Dale Gribble

Daniel Stern was originally offered the role of Dale Gribble, but declined due to a salary dispute.[3][4] Stephen Root also auditioned for the role, but later stated that "it didn't feel right"; Root ultimately was cast as Bill Dauterive.[5] The role was eventually given to Johnny Hardwick.[4]

Dale had been estranged from his father, Bug Gribble, since he witnessed Bug kissing Dale's wife, Nancy, on the lips on their wedding day. In truth, Bug only kissed Nancy to hide his homosexuality as he was nearing a kiss with a Filipino caterer. When Dale entered the room, Bug, afraid of his son possibly rejecting him because of his sexuality, panicked and reached for the nearest female, not realizing that it was Nancy until the damage was done. Dale did not learn the truth until 20 years later, when Hank, Dale, Boomhauer and Bill went to his father's gay rodeo to invite Bug to Dale's second wedding to Nancy. They find Bug and meet his lover, Juan-Pedro. Bug eventually reveals the truth to Dale and by the end of the episode Dale and Bug reconcile. Dale's mother is deceased, according to the episode "Bobby on Track".

Although highly suspicious of the government and of other people, Dale is unaware (although everyone else knows) that his wife Nancy had an affair with John Redcorn for nearly 15 years and that his son, Joseph (who strongly resembles Redcorn), is not his biological son. Dale never learned of the affair throughout the run of the series. The closest he has ever come to learning about it is in the episode where Peggy wanted to tell him, but she decided not to after seeing Dale and Joseph's relationship. John Redcorn even told Dale in the episode "Hank Gets Dusted" that he cheated with Hank's best friend's wife for 13 years, and Dale just thought he was talking about Bill's wife, Lenore; he never questioned what Redcorn said. This is apparently due in part to his blinding love for Nancy and his personal belief that John Redcorn might be "gay". An example of Dale's ignorance of Redcorn and Nancy's relationship occurs in one episode where he catches Redcorn sneaking through his bedroom window while Nancy was "sleeping" in their bed. When Redcorn, believing Dale had found out about his relationship with Nancy, sees this, he tells Dale he regrets him finding out in this way. Dale simply replies, "Get off my mower (Redcorn had jumped through the window by climbing onto Dale's lawn mower) and start massaging my wife", still in the belief that Redcorn was simply Nancy's masseur with the task of curing her false recurrent migraine headaches (forcing Redcorn to say in an exasperated tone that Dale was "taking some of the fun out of this"). Dale also discovers that Joseph shares a father with another child (a child fathered by John Redcorn, unbeknownst to Dale), but assumes this means both Joseph and the other child were the product of aliens inseminating earth women. A recurring gag early in the series was that whenever Dale would make a comment about being Joseph's father or being lucky enough to have a wife like Nancy, John Redcorn would show up.

In the episode "Vision Quest", Dale had a vision where he witnessed a faceless Native-American man wearing a lavish buffalo head-dress and other garb impregnating Nancy and then wound up in a hospital watching Nancy give birth to Joseph, who came out wearing exactly the same head-dress as the faceless Native American. He then tries to deduce that he himself must be Native-American. It is implied that Dale does know, but is simply in denial.

In contrast to the usually shallow demeanor he has towards his friends and people in general, Dale is fiercely devoted to his wife and son, and frequently displays his love for them. He blames himself for all of the problems Nancy herself caused between them while she was cheating on him, has an explicit (and misplaced) trust in her, and pampers her constantly; lavishing compliments, favors and gifts upon her, often in the embarrassing presence of John Redcorn. However, he never really showed much interest in spending personal time with her, and sometimes, usually in social situations, he would momentarily forget that he was married. Dale is extremely proud of Joseph, towards whom he is highly generous and supportive, especially for his athletic prowess and strong build, which Dale never possessed any of. Unlike Hank's demeanor with Bobby, Dale is extremely attentive to Joseph's needs and feelings, and is never afraid to express his affection for him. Although Dale's attempts at good parenting occasionally go astray due to his odd ideas, he is portrayed as Joseph's primary parent (especially in the earlier seasons when Nancy was still having an affair), and is usually the first person Joseph turns to when in trouble. Joseph, unlike Bobby, has very little conflict with his father and rarely seems to feel the need to rebel against him, probably due to Dale's emotional availability and acceptance of his son's activities and tendencies – an area in which he outshines Hank. While he is comfortable and unworried about his son's development, Dale is very protective of Joseph: despite his cowardly nature, he once rushed into what he believed was the tractor beam of an alien ship to save him, even though he was convinced that Joseph's real father was an alien.

