I love it when in animated TV shows there is a touch of realism in the cars, when you can recognize what they are supposed to be. So when I spied this K car, I recognized it immediately as Peggy Hill’s car from King of the Hill. It seemed somehow fitting that Peggy would drive a Lee Iacocca special. It seemed right for the Hills’ socioeconomic class.
Photo source: vwvortex.com
Except that when I did some noodling around the Internet for details, I found out that in Season 2, Episode 8, “The Son That Got Away,” Hank called Peggy’s car a Buick. Meaning that this is Peggy’s car, an early-mid-80s RWD A body.
Let’s look at Peggy’s actual car, shall we? I never looked below that perfectly square and non-A-body-like roof; it screams K car to me. But below the shoulderline, the deck slope, those wheel arches, and that rear tail light clearly say Century/Regal sedan. There’s even a mark on the fender ahead of the tail light where the Century or Regal badge would go.
What cars have you seen in cartoons that made you sit up straight and say, “Hey! That’s a ______”?
Almost every vehicle in KOTH is recognizeable. Buck Strickland drove a ’98-’02 Cadillac Seville. Hank’s trucks went from a Ranger to an F-250. Dale’s Dead Bug rolled in a 2nd gen Dodge Ram Van (Caravan based).
I also enjoy the cars of Archer.
Boomhauer drives what looks like a 1968 Super Bee.
I think its listed as a ’69 Coronet. John Redcorn has a YJ Wrangler. Bill…Im not sure. Its like a mazda 626 hatchback or something. Maybe a 4 door escort. Kahn has had a couple different Japanese minivans. Peggy wound up with a Sebring convertible at some point.
Beavis and Butthead (also Mike Judge’s work) had a few recognizable rides also. Todd had a Duster. In the movie, Bruce Willis’ character had a Lincoln Mark something and Demi Moore’s character drove what looked like a ’71ish Camaro. Mr Buzzcut said he had a Wagoneer…not sure if we ever got to see it tho.
IIRC, Cotton’s ride was a 1970s Eldorado convertible.
Maybe, but the taillights of Boomhauer’s Coronet sure look like a 1968, to me.
The 1968-70 Super Bee was based on a Coronet. LOL
As for Archer, I’ll mention a couple of things: the fact that Archer drives muscle cars and more worldly Lana has an Aston-Martin (the refined, British muscle car) is really good. Krieger’s vans and Cyril’s Dacia are a bit over the top, but also appropriate for the characters. I also love that they showed what’s visibly a 707 with very dated seat pitch inside as well.
In older Family Guy episodes, Brian’s Prius is the only recognizable car. According to Seth MacFarlane himself, it fits Brian’s personality perfectly (and Brian is very much a self-parody of his creator); it was also clever that the talking dog drove the only car that could be pinned to a specific make and model.
Sadly, that part was lost when Peter’s wagon was made to look specifically like a Ford when they went to CGI props and backgrounds, and the old Crown Vic wagon doesn’t suit Peter at all (he doesn’t seem the type to make a car last that long, especially in New England!)
Quagmires ride has always been a ragtop ’57 Chevy. I think when Peter briefly had a pickup it was vaguely modeled after a Dodge Dakota single cab. On occasion, they’ll have a car that you can actually identify but usually theyre just generic blobs. Which nowadays is pretty accurate for 3/4 of whats on the road.
All the cars on Family Guy have gotten a lot more realistic and mostly obvious in recent seasons (sadly as concurrently the show had greatly declined in overall quality, IMHO). The plot lines have become too outrageous – I miss the more slapstick comedy of older seasons which I can watch over and over again.
Anyway, my favorite is from an early season when Meg is buying her first car and the salesman presents a “1996 Sedan” which is clearly a Volvo.
“Anyway, my favorite is from an early season when Meg is buying her first car and the salesman presents a “1996 Sedan” which is clearly a Volvo. ”
The best part is that he presented that car after she asked for something that ‘fit her personality’. haha! Shut up, Meg. IIRC, she ended up with a Sherman tank, and never got to drive it.
I assume we’re supposed to ignore Initial D, since the cars are very detailed and most of the show is spent describing each car’s pros and cons.
How did you know I’m working on a little writeup on Initial D?
