'King Of The Hill' Revival Releases Intro Sequence, Dale-ivers Recast And Premiere Date Accessories

We’re feasting at Bobby’s restaurant tonight (August), yes chef! Find out who’s taking over as Dale after Johnny Hardwick’s last 6 episodes

Well I tell you what’s going on here. Hulu has released the intro sequence to the revival of the animated series King of the Hill, which originally ran on Fox from 1997 to 2009 for 13 seasons and 258 episodes. To this point, very little had officially been revealed, but with it came the reveal that season 14 would be premiering on August 4. Specifically, instead of a weekly release like Hulu has done with Futurama, another beloved Fox Sunday animated series, the Solar Opposites approach has been taken, with the entire season dropping at once.

A time jump had always been known, a bit more full throttle than having segments shared between aged and unaged Beavis and Butt-Head on its revival. The official description reads “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.” Specifically, Bobby is the chef and co-owner of a Japanese-German Hill Country fusion BBQ joint there, described as “close enough for him to visit his parents” upon the move back.

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The intro starts familiar enough, with the kids hanging out and doing school stuff, but then changes start brewing with an argument between Kahn and Minh Souphanousinphone, Didi picking up Good-Hank alone, Nancy going off with John Redcorn again, before Bobby goes off to college. It seems this is when Hank takes the job in Saudi Arabia as he and Peggy move out. It’s the new owners, an African-American man in particular, who actually spend the COVID-19 pandemic in Arlen. The guy doesn’t seem to vibe well with the friends the Hills left behind. Dale runs for Mayor! The guy stands out there alone and seemingly sells the house back to the Hills, and it’s one of Dale’s campaign signs that gets thrown out, replacing the trash bag, as Bobby soon meets up.

The series, whose revival had been in the works since 2017 before its January 2023 pickup, will continue to star Mike Judge as Hank, Kathy Najimy as Peggy, Pamela Adlon as Bobby, Stephen Root as Bill, and Lauren Tom as Minh and Connie. Johnny Hardwick managed to get six episodes recorded as Dale but his role has been picked by Toby Huss, who has relinquished Kahn to The Daily Show correspondent and M3GAN star Ronny Chieng, as the latter recently revealed on a podcast. Over the production of this piece, Variety confirmed the Huss as Dale news, getting ahead of the combination reunion/revival panel at the ATX TV Festival where it was to be announced. New showrunner Saladin K. Patterson had said the solution they Hussled for Dale was one “we know fans of the show and the character and Johnny are gonna feel was a good choice.” The In Memoriam card at the end of his final episode has also been released.

Luanne and Lucky, who lost their voice actors Brittany Murphy and Tom Petty in the years the show wasn’t in production, were written to have moved away. Voice actress Grey DeLisle revealed Bobby’s chef future at an event when she wasn’t quite supposed to, but her being there in the first place indicates she has gained some sort of significant role.

Judge, his series co-creator Greg Daniels, and Patterson spoke with Vulture about the series. Daniels stated regarding the Hills’ culture shock “We liked the idea that he had been gone for a while, and the most Mayberry kind of freezer that you could put the family in was an Aramco base, which is like an idealized kind of white-picket-fence America. They had gone to Saudi Arabia and they were just coming back and had missed out on a lot of recent, uh, cultural changes.” As Judge puts it, “A lot has happened in the world since the original run of the show ended. There’s just a lot more for Hank to complain about,” Hank is flabbergasted by electric scooters, drones, and ride-share etiquette, but while he’s baffled by this and other developments and “old man yells at cloud” about others, he hasn’t fallen into the rise of right-wing extremism that has made Dale, a noted conspiracy nut, a relative median voter. “There’s more extreme in real life than Dale now. Hank always represented the sensible middle, the old show did a great job handling the extremes and kind of pushing people towards what the common-sense middle was,” he continued. “Well, Hank’s been gone, and while he’s gone, the country’s changed so much that where Hank stood in the middle isn’t really the middle anymore.”

Daniels was most excited about Bobby’s growth, and while Hank is still the focus of most of the storylines, the maturity in Bobby may very well made him the heart of the show. “When you think about a protagonist, you could say it’s who has the most stakes,” Daniels says. “Hank’s life is pretty settled, but Bobby’s life is kind of up in the air, and young people are having more challenges today in trying to make the kind of life that their parents have.”

“I was excited to see what the version of ‘That boy ain’t right’ attitude was gonna be with Hank now that Bobby’s grown,” Patterson agreed. “I think we have some fun when they are not on the same page, but Hank has to respect Bobby now as an adult.” From 20th Television Animation, the trio also executive produce. 3 Arts’ Michael Rotenberg and Howard Klein, and Bandera Entertainment’s Dustin Davis serve as executive producers.

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Sources: Variety (1, 2), Vulture