King of the Hill is an American animated dramedy series created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels, that ran from January 12, 1997, to May 6, 2010, on the FOX network. It centers on the Hills, a working-class Methodist family in the fictional small town of Arlen, Texas. It attempts to retain a realistic approach, seeking humor in the conventional and mundane aspects of everyday life while dealing with comical issues.
Judge and Daniels conceived the series after a run with Judge's Beavis and Butt-head on MTV, and the series debuted on FOX as a midseason replacement on January 12, 1997, quickly becoming a hit. The series's popularity led to syndication around the world, and episodes run every night on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. The show became one of Fox's longest-running series, and at the time of its cancelation the second longest-running American animated series. In 2007, it was named by Time magazine as one of the top 100 greatest television shows of all time.[1] The title theme was written and performed by The Refreshments. King of the Hill won two Emmy Awards and was nominated for seven. It is now the third longest running primetime animated series after South Park and The Simpsons.
Fox canceled King of the Hill and aired its series finale on September 13, 2009, with four episodes from season 13 unaired. The remaining last four episodes aired in syndication on local stations from May 3 to 6, 2010, and on Adult Swim from May 17 to 20, 2010.Conception
In early 1995, after the successful run of Beavis and Butt-head on MTV, Mike Judge co-created the show King of the Hill with former Simpsons writer Greg Daniels.[2] Judge was a former resident of Garland, Texas, upon which the fictional community of Arlen was loosely based; however, the show was based more specifically on Richardson, Texas, a Dallas suburb, as Judge stated in a later interview.[3][4] Mike Judge conceived the idea for the show, drew the main characters, and wrote a pilot script.
FOX teamed the cartoonist with Greg Daniels, an experienced prime-time TV writer.[3] Greg Daniels rewrote the pilot script and created several important characters that did not appear in Judge's first draft (including Luanne and Cotton), as well as some characterization ideas (e.g., making Dale Gribble a conspiracy theorist).[5] While Judge's writing tended to emphasize political humor, specifically the clash of Hank Hill's social conservatism and interlopers' liberalism, Daniels focused on character development to provide an emotional context for the series' numerous culture clashes. Judge was ultimately so pleased with Daniels' contributions that he chose to credit him as a co-creator, rather than give him the "developer" credit usually reserved for individuals brought on to a pilot written by someone else.[5]
[edit]Initial success
After its debut, the series became a large success for Fox and was named one of the best television series by various publications, including Entertainment Weekly, Time and TV Guide.[6] For the 1997–1998 season, the series became one of Fox's highest-rated programs and even briefly outperformed The Simpsons in ratings.[7] During the fifth and sixth seasons, Mike Judge and Greg Daniels became less involved with the show.[5] They eventually focused on the show again, though Greg Daniels steadily became more involved with other projects.
Format change
Judge and Daniels' lessening involvement with the show resulted in the series' format changing to become more episodic and formulaic.[5] Beginning in Season 7, the series was taken over by John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky, who had worked on the series since the second season, and who tended to emphasize Judge's concept of the series as being built around socio-political humor rather than character-driven humor.[5] Although FOX insisted that the series lack character development or story arcs (a demand made of the network's other animated series, so that they can be shown out of order in syndication),[5] Judge and Daniels had managed to develop several minor arcs and story elements throughout the early years of the series, such as Luanne's becoming more independent and educated after Buckley's death, and the aging of characters being acknowledged (a rare narrative occurrence for an animated series).[5] Lacking Judge and Daniels' supervision, the series ceased aging its characters and even began retconning character backstories; in the episode "A Rover Runs Through It", Peggy's mother was abruptly changed from a neurotic housewife with whom Peggy shared a competitive relationship, to a bitter rancher from whom Peggy had been estranged for several years.
Television ratings
Season Season Premiere Season Finale TV Season Ranking Estimated Viewers
(in millions
1st January 12, 1997 May 11, 1997 1996–1997 #43 9.2
2nd September 21, 1997 May 17, 1998 1997–1998 #15 16.3
3rd September 15, 1998 May 18, 1999 1998–1999 #104 7.9
4th September 26, 1999 May 21, 2000 1999–2000 #77 8.69
5th October 1, 2000 May 13, 2001 2000–2001 #68 9.5
6th November 11, 2001 May 12, 2002 2001–2002 #90 7.
7th November 3, 2002 May 12, 2003 2002–2003 #68 9.5
8th November 2, 2003 May 23, 2004 2003–2004 #118 6.42
9th November 7, 2004 May 15, 2005 2004–2005 #110 4.8
10th October 16, 2005 May 14, 2006 2005–2006 #111 5.2
11th January 28, 2007 May 20, 2007 2006–2007 #109[27] 5.5
12th September 23, 2007 May 18, 2008 2007–2008 #105 6.62
13th September 28, 2008 September 13, 2009 2008–2009 #95 5.95