It’s hard to pin down a lot of cartoons. Inspector Gadget’s hatchback always reminded me of a Toyota Celica hatchback but it’s nowhere near a perfect match…
I did find a web site that details a few of the cars of “The Simpsons”, though of the main cars Marge’s wagon has too little detail to be recognizeable and for Homer’s car I can’t think of anything with large single round lamps and that almost caddy-ish taill.
http://www.chillhour.com/all-cars-of-the-cult-cartoonthe-simpsons
The gadgetmobile most closely resembles a 1983 Supra if I had to hazard a guess.
Same generation of Celica I was thinking of:
(photo borrowed from cardomain user “1984GT”)
Someone who draws for The Simpsons has to be a Volkswagen person.
Marge’s chain-smoking twin sisters drive what is obviously a Thing.
I remember a flashback episode in which the preacher is driving a Karmann Ghia convertible and then there’s the episode where Bart gets run down by a Beetle convertible. And a bit about a very tall man driving a Beetle.
I could go on and on. I watched that show religiously in the 90’s and as most know, I’m totally VW obsessed.
I like the episode where Nelson gets whooped by a giant driving an air cooled Beetle, for ha-ha’ing him. He said it was the only car he could afford.
In older flashback episodes, Marge drove a Gremlin when she was younger
I thought of a Celica/Supra hatchback of the era. However I once imagined and sketched the Gadgetmobile as a Pontiac Firebird. ^^; Here the fanart, I also posted it on Deviantart. ^^;
I’ve heard it’s supposed to be a Matra Murena.
The closest to Inspector Gadget’s car, right down to the REAR louvers, too.
The Aston Martin Bulldog concept car…
Rear louvers of Aston Martin Bulldog… aka Inspector Gadget’s car
Def a Century/Regal by shape and proportion, though the front overhang is has an X-Car FWD overbite. Buick X-Cars didn’t have the vertical directionals, and no X had that rear quarter window. The size is pure X, however.
Too big to be an X, …
It’s a medium car… it’s a Regal sedan G body(former body of the A body RWD Century).
It’s a 1982 Buick Regal Sedan. You can tell because it has a 4 lamp head light system. The century only has 2 lamps.
I always liked that Calvin’s Dad drove a bargain-bin 2-door hatchback, like a Colt or a Metro. It further drove home the Dad character as a pragmatic, humorless, functional figure. Driving a car like that builds character!
That Calvin cartoon had me laughing out loud so hard the tears came!! Boy, how I miss Calvin & Hobbs!!! 🙂
Yep, GOOD cartoon …. just like Gary Larson’s “The Far Side”
I think in this comic the headlights and grill most resemble a Hyundai. The perfect car to fit Calvin’s dad’s personality.
Looks more like a 1986-88 Chevy Sprint(Suzuki Swift)
Right down to the sidemarkers…
Rear end… almost SAME taillights.
Somewhat related to this, there is a question lingering in my head as to what Homer Simpson drives… specifically is that supposed to represent a pink Mary Kay Cadillac ?
If so, perhaps it would make for a good episode as to how Homer came to own it. If Not a Pink Cadillac What is that car. I assume the red wagon is a 73-76 Malibu.
One of my favorite cartoon cars was the teenage Homer Simpson’s 1970 Roadrunner. I like it mainly because it has a Superbird rear wing which, theoretically, means it could be a ‘real’ Superbird that was sold new in Maryland (making it another clue as to the state the city of Springfield is located).
The story is that the state of Maryland did not recognize the Superbird’s NASCAR nose cone as a real front bumper (which it wasn’t) and decreed that the car had to have a real front bumper to be sold in the state. Converting a Superbird back to a Roadrunner would be no easy task, since the fenders and hood were actually from a Dodge Coronet. You’d, literally, have to find and use an entire 1970 Roadrunner front doghouse to convert one.
This is also sometimes cited as the basis for the myth that you could get a 440-4v in a Roadrunner prior to 1972. Some of those 1970 440-4v Roadrunners might actually have been dealer converted Superbirds, since it’s widely known that the Superbird was a hard sell and, in desperation to sell a ‘car that was nailed to the showroom floor’ (in dealer parlance), they would actually go to the trouble and expense of converting them.
It’s a running joke that Springfield is impossible to actually locate on a map. In the movie, Flanders mentions the four states that border Springfield’s are Ohio, Kentucky, Maine and Nevada.
We have a Springfield in Massachusetts, too.
Except, we built Rolls Royces here. LOL
That’s a 1980-85 Buick Century/Regal sedan. I can see a 1990s TX blue collar family driving a used 80;s Buick, which is a ‘status symbol’ to them.
