King of the Hill/The Exterminator

The Exterminator
Season 5, Episode 14
Airdate	March 4, 2001
Production Number	5ABE09
Written by	Dean Young
Directed by	Shaun Cashman
← 5x13 Ho Yeah!	5x15 → Luanne, Version 2.0
King of the Hill — Season Five

The Exterminator is the fourteenth episode of the fifth season of King of the Hill, and the ninety-eighth episode overall.

Starring: Mike Judge (Hank Hill, Boomhauer), Kathy Najimy (Peggy Hill), Pamela Segall Adlon (Employee), Brittany Murphy (credit only), Johnny Hardwick (Dale Gribble)

and Stephen Root (Bill Dauterive, Lewis)

Also Starring: Ashley Gardner (Nancy Gribble, Carpool Driver), David Herman (Nickman, Rodriguez, Sal Gladstone, Second Gossiper), Breckin Meyer (Joseph Gribble), Stephen Tobolowsky (Doctor, Bert Halverstrom, First Gossiper)

Special Guest Voice: Lisa Kudrow (Amy Pitman)

Plot Overview

After Dale is no longer able to use poisons to exterminate due to health concerns, he's forced to work at an office job.

Notes

Stinger Quote

Dale: Maybe this'll help.

Seen, But Not Heard

• Bobby Hill

Arc Advancement

Characters

• It's revealed that the toxins Dale has been taken in for 22 has eroded his sinuses and coated his lungs with an unidentified substance that will likely kill before he's 50. Dale quits, but after realising he doesn't have to use poisons, he resumes exterminating.

Referbacks

• The picture Dale has of Joseph in his cubicle is of him when they went hunting in "Good Hill Hunting".

Trivia

The Show

• Based on what the doctor says, Dale has been an exterminator for 22 years.

Memorable Moments

• Dale looks at his Dale's Dead Bug Employee of the Year plaque. We see every one is Dale Gribble except the last one, which is Rusty Shackleford.

• Still moping around in his hospital gown, Dale reaches for a beer from the cooler, allowing his gown to open, revealing his bare ass to the guys, much to their revulsion.

Quotes

• Nickman: Shouldn't you be wearing a mask?

Dale: Mask, smask. Smask. Sh, mask. Shmask. Mask, shmask. That's it. Mask, shmask!

• Hank: They called me because, apparently, I'm your emergency contact person.

Dale: I wanted someone who had nothing to gain from my demise.

• Doctor: Mister Gribble, 22 years of breathing in toxins have eroded your sinuses and coated your lungs with a substance I can't quite identify.

Dale: I would like that substance back. It belongs to me.

• Nancy: You're too sick to exterminate, sug.

Dale: I'll tell you what I told that doctor: "I'm not quittin', you incompetent quack!"

• Dale: I love exterminating.

Nancy: More than you love me?

Dale: No. Pretty close, though.

• Nancy: Dale, you have a family who needs you.

Dale: And I need to work to support them.

Nancy: I support us.

Dale: But I contribute.

Nancy: You pay the cable bill.

• Dale: Well, if you need me, I'll be 8 feet under in my metaphorical grave. (beat) The basement.

• Joseph: Dad, I just came down to borrow some roaches for my science project.

Dale: Roaches have been on this earth for 500 million years. You've been here, what? 13? You're in over your head.

• Nancy: Did it occur to either of you to set the table for dinner?

Dale: I guess we were distracted by our afternoon of monitoring roach excretia.

Nancy: That's how you spend your days? Who ate all the chopped meat? That was dinner.

Joseph: The roaches.

Dale: Excretia doesn't come from nowhere.

• Bill: Guess who I saw at the Mega Lo Mart? Richie Sambora.

Hank: No, you didn't.

Bill: You weren't there.

• Hank: Uh, you know, Dale, we're all out here to unwind from the work day. But the past few days, you've sort of just been loitering.

Dale: I've more pressures than any of you. You ever tried replacing a cockroach's blood with root beer?

Hank: You know I haven't.

Dale: Then don't judge me.

• Nancy: All Dale does is eat, play with bugs, and make prank phone calls. Do you know he called my office three times today trying to get me to change my long-distance service?

Hank: Ah, that was him?

• Nancy: I'm tired of getting while-you-were-out messages from the receptionist. "Husband called, still waiting for sex." (shudders)

• Hank: Remember my cousin, Rita?

Dale: The one with the underbite?

Hank: Yeah. Well, she just quit her job at that adhesives company and she's putting in a good word for you to replace her.

Dale: Well, I hope she puts it in writing because you can barely understand her when she talks.

• Dale: You didn't have to drive me to work. I wasn't gonna play hooky on my first day.

Hank: Well, that's not what you told Bobby.

Dale: Your boy's a liar and a blabbermouth.

• Hank: And, Dale, remember: everyone likes a hard worker.

Dale: Of course they do. They do all their work for them!

• Miss Pitman: Mister Gribble, you're a minute late.

Dale: Nuh-uh. My watch says 9:01. Oh, do you start at 9:00?

• Dale: Up yours, Joseph!

Nancy: Dale!

Dale: I'm sorry, son. That's the coffee talking. And the fluorescent lighting. And the excruciating headache.

Nancy: Make some time for the roaches, sug.

Dale: We'd all love to make time for roaches. But in the real world, people have to spend all night reconciling invoices or Miss Pitman won't let them wear chinos and a knit shirt next Friday!

• Hank: Dale, what are you doing to the Bug-a-bago?

Dale: My turn to drive the car pool and the underground garage clearance is only 7 feet.

Hank: Why don't you just take off her antennas?

Dale: Why don't you just take off Bobby's head?!

• Dale: Whine, whine, whine. When I was an exterminator, I killed living isms. What's the big whoop about firing someone?

• Miss Pitman: Mister Gribble, you don't know Bert Halverstrom, do you?

Dale: Met him once. Didn't care for him much.

• Dale: Good-looking kids for two ugly people.

• Dale: All of these plants are real and give off oxygen, which I use throughout the day.

• Lewis: But - But I've got four children!

Dale: I had someone earlier today with eight. Heck, I once killed a beetle with 30 million in her egg sac.

• Dale: Carl, as a janitor, what would you do with unlimited free time and no income?

• Dale: You people with your roaches! I'm trying to fire this incompetent fool with compassion.

Joseph: But, Dad!

Dale: You keep this up, Joseph, you're fired from this family.

Nancy: Dale!

Dale: You're next, blondie.

• Dale: Carl, I'm off to round up some roaches. Any one of which would have made a better janitor than you!

• Dale: Damn it! Why are there so many ways to kill people, but only one way to kill bugs?!

• Joseph: Wow. You killed them all. And you didn't even use poison.

Dale: Yeah, I did. And I didn't, did I?

• Dale: Pitman, firing people can give you a pretty good buzz, but it's a poor, poor substitute for killing. I realise that now.