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‘King of the Hill' Revival First Details: Hank and Peggy Are Retired, Bobby's a Dallas Chef, Dale Was Briefly Arlen's Mayor and More
'King of the Hill' fans are a passionate bunch — which is why star Pamela Adlon says she's gotten used to people showing her their tattoo of her character, Bobby Hill.
'I have a trove of people who send me their Bobby tattoos,' Adlon said. 'Or they have a bobby pin, the head is a Bobby pin. Or they have just Bobby with his shirt up, with the chips on the couch. I'm like, 'you have that on your arm or your tit forever? Why!?' But I'm honored.'
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Adlon and fellow 'King' stars Lauren Tom (Connie) and Toby Huss (Kahn, Cotton and now Dale) joined co-creators Mike Judge (also the voice of Hank Hill and Boomhauer) and Greg Daniels on Austin's Paramount Theatre stage Friday to reminisce about the series' 13-season run — and give some hints at what's to come as the show is revived for a Season 14.
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'We all grew up together,' Tom said. 'When we first started coming back, it just felt like a giant family reunion. They let us see the first two episodes before we got here, and I can't wait for you guys. Every person that comes on the screen and speaks just gives you a little lift.'
Judge, who was coming off the success of 'Beavis and Butt-Head' when he partnered with Daniels to create 'King of the Hill' in 1997, recounted how Spike Lee's 'Do The Right Thing' actually inspired him to make the show.
'I used to live in Richardson, Texas, outside Dallas in the early 90s, and 'Do The Right Thing' came out. I remember thinking, 'I've never even been to Brooklyn, but you could just tell there was something like, wow, this is really nuanced,' he said. 'It seems real. Why can't someone just do this, but our little neighborhood? I hadn't seen anything like that.'
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It was during San Francisco's SketchFest in 2017, during a 20th anniversary 'King of the Hill' table read (the episode 'Husky Bobby'), that the audience's strong reaction first gave Judge and Daniels the idea to perhaps bring the show back. The duo pitched the idea of a revival to Fox — where the show ran from 1997 to 2009 — and they weren't interested. It took a while, but as Hulu started to build up its animation docket, the momentum grew.
Adlon said she would hear from Kathy Najimy (who plays Peggy Hill) every once in a while about the latest rumor that 'King' was making a comeback. 'I never get gassed up over stuff like that until it's real,' she said. 'And even at SketchFest, which was the best feeling and experience, I was like, nothing going to happen. I never like wish for things like that, because it's too big of a dream.'
But Judge and Daniels landed on an idea that got them excited: Age up the characters to the present day. 'When we start talking about aging the characters… the ideas started coming,' Judge said. 'Because it's such a grounded, realistic show, it just seemed right that they'd be older. That just seemed like the right thing.'
Added Daniels: 'Hank and all these people, to get to bring them back was just really fun, writing them and listening, kind of remembering what their tastes were.'
They also re-watched the show to get back in that mindset. Judge said it was then that he rediscovered, 'It was a good show!'
From there, it wasn't hard to get the actors to sign on. Tom laughed that a reporter had asked her whether it was a hard decision whether to return, or that they had to be convinced — to which, Adlon quipped, 'We're actors! We're whores! I don't care if it's good!'
The 14th season of 'King of the Hill' will debut all 10 episodes on Aug. 4 via Hulu. Here are a few more tidbits about the new season we gleaned while moderating the 'King of the Hill' panel at ATX:
Returning to Arlen, Hank and Peggy are now retired — but struggling to figure out what to do with themselves. 'Like, what happens to a guy who just has to be working on stuff all the time?' Judge said.
Added Daniels: 'When we first marketed the show back in the day, we used to say, 'Andy Griffith is back, and he's pissed.' We liked the idea of him living on the base at the Aramco base, and that it was like this completely idealized American picket fence existence for the last few years. And then to come back and just see what state we're in…'
It turns out that manufactured 'American' community in Saudi Arabia was perhaps more to Hank's liking than where Arlen is in 2025, and both he and Peggy struggle with their return. 'Hank kind of liked that women were covered up' in Saudi Arabia,' Judge joked. 'And he comes back and there's a bike lane, a scooter lane, all this stuff that happened in the last 15 years.'
The Austin crowd, upon learning this, booed the idea of Dallas. And if it wasn't clear that Arlen is outside of Dallas, this makes it firmer. Also, and this most definitely won't go well with Hank, but he's using charcoal for his stoves.
'He's an adult person who could go to a bar and get a beer and also have agency over himself, and he's a hard worker,' Adlon said. 'He learned from his parents, and that that's exciting to me. I love that. I love watching young people achieve in any way, shape or form. I like young people to keep going and have a plan B and a plan.'
When it's pointed out that this adult Bobby has swagger and some game with the ladies, Adlon noted that Bobby was always special.
'He always did,' she said. 'The whole spectrum. He was born a fully formed person. He was the Dalai Lama! He got all the ladies, so this is not an unusual thing. It's almost like, as an adult, he's become more centered and a little bit like his dad.'
So now Dale is bizarrely seen as a bit grounded. 'Because of what's happening in the country, Dale now is a little bit left of right[-wing] when he used to be all the way right,' Huss said.
Hardwick voiced Dale in the revival's first six episodes before he died in 2023. Huss takes over after that.
'Johnny, he was an Austin guy, and he was a one of a kind,' Huss said. 'He was a wonderful fellow. He was a wonderful weirdo too, and he didn't start off as an actor. He was a stand up and he was a goofball and he was a writer. And the takes he would have of Dale, I sit there and watch him and go, 'Where the fuck did he get that?'
'Watching him year after year, and then the fact that you guys trusted me to do his voice is really humbling,' he said to Judge and Daniels. 'I'm not trying to copy Johnny as much as I guess I'm trying to be Johnny, and hopefully Dale comes out through that. But it's with a lot of love and respect for that guy. He laid down a really wonderful goofball character. The character was a nut, but he had a lot of weird heart to him, and that's a credit to Johnny. So sad he's not here.'
'There's something that we talked about to figure out what we did the best thing, both to honor them and for the fans, for the show as well,' Patterson said. 'We found opportunities to let them be referenced in the show, I feel a very respectful way. We know the importance that they had.'
'She is very much more open,' Tom said. 'Whenever an actor does a role, they always draw upon themselves and say, 'Well, how am I like that? Let me try to bring myself. I guess it seems more authentic.' So Connie is a little more open minded than me. That was kind of nice to see in that Gen Z way of, you know that acronym ENM – 'ethical non monogamy'? It's racier than I thought Connie would be.'
Bill became homebound during the pandemic, and never leaves the house. 'Bill goes, 'Hank, I think I finished Netflix!'' Patterson said.
Patterson had just worked on a reboot of 'The Wonder Years,' but that didn't stop him.
'After doing 'Wonder Years,' I was like, coming onto a property that already has a fan base is so hard,' he said. 'You can never appease everybody. No one's ever going to really accept you as the thing. And then they said, 'King of the Hill' was available and I said, 'I'll do it!' I was such a huge fan of the original. And then first time I sat down with Mike and Greg and saw the vision they had, at it being present day with the characters, I thought we hadn't seen that before. There's so much to tackle creatively with that. Honestly, it was just an opportunity to kind of join a family that I had always watched from afar. I used to think of 'The Cosby Show' like that before…'
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