I don’t know if it would be so much a ‘status symbol’. But to an average everyday working family in the midsouth or southwest that kind of car is pretty typical. Its just an average everyday family car, making it a spot on pick.
Yep. The tailights wrapped around on the side say that (back in the 1980s my family had a 1980 Buick Century sedan).
I don’t think I ever paid that much attention to Peggy’s specific car, but now that you mention it, it does resemble a certain turd-brown ’81 Century that was my mother-in-law’s car for almost 20 years. Which is sort of fitting, I guess.
Another one I just thought of–in the Disney/Pixar film Ratatouille, the main antagonist (Chef Skinner) drives a Facel Vega HK500. Doesn’t get a lot of screen time but it’s absolutely clear what it is. Somebody working on the film must have been a car guy…
Photo borrowed from imcdb.org:
“The Incredibles” has 64 Galaxies all over the place.
And there’s always this…
I work for a software company. I use this Simpsons episode as the reason why NOT to let your customers have too much say over the design of your product.
Over 20 comments and still no Archer love?
See first comment.
In one episode of Beavis and Butthead,, they are on a gas station next to an old lady driving an AMC Pacer. Also, their friend from prison droved what looks like a Plymouth Duster or Dodge Demon.
That neighbour that always accused them of whacking in his shed had a GMC motorhome.
When Goofy drove an AMC Pacer in A Goofy Movie
I’ll just leave this website here for you; http://www.imcdb.org/.
It’s got nearly any movie or tv series you could think of with recognizable cars; and they even bother to identify the rabble of cars in background traffic.
Hergé was very careful to do accurate cars in the Tintin cartoons – see http://dardel.info/tintin/indexE.html
The Tin Tin car models at Peter Jacksons Weta Workshops are not particularly accurate and look like drawings as moulded.
Anyone remember the Toyota Previa in the Rugrats? Angelica’s mom, Charlotte would drive the kids in it
yep, previa was driven by stu too
Not familiar with this very American series it took me a while to realize it was not a real person. I initially confused her with Janet Reno.
In the later seasons, Peggy ended up buying a Sebring convertible. Did anyone notice that Hank’s Ranger bodystyle was constantly changing?
I thought it was Hank’s personality flaw, a serial truck trader. Otherwise he’s no nonsense.
For most of the run of the series, Hank’s Ranger was recognizable as a 90’s model, which made it a fairly new vehicle (at the time). I believe this particular image is from the episode where Hank is faced with the traumatic realization that his beloved truck is on it’s last legs. The plot is based on the premis that he has had it for nearly twenty years, which if it were a 90’s model, would have been impossible when it originally aired. Someone was clever enough to have the animators depict it as a much older model for this one episode, which ended up being it’s last appearance. By episode’s end, Hank had his F-250, which he drove for the remainder of the series.
I might be wrong, but he had aero headlight Rangers before the F-250. That red one is a mid 80’s, so you are likely right. He’s a true Ford man.
The K car was Imacooccoo’s attempt to kill Chrysler. I’m glad it backfired on him.
I recall an old Tom and Jerry with a late 50’s Ford wagon.
As an owner of one, I have to share Superintendent Chalmers’ 1st generation Honda Accord, from the Simpsons. This aired in the ’90s, at which time I suppose it was just a fairly commonly seen old car.
Peggy Hill drove a 1982-87 Buick Regal sedan G body.
In one episode, she told Hank… “Hank, the Buick is acting up, again.”
Later, in the episode, she trade it in on a black Chrysler Sebring convertible.
The pic of the Buick you included with the K car, is a 1980-81 Buick Century notchback sedan… a much needed BETTER looking update, to the FUGLY turtleback/fastback A body Centurys/Cutlasses.
The body is the same as Peggy’s, but it only has ONE single headlight on each side… Peggy’s has the quad headlights, which would make it a Buick Regal sedan 1982-87… after the Century went FWD, with the other A body lineup(Buick Century, Chevy Celebrity, Olds Cutlass Ciera and Pontiac A6000).
The former RWD A bodies, were now G bodies… The Buick Regal, Chevy Malibu/Monte Carlo, Olds Cutlass Supreme and Pontiac Grand Prix/Bonneville(former B body… taken over by the Parissienne).
Forget those GOOFY images of KINDA lookalike cars… the Anime Initial D, has cars that are the stars and were made to mimic, the ACTUAL driving traits of the cars featured…
Mazda RX7s… FC and FD generations, respectively…
The cars in Initial D look EXACTLY like their namesakes…