The Simpsons legend dies after battle with rare neurological illness
The star had been diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) in his mid-seventies. There is currently no cure for the condition which affects vision, speech, movement and balance.
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The Guardian
14 hours ago
- The Guardian
How does the King of the Hill reboot fit into a very different America?
The Fox Network's rotating lineup of animated sitcoms increasingly dominate the list of the longest-running scripted prime time shows ever made. Whether they're the actual record-holder (The Simpsons), a once-canceled cult show turned institution (Family Guy, or the cable-channel-hopping Futurama), or a 'newer' show that's actually entering its 16th season (Bob's Burgers), these shows leverage their age-defying format to serve as both a constant in their viewers' lives and a living document of contemporary American life over their many years on the air. So it's not unusual that King of the Hill, a Fox cartoon that aired in the late 90s and throughout the 2000s, would rejoin its corporate cousins for a 14th season on Hulu. But just as during the show's original run, it's an odd fit with those other, brasher animated sitcoms – sometimes blessedly so. It would be easy enough to characterize King of the Hill as a red-state Simpsons. Instead of bumbling everyman/id Homer Simpson, created by anti-establishment cartoonist Matt Groening, it focuses on the genially repressed Hank Hill (Mike Judge), created by satirical cartoonist Mike Judge. Hank is a buttoned-up propane salesman who values courtesy, patriotism, tradition and decency; in a switch-up from typical sitcom dynamics of its era, the show portrays Hank's wife Peggy (Kathy Najimy) as the more hubris-prone buffoon of the two (especially as the seasons progress). Throughout the series, Hank struggles to connect with his preteen son Bobby, who doesn't share his predisposition toward stoicism. And as with the Springfield of The Simpsons, the rest of the show is populated by residents of Arlen, Texas, a fictional but realistically rendered suburb of Dallas. Judge has always made it clear that he doesn't consider King of the Hill principally political. Hank's obvious conservatism has as much to do with his manner as his beliefs, which the show takes care to not root in bigotry or ideological stubbornness. Hank pre-visions sitcom characters like Ron Swanson, the anti-government government worker who became a favorite on Parks and Recreation. Unlike Ron, who was genuinely more effective with a touch of cartoonishness in earlier seasons before the show's writers became addicted to portraying him as a genuinely great guy, Hank is always presented as even-keeled and sensible, with the show's humor often coming from his squareness. The writers also do an admirable job of keeping its politics local, exploring how social changes (like 'going green' in a later-period episode) affect Arlen in particular. The words 'common sense' get thrown around a lot, in discussing the show and within the show itself. The sense of cartoon mischief that informs its other contemporaries (including Judge's more satirical Beavis and Butt-Head) is minimal. For example, when The Simpsons did an episode about the Bush family, it playfully (if somewhat good-naturedly) caricatured ex-president George HW Bush as a Mr Wilson figure to Bart's Dennis the Menace, a clever riff given that Bush had earlier targeted The Simpsons in a speech as less aspirational than family shows of yore. (Later presidential jabs were not so obtuse.) Beavis and Butt-Head once met Bill Clinton, and the show characterized him as having a little more in common with the boys than some would expect. Meanwhile, in the fifth-season premiere of King of the Hill set around the 2000 presidential election, George W Bush appears at a rally attended by an enthusiastic Hank, who loses faith in his preferred candidate when he gets a sample of a surprisingly limp handshake. Mostly, though, the episode is about taking pride in voting, no matter what compromises or surprises await in that process. The show didn't change drastically, if at all, with W actually in office – or, for that matter, with the rise of Obama, though the show's final episodes, aired during Obama's first term, were likely produced before he was sworn in. That's also an area where the show's animated approach came in handy: It was able to run for well over a decade and only nebulously age its characters a few years. The approach was more akin to a newspaper comic strip than a weekly TV series, even a Simpsons-style cartoon (where the characters' age stasis becomes part of its self-referential lore). Yes, the Hills could encounter George W Bush during the 2000 election, but a decade later, Bobby Hill could remain on the verge of adolescence, the show's pace intentionally slowed; real-world details were introduced or elided at the show's convenience. The lead characters' consistency could remain a beacon of small-c conservatism, in the way that sitcoms can be inherently conservative with their episode-ending resets. The new season makes a major, bold move in that respect: It actually jumps forward in time. Bobby is now college-aged, though he's running a restaurant in Dallas rather than matriculating anywhere in particular. Hank and Peggy have just returned from a multi-year stint living abroad in Saudia Arabia for Hank's propane work, from which he has now retired back to Arlen. The viewers' time away from the characters is at least in part granted to the characters themselves, something that The Simpsons has consigned