Though as a father, Dale is often quite incompetent and misleading. When Joseph was caught smoking a cigarette with Bobby, Dale encouraged Joseph to consider taking smoking up as a habit as opposed to Bobby's parents who never wanted Bobby to smoke again. Dale sees Joseph fall in with some bad kids and pushes Joseph to be one of "the cool kids"—to the point of even breaking into a zoo together and encouraging him to kill an animal. Dale tries to get Joseph to go to a prep school for football, against even Joseph's own wishes, because of the bribes the school gives Dale including gift baskets and a paid up front 100 year extermination contract. He is always there for Joseph despite being inept and misguided. Even Dale admits his fatherly advice is "shoddy at best".

Voice-over actor Johnny Hardwick has described Dale as fancying himself as a "William S. Burroughs" or "Jack Nicholson" type who thinks he knows all the angles. He believes most tabloid beliefs and urban legends, distrusting virtually every authority figure.

Dale is also seen to be a musician, with the electronic keyboard as his principal instrument. His resume includes a stint with the Propaniacs and the Dale Gribble Bluegrass Experience. He later becomes the manager of Big Mountain Fudgecak(e).

During the episode "The Texas Skillsaw Massacre," it is revealed Dale also cares for and raises show turtles; Dale was seen polishing a turtle using Turtle Wax and a handheld electric buffer. He also keeps other creatures, especially different kinds of bugs, in the basement.

When the chemicals he used to kill rats (as well as a lifetime of smoking) forced Dale to briefly give up his job due to him passing out from the gas, he took a position as a corporate hatchet-man and was spectacularly good at firing people, but his action to deal with a roach infestation (which he caused inadvertently) at this job led him to return to extermination where he successfully killed every roach without the use of poisons. Dale's favorite TV shows are Sanford and Son and What's Happening!!. He enjoys drinking Alamo Beer with Hank, Bill, and Boomhauer. Dale is an avid smoker (since third grade) of Manitoba brand cigarettes, most likely a parody of Marlboro cigarettes, and also drinks Mountain Dew (which he once asked Nancy to boil). In the episode "Dale Be Not Proud," Dale tells a boy receiving his kidney that the kidney likes Mountain Dew, and to give it a can once a week. He also stockpiled two CO₂ pressurized drums of Mountain Dew in preparation for Y2K in the episode "Hillennium." In the same episode, he attempted to breed "gerbster," a combination of hamster and gerbil for fresh meat during Y2K (he had thought that the breeding pair were gerbils, but Nancy had pointed out that one was a hamster).

Dale's paranoid nature extends to his home and family. He has coded scenarios should he ever come under threat (no matter how absurd or unlikely), albeit Nancy is oblivious to the exact nature of the scenario. His own home is rigged with various security and surveillance features; how he can afford them is uncertain as Nancy is the superior earner. He once rigged Hank's and his own mailbox to explode via the television remote. His rear sliding door features a backup grille style door (the kind found in shopping mall stores) to keep out intruders; his front door features a full metal roll-down door, while the porch lights serve as klaxons, which were put in use when the real Rusty Shackleford paid a visit (see below). His bathroom is accessible via keypad lock as is access to the basement. Dale's basement is his principal "headquarters." One episode indicates he has a perimeter encompassing security cameras and motion detectors that respond in his own voice. His living room TV is rigged like a video phone. He records all his phone conversations but does not allow callers to record their calls to him themselves. He owns surplus Soviet night vision goggles and eavesdropping listeners. Yet for all his documentation of goings-on, he has never deduced Nancy has been committing adultery with John Redcorn and Joseph is the product of their love.

Perhaps owing to the research he has conducted as a conspiracy theorist, Dale has a thorough knowledge of the workings of the American government, the legal system, the BEAST (computer conspiracy), and bureaucracy. He has used this knowledge to assist his friends, both to help Hank with problems related to renewing his driver's license when a clerical error changes his gender, and to help John Redcorn with his land claim and lawsuit against the American government. Dale's help for Hank in that instance came about after he realized the Warren Commission report was accurate and became obnoxiously patriotic, to the point of painting a huge American flag on Hank's house (without enough stars on it) and trying to turn Hank into the Department of Homeland Security after he tried to remove it. However, he has a habit of horribly misconstruing information, having misunderstood a placebo (a fake drug, usually sugar or colored water) for a top-secret government research project and Hank for cleaning off the paint he put on Hank's roof as "defacing an American flag" in the aforementioned case. A running gag throughout the series is Dale's attempt (denied 6 times according to Hank) to construct his own guard tower in his front yard. In the episode "Flush with Power" he appealed to the zoning board for such permission only to be denied. He was later granted permission by a corrupt politician; to do so if he helped blackmail Hank (who also served on the board) which Hank promptly tore up when Dale confessed. In the episode "Life: A Loser's Manual" Dale orders aluminum rails to finally build his tower. To avoid county laws, using his knowledge of loopholes, he constructed the tower with reduced dimensions the county had no authority to condemn (Regulations come into effect if the structure exceeds 100 square feet and exceeds 40 feet in height) at 39 feet high. However, the lack of a foundation caused it to collapse.

