Heavy Metal icon Ozzy Osbourne died at the age of 76 on Tuesday, but he’ll still live on in the hearts of Black Sabbath fans everywhere and Hank Hill’s hometown of Arlen, Texas.
Throughout the course of King of the Hill’s 13-season run and 15-year hiatus, fans have noticed an uncanny similarity between the Prince of Darkness and Hank’s Alamo-chugging, womanising pal, Boomhauer. Both are famed for their rambling, mumbling speech, and they each can still somehow sing as clear as day, gottdangit.
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Five years ago, one fan headed to the King of the Hill subreddit to share this observation while rewatching the Season Six episode “The Bluegrass Is Always Greener.” They found that despite Boomhauer’s famously garbled speech, he, much like the late Black Sabbath singer, could bring down the house — or at least the Hill family garage — with his shockingly crisp vocals during a performance of the classic tune “Blue Moon of Kentucky.”
“Boomhauer reminds me of Ozzy Osbourne,” the Redditor captioned a still taken from the Texas Ranger’s performance of the country tune, a rendition featuring Hank on guitar, Bill on the washboard, and Dale on the keyboard. “Both can sing clearly but (are) hard to understand when talking.”
Other King of the Hill fans agreed with his assessment. “It’s like Ozzy! Can’t understand a word he says…… until he starts singing lol,” added another fan in a similar Reddit thread, as a fourth dubbed Boomhauer as the “(Ozzy) Osbourne of Texas.”
“Dang ol BAT HEAD man?” joked a different Redditor, imitating Boomhauer’s signature Texas drawl.
There’s another connection between Osbourne and Arlen, too. In the Season Four episode “Bills Are Made to Be Broken,” Black Sabbath’s 1970 hit, “Iron Man” scored a flashback to Bill’s high school football career, blaring as the then-jock dragged five of his opponents across the end zone in a touchdown-scoring move called the “Billdozer.”
“Chipped my spine on that play,” Bill explained as the rock track slowly faded from the background.
But no matter how cozy the late musician seems in the King of the Hill universe, one Redditor has a piece of advice: “Just don’t tell Hank what Ozzy did to the Alamo…”