to the realm of what-if episodes about the future (or episodes about an ever-revised, time-shifted past). It's a poignant touch that, strictly speaking, may not have been necessary – at least not if the idea is for Hank to react to various modern-day devices, figurative and literal, with a little extra culture shock. Hank doesn't actually need to dip out from the country to break out his trademark quiet consternation; he was plenty flummoxed by the natural course of history in the show's original run. Though the time jump does generate fresh material for Bobby, and for Hank and Peggy's newfound idle retirement, sometimes it also feels like a workaround for the topic of Trump and the degree to which conservatism has lost that small 'c' as it shifts further and further to the right. Yet despite that avoidance, the newest season also feels like a specific product of the Biden era, which of course would have been when it was largely developed and written. Without mentioning any elections directly, the characters seem like they're shaking off the worst cultural clashes of the first Trump term and the pandemic that capped it off. To that end, the gags that have to do with Hank and Peggy's gap years from Arlen – like the ongoing retrospective saga of paranoiac Dale's unlikely winning of Arlen's Covid-era mayoral election, or their friend Bill becoming a shut-in – are lightly cathartic and very funny. When the first episode ends with Hank and Peggy comforted and heartened by the friendliness they receive from a diverse Arlen population, it's appropriately heartwarming. It's also sweetly funny to see Hank repulsed by the antics of a men's-rights group that blames all their problems on 'females'. On the whole, the new season is as solid as ever. Yet there's something slightly off about the show treating this stuff as just another assortment of generational foibles. It's an understandable instinct. King of the Hill sure isn't trying to be a firebrand bellwether of good liberal outrage. It's trying (usually quite successfully) to be funny, and the Trump joke sure isn't funny anymore, if it ever was. Bringing Arlen into the Trump era without Trump is a way of modernizing the characters without turning their world into the kind of political lightning rod that would make Hank recoil. But it also seems designed to burnish Hank's image; his particular conservatism can still look sensible if it doesn't have to be associated with any unseemly actual conservatives. (The men's rights guys, for example, are presented as misguided dopes misled by a bad apple.) The thing is, Hank doesn't need the coddling. Plenty of good King of the Hill episodes do revel in his discomfort, even as they sympathize with him. The new season, good as it is, aims to give Hank a new dose of those temporary feelings in a relatively safe space. It's not really the show's fault, but there's an increasingly blurry line between gently understanding humanism and letting everyone off the hook.
The Guardian
17 hours ago
- The Guardian
How does the King of the Hill reboot fit into a very different America?
The Fox Network's rotating lineup of animated sitcoms increasingly dominate the list of the longest-running scripted prime time shows ever made. Whether they're the actual record-holder (The Simpsons), a once-canceled cult show turned institution (Family Guy, or the cable-channel-hopping Futurama), or a 'newer' show that's actually entering its 16th season (Bob's Burgers), these shows leverage their age-defying format to serve as both a constant in their viewers' lives and a living document of contemporary American life over their many years on the air. So it's not unusual that King of the Hill, a Fox cartoon that aired in the late 90s and throughout the 2000s, would rejoin its corporate cousins for a 14th season on Hulu. But just as during the show's original run, it's an odd fit with those other, brasher animated sitcoms – sometimes blessedly so. It would be easy enough to characterize King of the Hill as a red-state Simpsons. Instead of bumbling everyman/id Homer Simpson, created by anti-establishment cartoonist Matt Groening, it focuses on the genially repressed Hank Hill (Mike Judge), created by satirical cartoonist Mike Judge. Hank is a buttoned-up propane salesman who values courtesy, patriotism, tradition and decency; in a switch-up from typical sitcom dynamics of its era, the show portrays Hank's wife Peggy (Kathy Najimy) as the more hubris-prone buffoon of the two (especially as the seasons progress). Throughout the series, Hank struggles to connect with his preteen son Bobby, who doesn't share his predisposition toward stoicism. And as with the Springfield of The Simpsons, the rest of the show is populated by residents of Arlen, Texas, a fictional but realistically rendered suburb of Dallas. Judge has always made it clear that he doesn't consider King of the Hill principally political. Hank's obvious conservatism has as much to do with his manner as his beliefs, which the show takes care to not root in bigotry or ideological stubbornness. Hank pre-visions sitcom characters like Ron Swanson, the anti-government government worker who became a favorite on Parks and Recreation. Unlike Ron, who was genuinely more effective with a touch of cartoonishness in earlier seasons before the show's writers became addicted to portraying him as a genuinely great guy, Hank is always presented as even-keeled and sensible, with the show's humor often coming from his squareness. The writers also do an admirable job of keeping its politics local, exploring how social changes (like 'going green' in a later-period episode) affect Arlen