Cotton Hill

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Cotton Hill (right) with Hank and Jimmy Carter.

Cotton Lyndal Hill (voiced by Toby Huss) is a fictional character in the animated series King of the Hill. He is the father of Hank Hill, Good-Hank Hill or GH, and Junichiro (a half Japanese son). He is also a World War II hero who had his shins "blowed off by a Japanman's machine gun" in combat, and later had his feet attached to his knees. This made him a foot shorter than his fellow family members and causing a characteristic waddle (according to Hank, Cotton was 6' 4" (1.93 m) with his shins, 5' 0" (1.52) without). Despite his disability, he eventually reached the rank of Colonel in the State Militia, and is addressed as such by his friends.

Cotton talks down to women, berates his son, is prone to violent outbursts, and on more than one occasion has exhibited homicidal tendencies. His abrasive, misogynistic manner is consistently embarrassing for Hank and usually infuriating for Hank’s wife, Peggy. Cotton never addresses Peggy by name, instead calling her "Hank’s wife," including on the very rare occasion he's trying to be nice to her (implying, perhaps, he can't remember her name at all).

Cotton is zealously proud of his military service record and his status as a war hero, although he tends to exaggerate his exploits. He consistently reminds 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 (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." –from Episode 1.8 ("Shins of the Father")

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 75. He also claimed to have fought in both Munich and Okinawa within a matter of weeks of each other, but later admitted to not fighting in Munich.

Before leaving Japan, Cotton had an affair with a Japanese nurse in which he conceived his first son (and Hank's older half-brother), Junichiro (voiced by David Carradine); he left suddenly, though he tried to stay, and never knew about his child until years later. After the war, Cotton supervised the installation of asbestos in eleven bowling alleys and every public school in Heimlich County.

Cotton is divorced from Hank's mother, Tilly. At age 75, Cotton fathered a third son whom he also decided to name Hank. When it was pointed out he already had a son named Hank Cotton decreed the new one from now on would be called "Good Hank" or "G.H." and his older son "Bad Hank" or "B.H."

Cotton's second wife is absent-minded Didi Hill, who is the same age as Hank. Hank and Didi went to Kindergarten together, according to episode 1-08 "Shins Of The Father", though it's implied that they had no interaction between then and her marriage to Cotton.

On rare occasions, Cotton shows a vulnerable side that he normally keeps hidden: he realizes that he was a terrible father, hates himself for growing old and becoming disabled, and readily admits that he would die to protect his grandson, Bobby. Through tough love and intense physical therapy, Cotton also helped Peggy walk again after a debilitating accident (something Hank was initially wary of, fearing that Cotton was simply taking advantage of Peggy's brief disability in order to humiliate her).

Cotton's relationship with Hank is strained; while Hank seems to have a deep reverence (and fear) of his father, he has stood up to Cotton on several occasions. Hank does not approve of his father's sexism, but is usually powerless to stop it. Cotton also becomes depressed (and enraged) by the fact that Hank and him don't have a good relationship, once going homicidally insane when Hank said he hates him.

[edit] Trivia

The first few episodes of the show each included a short flashback of Hank's relationship with his father; they ended after Cotton's first "real" appearance on the show.
Cotton once tried to take a rowboat to Cuba and assassinate Fidel Castro, but Hank prevented him from doing so. He tried to assassinate Castro before when the Cuban dictator visited New York in 1959, but his pregnant first wife, Tilly, went into labor and gave birth to Hank before he could do so. Some believe that Cotton never forgave Hank or his mother for twice ruinning his chance to murder Castro, and that might be a key reason for his resentment towards them.
Cotton's surgery scars can be seen in Episode 5.10 "Yankee Hankee".
He once re-declared war on Japan, and hatched a plan to spit in the face of Emperor Akihito out of spite when his Japanese son Junichiro rejected him, but Hank persuaded him not to.
The "fitty" men that Cotton killed may have been based on the real-life exploits of Audie Murphy who himself was in France during World War 2, killed 50 men and won a Congressional Medal of Honor.