Cotton Lyndal Hill (September 1, 1927—November 11, 2007) was a fictional character in the Fox animated series King of the Hill voiced by Toby Huss. He was the father of Hank Hill, Good Hank Hill (or "G.H."), Junichiro (his illegitimate half-Japanese son), and, according to him, at least 270 possible others. He was a World War II veteran who had his shins "blowed off by a Japanman's machine gun" in combat and later had his feet attached to his knees as a result. This made him a foot shorter than his relatives and caused a characteristic waddle. According to Hank, Cotton was 6'4" with his shins and was 5'0" without them. Despite his disability, he eventually reached the rank of Colonel in the Texas State Defense Forces and was addressed as such by his friends. Cotton Hill dies in the 12th season of King of the Hill at age 80 after suffering severe burns from slipping on a flat top grill.
Early life and military service
If Cotton's story is to be believed, he was born around 1927, making him about 70 in the first season of the show. In a third-season episode Hank says Cotton is 70, and in the Season 4 episode "Cotton Comes Marching Home", he states himself to be 71. Little is known about Cotton's childhood other than that he started out with a gun at an early age according to Hank in the episode "How to Fire A Rifle Without Really Trying", that he attended Fort Birk when he was very young and spent much of his childhood there as he revealed in "An Officer and A Gentle Boy", that he apparently joined the army when he was only 14 years old as revealed in "Shins of the Father", and that Cotton's mother apparently died giving birth to him, as he exaggerates in "Death Picks Cotton". Almost nothing is known about Cotton's father, except that he may have been German, as Peggy tells Bobby in the episode "Tears of an Inflatable Clown" and the only time Cotton ever himself refers to his father during the entire series is when he shouts at Hank: "You ain't my daddy, I'm your daddy!". Cotton also has an unnamed brother (Dusty's father).
Cotton was zealously proud of his military service record and his status as a war hero, although he tended to exaggerate his exploits. He often claims to anyone who will listen that he killed "fitty [50] men" during the war. He consistently reminded everyone within earshot about how he lost his shins during World War II:
"I was 14, just a little older than Bobby. But I knew Uncle Sam needed me, so I lied and signed up. We had beat the Nazzys in Italy, and they shipped me to the Pacific theater. A Tojo torpedo sent our troop ship to the bottom. I could only save three of my buddies: Fatty, Stinky, and Brooklyn. They were kind of like you fellas [to Bill, Dale, and Boomhauer], only one of them was from Brooklyn. Out of the sun came a Tojo Zero and put fitty bullets in my back. The blood attracted sharks. I had to give 'em Fatty. Then things took a turn for the worse. I made it to an island, but it was full of Tojos! They were spitting on the U.S. flag! So I rushed 'em, but it was a trap. They opened fire and blew my shins off. Last thing I remember, I beat 'em all to death with a big piece of Fatty. I woke up in a field hospital, and they were sewing my feet to my knees."
He refers to the Japanese as "Tojos," a slur not unlike Jap and deriving from war-time Japanese Prime Minister and General Hideki Tojo. He would also refer to the Nazis as "Nazzys".
Based upon Cotton's uniform in the episode "Returning Japanese", he was awarded the following military decorations: Medal of Honor, Purple Heart, and American Campaign Medal. Cotton left Japan wearing the rank of Private in his own flashback while reminiscing to Hank how he had met Michiko. He was referred to as a colonel repeatedly during the series, reflecting his rank in the Texas State Guard after the war. In the episode "When Cotton Comes Marching Home", his Silver Star is displayed in a case at the VFW. In the 12th episode of season 11, he is wearing the third class of the Legion of Honor, the highest award given by the French government, who gave it to a select handful of American troops for their service in World War II.
Cotton states in a sixth-season episode that he served with the U.S. Army's 77th Infantry Division.
He has a number of war trophies that can be seen in various episodes, including a Prussian Pickelhaube which he sometimes used to cut Hank's hair in an even bowl cut during Hank's youth, and a Nazi canoe which he claimed was "Hitler's canoe", though given his propensity to exaggerate his war stories, the actual origin of the canoe is uncertain.