‘King of the Hill’ May be Revived at Fox

Fox is toying with the idea of reviving the middle-class animated series King of the Hill.

On Tuesday, Fox Television Group chairman and CEO Dana Walden spoke with reporters at the Television Critics Association’s summer press tour. Walden revealed that the network has engaged in “preliminary conversations” with the creators of the series, Mike Judge and Greg Daniels, about rebooting King of the Hill.

“I would like to explore that. We had a very preliminary conversation given what’s going on in the country; they had a point of view about how those characters would respond. But again, it was one meeting and I hope to revisit it,” Walden said.

“The meeting was probably two and a half months ago. They’re both very busy and it was really just a first exploratory, ‘Are you excited about this? Is there potential in that future?’ And they were both excited about it, but they’re working on a lot of different things individually, so it’s about finding time,” Walden added.

King of the Hill ran from 1997-2009, airing more than 250 episodes over the course of 13 seasons. The series revolved around a middle-class family living in Arlen, Texas and their everyday interactions.

The series also briefly held the record for the second longest running animated sitcom in history and won two Emmy awards.

The cast included Mike Judge voicing Hank Hill, Kathy Najimy as Peggy, Pamela Adlon as Bobby Hill, Johnny Hardwick as Dale Gribble, Stephen Root as Bill Dauterive and Brittany Murphy as Luanne Platter.

Daniels and Judge are currently busy working on their own projects. Daniels is an executive producer and showrunner on the TBS alien comedy, People of Earth, while Judge is helming HBO’s Silicon Valley.

As for Fox, it may be difficult to find a slot for the King of the Hill reboot with shows like Family Guy and The Simpsons still running strong.

“It’s hard to live up to that block and those shows right now are so iconic, they’re so connected to our brand,” Walden said. “It’s hard to just slide an animated show into that lineup and have people have the same goodwill that they have for a show that’s been on for almost 30 seasons now.”