Four Times ‘King of the Hill’s Dale Gribble Was Mostly Right About a Conspiracy Theory
Back in the late 1990s, the whole point of King of the Hill’s Dale Gribble was that he was a conspiracy nut disconnected from reality. Unfortunately, in our current era of mis/dis-information, people who think like Dale are far more pervasive — no matter how absurd their adrenochrome-laden theories may be.
That said, some of what Dale spouted back in the day wasn’t so crazy in that similar real-life conspiracies have proven to be true. Or because technological advancements over the past three decades have made them true.
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Here are four times when Dale’s conspiracy theories were actually not that far from the truth — or eventual truth…
Weather Control
In the very first episode of King of the Hill, Hank is troubleshooting what’s wrong with his truck, and Dale tells him it’s the truck’s pollution control. Dale goes on to explain that the U.N. is looking to control the weather to counteract global warming. As far-fetched as it may sound, there have been efforts in recent years to control the weather. In fact, just earlier this week, Politico reported on a company in California that aborted a plan to make clouds to block sunlight for fears it would scare the public, which, of course, it would.
Operation Infinite Walrus
In “Tankin' It to the Streets,” Dale claims that “Bill Dauterive was given large doses of an experimental drug from 1982 to 1984. The Army was trying to create an elite group of Arctic commandos stationed in Alaska and able to withstand frigid temperatures. They called it ‘Operation: Infinite Warus.’ Their mission: to repel an invasion if and when the communists came over the polar ice cap. The drug was designed to create accumulation of heat-retaining blubber across the torso, foster the growth of insulating body hair and create the ability to undertake long periods of hibernation.”
As absurd as this sounds, it’s not that much crazier than the CIA program MK-Ultra, which NPR described as an effort to “search for a mind-control drug” by experimenting on uninformed volunteers at prisons, universities and hospitals.
The Beast
The hosts of BWAAA! A King of the Hill Podcast, Mike Hamilton and “Rusty Shackleford,” point to a Dale conspiracy theory that seemed completely absurd in 1998, but is basically common knowledge today. In the episode “Hank’s Dirty Laundry,” Dale makes repeated references to “The Beast,” a global conspiracy controlled by computers in an effort to collect the personal information of everyone on Earth. With headlines like “ChatGPT User Creeped Out After A.I. Shares Others’ Info” from the New York Post and “Amazon’s Alexa Never Stops Listening to You. Should You Worry?” from The New York Times, Dale’s so-called “Beast” is basically our status quo in 2025.
The Harvest
Finally, Shackleford cites Dale’s rant about an organ-harvesting program in “Dale Be Not Proud” as another not-too-far-from-reality conspiracy theory, since even the U.N. has reported on human-trafficking rings that are used to harvest organs.
That said, the U.N. would likely be the last source of information Dale would trust.