Dale stands at 6'0" and shares a birthday with Van Cliburn (July 12). He is believed to have been born around 1953, as he was in the same grade as Hank in school, and Hank is revealed to have been born in 1953 in the episodes "Order of the Straight Arrow" and "Hank's Dirty Laundry". He is almost never seen without his signature Mack cap and prescription eyeglasses with sunglass lenses on a hinge (even indoors and in the shower), except on rare occasions where he is forced to remove them, as seen in the episode where he worked at a sticky notes business as a human resources director and had to adhere to a corporate dress code. He wears his cap and glasses indoors at all times, even at funerals. He always wears his hat because he is very sensitive about his hair loss. He has brown eyes and a slightly raspy voice.

He often gets caught up in his (usually far-fetched and extreme) conspiracy theories, which can sometimes cause him to be very selfish or double-cross his friends (particularly Hank), although in the end he usually sees sense and comes to the aid of his friends. His schemes also tend to run out of steam or collapse; he bought a low-power radio transmitter, and launched his own talk station "serving the entire tri-house area" Art Bell-style, but soon ran out of things to talk about on the air. (He later indicated that "Dale's Dead Bug," of which he is the owner and sole employee, was offended by things he said on air. He sold the transmitter to "Mexican interests" – namely, his friend, Octavio.) He also puts out an irregular newsletter titled "The Gribble Report," and was once asked by Hank not to send it to his father Cotton.

His trademark line is "Shi-shi-shi-shaa-haa," usually heard too fast to phonetically understand, and he says it whenever he is impressed with himself carrying out a plan or when springing a sudden move of his own brand of "martial arts". He also exclaims "Wingo!" when excited and "That's a Gribble of an idea!" when someone thinks of a solution to his problems. He's also known for exclaiming "S'go, s'go!" (a contraction of "Let's go") when rushed or excited and "G'h!" when he is startled or learns something that feeds into his paranoid nature. When apprehended, he is quick to give up his accomplices.

In the episode "Tankin' It to the Streets," Dale claims to have completed a Russian correspondence course and can speak the language, in this episode he is heard reciting perfect Russian as is done in one other episode "Nancy does Dallas" though his application of this in handling an Abrams M1A2 tank isn't exactly flawless (having flattened Kahn's new SUV, or, as Hank put it, "hit a curb"). In "Night and Deity," moreover, Dale is further shown to have some competency in Tagalog.

While Dale is boastful and often outgoing in his schemes, he invariably turns into a coward at the slightest sight of trouble, such as when he and Bobby attempt to steal the rival school's mascot (and subsequently retreats back to Tom Landry Middle School when they realize that their mascot costume isn't protected), Dale takes off the second Bobby tells him of the incoming students from the rival school, leaving Bobby behind (Dale heads off to tell Hank so that the latter may go and save Bobby). However, he openly admits that he completely trusts his friends (particularly Hank), even more than himself, and in cases where he does realize the full impact of his actions, he can be surprisingly self-sacrificing. When he and his friends became volunteer firemen, he secretly switched his full oxygen tank with Hank's low-running one just before putting out a fire. On another occasion, in order to save Bobby from a swarm of fire ants, he intentionally transferred them to his own body and allowed them to all bite him at the same time, an action that nearly killed him. He also saved the guys from a crazed member of the gun club claiming to be a member of the CIA. Dale also typically comes to wrong conclusions about actual events; a running gag in the show is Dale being unaware of Nancy cheating on him, despite walking in on her and John Redcorn. Moreover, he typically thinks most events that occur to him are motivated, malicious acts against him and not accidents, such as when Hank cuts off Dale's finger by accident using his circular saw and Dale becomes convinced that Hank meant to injure him. In actuality, it was Dale who carelessly put his finger in front of the blade.

He is also a keen baker, as referenced in numerous episodes. He cooks and cleans as his wife is the one with a full-time job and she personally pays most of the bills for the family. Nancy has him on an allowance. He reads a lot of romance novels.

The character of Dale Gribble and Hardwick's portrayal have received positive reception. Cartoon Brew in 2023, after Hardwick's death regarded Gribble as "iconic",[8] with the companies Hulu and 20th Century Animation putting out a statement after his death saying that Hardwick "gave life to one of our most iconic characters".[9] Critics and reviewers from other entertainment blogs and websites have similarly discussed the character in positive terms.[10][11][12]

• Official site for King of the Hill
• Official bio (archived page; retrieved April 14, 2009)