienced puberty and is jealous that Joseph is tall, dark and surprisingly handsome and sometimes mistaken for an adult. It is uncertain whether the writers will ever let Bobby enter puberty or not, since the changes to the character would most likely cause Pamela Adlon to be replaced as the voice for Bobby for a newer, deeper voice (that is what led to the change of the voice actor for Joseph from Brittany Murphy to Breckin Meyer).

Eating habits

Bobby has a penchant for eating unusual things and getting himself in trouble for doing so. Bobby once ate a 72-ounce steak in 37 minutes after a breakup with his vegetarian girlfriend Marie (voiced by Sarah Michelle Gellar) for the sake of spiting her, then later vomits it up while talking to Connie.

In another episode, "Love Hurts and So Does Art", Bobby became ill with gout after repeatedly consuming chicken liver sandwiches at a New York-style deli in the local mall. Although the gout eventually requires him to use a senior citizen-style electric scooter, he still rides it to the mall to eat more chicken livers.

Bobby also ate an entire dish of lutefisk, a very smelly fish dish, that was prepared by the town's new female Pastor. His over consumption and subsequent stomach ache resulted in a fire that destroyed the church his family attends (albeit indirectly, as it was the matches he lit to cover the smell of the dish that burnt the church).

In "Peggy's Turtle Song", Bobby eats too much sugar one morning and is mistakenly diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. In "Westie Side Story" Bobby makes reference to eating Bible leather while chewing on a dog's leash. In Hank's Choice, when the family discovers Bobby is allergic to Ladybird, the family dog, Bobby lives outside the house. He stays there even after he discovers his medication is alleviating his symptoms so he can stay outside and keep ordering pizza for dinner.

Bobby has also displayed talents for cooking and homemaking in general, to the chagrin of his mother Peggy. In the episode "Goodbye Normal Jeans", Bobby takes a shine to his new homemaking class where he learns, among other things, to become a culinary whiz. Peggy becomes jealous that Hank now prefers Bobby's cooking to her own and goes out of her way to sabotage Bobby's Thanksgiving turkey. In the event, she failed.

One constant throughout the entire run of the show has been Bobby's affinity for fruit pies. In the episode entitled "Junkie Business", Hank tries to persuade Bobby to come to work with him by listing all the items in the vending machine. Bobby responds tearfully by saying, "You had me at 'fruit pies'." In the episode, "Little Horrors of Shop," Peggy extracts information from Bobby by bribing him with a fruit pie. In the episode "The Son That Got Away," a fruit pie is used by Ladybird to track Bobby's scent. In the episode "Good Hill Hunting", before leaving on a hunting trip with Hank, Bobby is told by Peggy that she filled his rifle case with fruit pies, and put his rifle in his sleeping bag. In yet another, Luanne replaces the filling in one of Bobby's fruit pies with dirt as part of a feud between the two.

References

1. "Shins of the Father". King of the Hill. Season 1. Episode 8. 1997-03-23. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
2. "King of the Hill character bios". Fox Broadcasting. Retrieved 2008-10-30.

External links

• Official site for King of the Hill
• Bobby Hill official bio
• King of the Hill at IMDb

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