in particular. The words 'common sense' get thrown around a lot, in discussing the show and within the show itself. The sense of cartoon mischief that informs its other contemporaries (including Judge's more satirical Beavis and Butt-Head) is minimal. For example, when The Simpsons did an episode about the Bush family, it playfully (if somewhat good-naturedly) caricatured ex-president George HW Bush as a Mr Wilson figure to Bart's Dennis the Menace, a clever riff given that Bush had earlier targeted The Simpsons in a speech as less aspirational than family shows of yore. (Later presidential jabs were not so obtuse.) Beavis and Butt-Head once met Bill Clinton, and the show characterized him as having a little more in common with the boys than some would expect. Meanwhile, in the fifth-season premiere of King of the Hill set around the 2000 presidential election, George W Bush appears at a rally attended by an enthusiastic Hank, who loses faith in his preferred candidate when he gets a sample of a surprisingly limp handshake. Mostly, though, the episode is about taking pride in voting, no matter what compromises or surprises await in that process. The show didn't change drastically, if at all, with W actually in office – or, for that matter, with the rise of Obama, though the show's final episodes, aired during Obama's first term, were likely produced before he was sworn in. That's also an area where the show's animated approach came in handy: It was able to run for well over a decade and only nebulously age its characters a few years. The approach was more akin to a newspaper comic strip than a weekly TV series, even a Simpsons-style cartoon (where the characters' age stasis becomes part of its self-referential lore). Yes, the Hills could encounter George W Bush during the 2000 election, but a decade later, Bobby Hill could remain on the verge of adolescence, the show's pace intentionally slowed; real-world details were introduced or elided at the show's convenience. The lead characters' consistency could remain a beacon of small-c conservatism, in the way that sitcoms can be inherently conservative with their episode-ending resets. The new season makes a major, bold move in that respect: It actually jumps forward in time. Bobby is now college-aged, though he's running a restaurant in Dallas rather than matriculating anywhere in particular. Hank and Peggy have just returned from a multi-year stint living abroad in Saudia Arabia for Hank's propane work, from which he has now retired back to Arlen. The viewers' time away from the characters is at least in part granted to the characters themselves, something that The Simpsons has consigned to the realm of what-if episodes about the future (or episodes about an ever-revised, time-shifted past). It's a poignant touch that, strictly speaking, may not have been necessary – at least not if the idea is for Hank to react to various modern-day devices, figurative and literal, with a little extra culture shock. Hank doesn't actually need to dip out from the country to break out his trademark quiet consternation; he was plenty flummoxed by the natural course of history in the show's original run. Though the time jump does generate fresh material for Bobby, and for Hank and Peggy's newfound idle retirement, sometimes it also feels like a workaround for the topic of Trump and the degree to which conservatism has lost that small 'c' as it shifts further and further to the right. Yet despite that avoidance, the newest season also feels like a specific product of the Biden era, which of course would have been when it was largely developed and written. Without mentioning any elections directly, the characters seem like they're shaking off the worst cultural clashes of the first Trump term and the pandemic that capped it off. To that end, the gags that have to do with Hank and Peggy's gap years from Arlen – like the ongoing retrospective saga of paranoiac Dale's unlikely winning of Arlen's Covid-era mayoral election, or their friend Bill becoming a shut-in – are lightly cathartic and very funny. When the first episode ends with Hank and Peggy comforted and heartened by the friendliness they receive from a diverse Arlen population, it's appropriately heartwarming. It's also sweetly funny to see Hank repulsed by the antics of a men's-rights group that blames all their problems on 'females'. On the whole, the new season is as solid as ever. Yet there's something slightly off about the show treating this stuff as just another assortment of generational foibles. It's an understandable instinct. King of the Hill sure isn't trying to be a firebrand bellwether of good liberal outrage. It's trying (usually quite successfully) to be funny, and the Trump joke sure isn't funny anymore, if it ever was. Bringing Arlen into the Trump era without Trump is a way of modernizing the characters without turning their world into the kind of political lightning rod that would make Hank recoil. But it also seems designed to burnish Hank's image; his particular conservatism can still look sensible if it doesn't have to be associated with any unseemly actual conservatives. (The men's rights guys, for example, are presented as misguided dopes misled by a bad apple.) The thing is, Hank doesn't need the coddling. Plenty of good King of the Hill episodes do revel in his discomfort, even as they sympathize with him. The new season, good as it is, aims to give Hank a new dose of those temporary feelings in a relatively safe space. It's not really the show's fault, but there's an increasingly blurry line between gently understanding humanism and letting everyone off the hook.
