After a 15-year wait, it’s time to dust off your favorite draft beer and break out the grill retrofitted with propane and propane accessories because King of the Hill is back.
The Emmy-winning series created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels picks up several years after we last saw the Hill family. Hank (Judge) and Peggy Hill (Kathy Najimy) are now retired and return to a more modern Arlen, Texas, after years of working in Saudi Arabia. Their son Bobby (Pamela Adlon) is 21 and living his best life while navigating adulthood as a Japanese-German fusion cuisine chef in Dallas. The Hills’ friends — conspiracy theorist Dale (Johnny Hardwick/Toby Huss), bumbling barber Bill (Stephen Root), fast-talking Boomhauer (Judge), new neighbor Brian Robertson (Keith David), perfectionist Minh (Lauren Tom), news anchor Nancy (Ashley Gardner) and Bobby’s friend Connie (Tom) — also make appearances as they help their friends process the changing world.
Here, Deadline speaks with Judge and voice actors Tom and Huss about bringing the iconic Texans into the modern age.
DEADLINE: Talk about bringing King of the Hill into modern-day culture. It was fun to see episodes tackling incel culture and genderless restrooms. You even aged up the characters too.
MIKE JUDGE: Because our show is less surreal than other animated shows, like say, The Simpsons, it just seemed that even during the original run of the show, especially with Bobby, how long can we get away with keeping him [a young kid and teenager]? So, for us, it just seemed like the right thing to do. We all did a reunion table read at San Francisco Sketchfest in 2017, and that’s when we started talking about the idea of doing the show again. Once we kicked around a lot of ideas, we came upon this idea of Hank and Peggy, who were gone out of the country in Saudi Arabia, for however many years, and then they come back and [things evolved from there]. It just seemed like a good way in. Also, when I would look on Twitter, I would see people saying that Bobby and Connie should be adults now. So, it just seemed like that’s what the universe was telling us.
During the original run of the show, Greg [Daniels] and I used to talk about this in the writers’ room. We had this concept of Andy Griffith being back and he’s pissed off, because we grew up on The Andy Griffith Show, and we wanted to bring that kind of old-school person into the world. Now we think of it as Hank Hill is back, and he’s pissed off. It’s funny because the Aramco base [petroleum company] has this idyllic, perfect American city for Americans over there. So, for Hank, it seemed great. He’s in this idyllic world, and then he comes back to America. And now he’s like, “What the hell?”
TOBY HUSS: Right. He almost got time-capsuled in there. He got used to women being covered up and modest [laughs].
DEADLINE: That’s got me thinking about that male empowerment scheme in Episode 9. Hank quickly realizes that these men are trying to capture attention from women the wrong way. Hank steps in to tell them that women deserve to be treated with respect.
HUSS: Hank has always had those flourishes of being forced to accept Bobby the way he is.
JUDGE: And you watch Hank grow through the series, and realize that he wasn’t supposed to make that change of embracing his son like that, but then he did.
LAUREN TOM: Good for him!
JUDGE: You see that Hank does have all those good instincts in there.
DEADLINE: It’s been awhile since I’ve watched the original run of the series, but I feel like Dale is more paranoid than ever this time around.
HUSS: I’d call him more of a centrist now [laughs]. He’s a centrist now more than he ever was, just because all of his paranoid views are now real talking points on a lot of TV shows and all over the internet. It must be an unsettling feeling for Dale, who was once the insider, now watching it all unfold around him.
JUDGE: There are more flat-earthers now than there were back when we started the show.
DEADLINE: Connie and Minh have always had an interesting relationship with each other throughout the series. But in Season 14, it seems Minh is learning from Connie this time around. Talk more about that dynamic in the new episodes.
TOM: I think their roles flipped in a way because Minh was always kind of controlling of her daughter. And then Connie’s now trying to be more of the adult, trying to talk her mom into doing something crazy. And I just think that Connie has come into herself more now. So, their dynamic has changed, but in a healthy way.
DEADLINE: What was it like stepping back into these roles after all this time?
TOM: It was about the joy more than anything else. It was being able to see all of our friends again that we grew up with. Like a family reunion.
JUDGE: That first table read was really fun.
DEADLINE: Toby, you had to take over for Johnny Hardwick as Dale after he passed before this season went to air. Talk a bit about that.
HUSS: It was something I’ve never done before, taking over somebody’s role. Dale was a role created out of Johnny Hardwick’s wonderful brain. Hopefully I can carry on and not add so much [of myself] but just carry on what he was going and hold water for him.
DEADLINE: What do you hope fans get out of this version of the TV series now that it’s back and more modern than ever?
TOM: I like a saying that goes, “If you want to make yourself happy, lose something and then find it again.” That’s what I hope people rediscover.
JUDGE: For me, I’ve gotten a lot of people over the years who said, “I watch King of the Hill before I go to sleep.” And I’m OK with that. I have comfort shows that are like that for me. I really think it’s just that. I want them to just like it. I don’t think of the series as me having some big message or anything like that. It’s just with all the algorithms of social media, a lot of trying to divide people’s attention works because [whatever topic] makes you angry or gets you charged up. But then you go out into the real world, and all of that [noise] is just Twitter or whatever platform — you get out into the real world and people are a little nicer, more normal. And I think we think of this show as just out there in the real world.
King of the Hill Season 14 is now available to stream in its entirety on Hulu.
[This interview has been edited for length and clarity]
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