Cotton Hill
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Cotton Hill is a character on the animated television series King of the Hill. He is Hank Hill's father and a World War II veteran who lost his shins in combat, making him a foot shorter than his fellow family members and causing a characteristic "waddle". He is in short a "nasty little man" who talks down to women, berates his son, and is prone to violent outbursts. On rare occasions Cotton shows a second side that he normally keeps hidden, one where he feels he has failed as a father, hates himself for being old and disabled, and would die to protect his grandson. It was Cotton who, through tough love and intense physical therapy, taught Peggy Hill to walk again after a debilitating accident.
According to Cotton's often-exaggerated war stories, he lost his shins escaping from a ship that faced the same fate as the USS Indianapolis (being torpedoed). To survive in the water, he had to give his friend Fatty to the sharks. When he reached land, the Japanese army tricked him into an ambush and shot off his shins with machine guns. He killed every last one with a big piece of Fatty before losing consciousness. He woke up in an Army hospital, where his feet were being sewn to his knees. Before leaving Japan, he and a Japanese nurse had an affair in which he concieved his first son, Hank's older half-brother, Junichiro.
At age 75, he fathered a third son, Good Hank (G.H.), with his second wife, Didi, a much younger woman with whom Hank was in kindergarten. His best friend was the late Topsy, a fellow veteran who liked to make grotesque faces, bulging his cheeks out a la Dizzy Gillespie. This little trick frightened a maternity ward nurse while Cotton's wife was in labor.
Cotton's voice is provided by Toby Huss.
Quotes
- "I killed fitty men!"
- (he slaps a woman on her buttocks in a restaurant) "Hey, missy, how 'bout some sandwiches!"
- "Hey, Hank's wife."
- (in a flashback Hank has) "I got my shins blown off by a Japan-Man's machine gun, so don't come cryin' to me with your problems!"