Scotsman
3 days ago
- Scotsman
King of the Hill cast: full cast for season 14
King of the Hill is back but who is in the cast for season 14? 🍳 Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... King of the Hill is back with a new season. The Hills return to Arlen, Texas for the first new episodes in 15 years. But which actors are back and who is new? King of the Hill's highly-anticipated revival is almost here. The beloved animated sitcom is returning for new episodes after more than 15 years. The show is set to be released on Disney Plus in the UK - and on Hulu in America. The Hills are back in Arlen, Texas but plenty has changed and that includes some of the voices behind the characters. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad See who is back and who has been added to the cast for King of the Hill season 14. Here's all you need to know: Who is in the cast of King of the Hill season 14? King of the Hill season 14 | Disney/Mike Judge During its original 13 season run, the show featured plenty of iconic and memorable characters. From the core family of the Hills to other faces around Arlen. It has been more than a decade since the last episode of the show aired and that might just feel like a life-time ago. So you may be wondering which actors are back for the new episodes: King of the Hill cast Mike Judge - Hank Hill and Jeff Boomhauer Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Kathy Najimy - Peggy Hill Stephen Root - Bill Dauterive Pamela Adlon - Bobby Hill Johnny Hardwick - Dale Gribble (six episodes) Toby Huss - Dale Gribble (four episodes) Lauren Tom - Connie & Minh Souphanousinphone Jonathan Joss - John Redcorn (four episodes) Keith David - Brian Robertson (new) Anthony 'Critic' Campos - Emilio (new) Johnny Hardwick recorded lines for six episodes prior to his death in 2023. The character of Dale is voiced in the remaining episodes by Toby Huss - who had multiple roles in the original series. Jonathan Joss also recorded four episodes worth of lines before his death in June 2025. Joss was shot dead by a neighbour. Brittney Murphy and Tom Petty are among the voice actors who have not returned for season 14 because they died prior to production beginning on the revival. Who are guest stars for season 14 In the years since King of the Hill originally ended, the issue of using race-appropriate voice actors has become a hot button topic. It started with Apu in The Simpsons, Hank Azaria stepped down as his voice actor after the 2017 documentary The Problem with Apu was released. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad King of the Hill had a few recurring characters who were similarly voiced by white actors - despite them being Asian, for example. For the revived show, several of the roles have been recast including: Tai Leclaire - Joseph Gribble Ki Hong Lee - Chane Wassanasong Kenneth Choi - Ted Wassanasong Ronny Chieng - Kahn Souphanousinphone What is the King of the Hill revival about? The show will return after 15 years away and the creative team have factored in that huge gap in time. Hulu explains: 'After years working a propane job in Saudi Arabia to earn their retirement nest egg, Hank and Peggy Hill return to a changed Arlen, Texas to reconnect with old friends Dale, Boomhauer and Bill. 'Meanwhile, Bobby is living his dream as a chef in Dallas and enjoying his 20s with his former classmates Connie, Joseph and Chane.' Bobby Hill has been aged up and is now an adult, in one of the biggest changes. The season is also the shortest so far, at just 10 episodes in total.
