John Redcorn - Background

Background

A former roadie for Winger and "Licensed New Age Healer", he is Nancy Gribble's Native American masseur, her lover of 14 years (the two split up during the show's fourth season) and the biological father of Joseph Gribble. Both Dale and Joseph are completely unaware of this, although it is obvious to everyone else in the neighborhood, due to the close resemblance between Joseph and Redcorn. He has a sister, who Nancy seems to assume told everyone about their affair. A recurring gag is that whenever Dale makes a comment about being Joseph's father, John Redcorn shows up.

In episode 38 (3:3), Peggy Hill, still oblivious to the relationship between John Redcorn and Nancy Gribble, goes to Redcorn for help with a real headache. When Hank confronts Redcorn, he says he would never "heal" Peggy the way he heals "other women". The implication is that Redcorn is somewhat known as a womanizer.

John Redcorn drives a tan Jeep Wrangler, and becomes the lead singer of the band Big Mountain Fudgecake, for which Lucky plays guitar and Dale is briefly the manager. Following the breakup of the band, Redcorn begins singing toned-down solo acoustic children's versions of his songs at the Strickland company barbecue and becomes instantly popular. It was revealed that Big Mountain Fudgecake got back together near the end of the episode "Earthly Girls are Easy". When driving, he is often heard playing Pat Benatar including the hits "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" and "Heartbreaker". He is also notable for playing music from the band Foreigner, such as "Hotblooded" and "Double Vision." Redcorn is often seen reading a book about Native American rights in North America, entitled This Land is Our Land. A recurring gag is that when he begins speaking about matters related to Native traditions and their spiritual meanings, Redcorn's long black hair is dramatically whisked up in a breeze. Despite Redcorn's dedication to his heritage, it has sometimes backfired on him. When Bobby Hill becomes interested in Native American rights, Redcorn seems pleased (although his original intention was to get Joseph interested in his heritage). However, Bobby unknowingly says that Redcorn's tribe engaged in cannibalism, which then causes a mortified Redcorn having to explain to everyone how that practice was discontinued centuries ago.

He is most known for his affairs with Dale's wife Nancy, which Dale never finds out about, despite how obvious it is. As a recurring gag, Dale sees several signs of the affair, but always draws the wrong conclusions; on one occasion, he finds him trying to sneak inside to have sex with Nancy, but thinks he is trying to steal his mower. When Dale reports having a vision of a Native American making love with his wife, he then assumes that means he is part Native American himself. John Redcorn's access to Nancy is caused primarily by Dale ignorantly allowing him to be her masseur, and often trusting her to him to keep her away from other men who may have affairs with her.

Redcorn has a predictably difficult relationship with Dale; though he considers him a good man, he is jealous of his relationship with Nancy and Joseph, and exasperated by how Dale's eccentricities influence Joseph. Redcorn seems depressed that he was not more a father to Joseph, which is later partially resolved when Nancy reveals to Joseph that since they all are "from the Earth", John and Joseph are in fact related. In Nancy's Boys, after Dale helps him with a lawsuit against the Federal government, Redcorn calls Dale "a true friend" and cites this as a reason for agreeing to split up with Nancy; he made a similar comment to Hank regarding Peggy in an earlier episode. However, later in the series he would (unsuccessfully) attempt to get back together with Nancy.