How ‘King of the Hill’ Will Handle Luanne and Lucky After Deaths of Brittany Murphy and Tom Petty

King of the Hill’s showrunner is revealing how the new episodes will handle Lucky and Luanne.

Tom Petty and Brittany Murphy voiced the characters prior to their deaths, and now it’s been shared that the team has found “opportunities” to reference them.

Via PopCulture’s sister site ComicBook.com, showrunner Saladin K. Patterson shared during the King of the Hill panel at ATX TV Festival that they “talked about the best way to honor them, the show, and the fans as well. I don’t want to give any spoilers, but we found opportunities to let them be referenced, in a very respectful way that people are going to appreciate.”

Petty’s Lucky Kleinschmidt made his first appearance in Season 8’s “The Redneck on Rainey Street. He is an unemployed former rockstar who got his nickname after an incident at a Costco store, receiving over $50,000 cash settlement after he sued the store. He first meets Murphy’s Luanne Platter, who made her debut in the pilot, in the Season 9 premiere, and they start dating in the same episode. They wind up tying the knot in the Season 11 finale, “Lucky’s Wedding Suit.”

Murphy passed away in 2009, just a few months after King of the Hill’s original run ended, while Petty died in 2017. Considering both characters were pretty prominent and voiced by notable people, it’s hard to tell how the series will pay tribute to Lucky and Luanne and explain their absence. But it sounds like the King of the Hill team took great care in making sure that the characters, as well as Murphy and Petty, were honored in an appropriate way.

Meanwhile, even though Lucky and Luanne won’t be replaced, fans should prepare themselves to hear a new Dale Gribble. Voice actor Johnny Hardwick passed away in 2023, and even though he will be heard as the character in six episodes, Toby Huss is taking over. At ATX TV Festival, he said he wasn’t trying to copy Hardwick but all he was “trying to do is hold on to his Dale-ness.”

Make sure to tune in to the new episodes of King of the Hill premiering on Aug. 4 on Hulu to see how the series will pay tribute to Brittany Murphy, Tom Petty, and their beloved characters. The first 13 seasons are streaming on Hulu.