Here is a helpful LINK to a road map of Texas.
My money’s on Abilene or Brownwood.
I’m allowing for a 5 to 10 mph speeding factor. This is because all the male characters are Texans, and all Texans are “real men” even if they ain’t, and no “real men” ever keep the speed limit unless there’s a cop watching.
I’m actually leaning towards Waco.
It’s on the Brazos River
You can get to Lubbock in a day
You can get to Port A in 4 hours
You can get to Dallas in an hour and a half
You can get to Houston in about 2.5 hours
It’s about a 6, 6.5 hour drive to Mexico.
You can get to the Alamo to frame your son for shooting Castro without too much trouble.
It snows, but only every few years.
It’s a pretty conservative town.
It’s flat.
It has a community college and a university.
The only thing it might be missing are alleys.
I think it’s old school South Austin, as it was 20 years ago before the tech boom. That makes all the geographical locations right and South Austin used to be called “Bubbaland” because that’s where all the good ole boys lived. (nowdays, housings gotten so expensive, the yuppies have invaded)
I grew up in old school South Austin, so I can certainly accept that. Plus it had the men in the street drinking beer thing going on, too.
Where’s Arlen? Why not consult the official website ?
Kind of disappointing that the AU Student Organizations page doesn’t mention Omega House. (The jelly and preserves sorority cult.)
Bumping this thread to add a new piece of information: In the episode with Ann Richards, it was revealed that Hank and Co. live a few miles off I-35.
Arlen is in Heimlich County, which I also believe is fictional.
What about Quahog, RI, the fictional town Peter Griffin calls home?
Have you ever commuted in Houston? Arlen could be ten miles outside of the city and it would still be a three hour drive.
I’m pretty sure it’s a suburb of Providence. You can see the Providence skyline in the background of some shots.
I just discussed this with Mike Judge last month. Arlen is, as mentioned several times above, based partly on Garland but also on pretty much any city in texas, big or small. He said they tend to think of it as located in the same area as Waco or Killeen, but they’re not envisioning an exact location.
I’ve run into Mike Judge at film events in Austin for years and let me just say, he is the nicest guy on Earth and when I saw him in September, he still remembered where I was working back when we first met in February 1999.
Well, I guess that the time for speculation is over. All the same, how about a few more hints.
-(from the ‘official website’) Note: The above picture is not Arlen. It is Ausin, the Texas capital. Arlen does not have a great skyline. In fact, the only significant building in downtown Arlen is a 20 story hotel that went bankrupt in the 1940’s. --Arlen is Mineral Wells.*
-(also from the official website) Arlen Facts–Established 1886, city became one of state’s largest cotton-buying centers. Propane was discovered in the 1920’s. Substantial industrial development has been made in recent decades.* --It’s on the Blacklands, between Austin and Dallas.*
-(also…) …the average maximum high in July is 98 degrees.* --Too cold. It ain’t in Texas.*
-Bill Dauterive works as a barber at the Army base, which could arguably be a vote for it being around Temple/Killeen and close to Fort Hood.
-There’s nothing small town about the characters; they live in a suburb.
I guess that Mike Judge was right (big surprise there): Arlen is a Mid City from the DFW Metroplex, somewhere around Waco.
I’m glad to hear that he’s as good of a guy as he seems to be.
What Rhode Island town isn’t a suburb of Providence?
[nitpick]The Brazos doesn’t go through Travis County; all of Travis drains to the Colorado.[/nitpick]
For all intents and purposes, Quahog is Providence:
Just a note for any King of the Hill fans who don’t know (since threads on the show are pretty rare around here): this will be the KOTH’s final season. Many of the episodes will be leftovers that were intended to air last season.
I’m sad to see it go because I haven’t noticed the quality slipping at all; the show still seems to have a good bit of life left in it.
Still, ten years is a pretty damn good run.
Has Hank’s son aged at all in the time the show was on the air?
Slightly. I think he has gone from 6th Grade to 8th Grade.
I had no idea!
That’s very unfortunate…this is one of my favorite shows.
Fox has always given KOTH the same treatment as Futurama: they put it on at 7pm or 7:30pm on Sunday, so all during football season, most of the episode is pre-empted by a game. If they would have put these shows on at 8:30 where they belong, they’d do much better for the network.
Hey. We got over 150 episodes. We can’t be too sad about that.