Posted in: Hulu, TV | Tagged: king of the hill

King of the Hill Showrunner on Time Jump, Aging/Updating Characters

King of the Hill showrunner Saladin K. Patterson on the decision to time jump with Season 14 and aging/updating the show's characters.

One of the benefits and advantages of animation is that characters can always remain the same, regardless of how much time has passed in real life. It's the conscious decision of the longest-running animated shows like The Simpsons, Family Guy, and South Park. While shows, as mentioned earlier, dabbled in future timelines, it's never been made permanent. Paramount+ and Comedy Central's Beavis and Butt-Head decided to feature both Mike Judge-voiced characters in their original teenage form and their middle-aged counterparts. For Hulu's King of the Hill, the decision was to age and update the characters in its revival, picking up after its 13th season in 2010, its last on Fox. Showrunner Saladin K. Patterson spoke to TV Line about picking up the torch from creators Greg Daniels and Judge to continue the narrative of Hank (voice of Judge) and Peggy Hill (Kathy Najimi), who return to Arlen, Texas after several years in Saudi Arabia that sees Hank retired from the propane business and finding their son Bobby (Pamela Adlon) as an established chef in a Japanese restaurant.

King of the Hill Showrunner Saladin Patterson on Expanding on the Franchise for 2025

"What you always have to answer when you bring something back," Patterson said. "Is the 'why now?' question. Why bring it back?" So co-creators Mike Judge and Greg Daniels "came up with the great idea of: 'Well, if we're going to bring it back, let's do something unique.'" The Shifting Gears and The Wonder Years producer noted that every character is "experiencing a new phase of life, and that gave us all a little injection of energy in terms of being excited to revisit these characters."

Patterson explains that Hank is adaptive, but his tolerance for nonsense is still low. "It's not like he was in a cave. So most modern conveniences and things, he was aware of… It's not as much Hank not knowing how a cell phone works. It's more Hank being frustrated that we use cell phones for things we shouldn't use cell phones for." One dramatic change was who Toby Huss plays since Hank's father, Cotton, is dead, and Ronny Chieng (The Daily Show) takes over the role of Khan Souphanousiphone (since Huss is not Asian and Chieng is). The Bookie star now takes over the role of conspiracy theorist Dale Dribble from the late Johnny Hardwick, who passed in 2023.

"Hank is a guy who watches the world change and questions it, and then sometimes steps into that change," Huss said. "And Dale is a guy who sees the change in the world, does not believe the change in the world, and believes that he knows the real reason the world is changing. Everybody has their own take on how the world changes, and how their character fits into it." Also benefitting from her second revived series after Futurama, also on Hulu, is Lauren Tom, who reprises his role as Khan's wife, Minh, and daughter, Connie Souphanousiphone. "You get to see the characters you know in different situations now, in the modern world," she said. "But what has stayed the same is there's a certain sweetness and kindness and authenticity from the original that I think the new one retains." King of the Hill season 14 premieres on August 4th on Hulu.

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