Table reads for Hulu's revival of King of the Hill appear to be underway.
In an interview with Screen Rant published earlier this month on April 18, King of the Hill star Stephen Root -- who voiced both Bill Dauterive and Buck Strickland in the original Fox series -- briefly discussed Hulu's upcoming reboot. During the sit-down, Root was asked which passion is more important to Bill, cutting hair or barbecuing. "I think Bill, as the stumblebum that he is, is actually an excellent haircutter," the actor replied. "But I think his Louisiana roots make him probably the better barbecue maker. I would have to say the barbecue at this point. If Bill could even remember his name!"
Regarding the revival itself, Root added, "I think we're going to time jump in this a little bit so that Bobby's going to be older, and it's going to be interesting. We're starting table reads in April, so I'm so looking forward to it." With the month of May set to begin tomorrow, it seems safe to assume they've already gotten started at the time of writing.
Hulu's King of the Hill Revival Features a Time Jump
Of course, Root is hardly the only one to allude to Hulu's King of the Hill revival featuring a time jump. Back in January, series co-creator Greg Daniels confirmed to Collider that the plan was for the new show to feature older versions of King of the Hill's characters. "The idea is a time jump, yeah, so the characters are a bit older," Daniels said. Unconfirmed reports suggest that the Hulu reboot will take place 15 years after the events of the original series. If true, major character Bobby Hill -- son of main protagonist Hank Hill -- would be about 28 years old in the Hulu revival. Hank and his wife Peggy, meanwhile, would be in their mid 50s.
Created by Daniels alongside Mike Judge (who also voices Hank), King of the Hill originally premiered on Fox in January 1997, and went on to run for a total of 13 seasons. The series finale aired on Fox in September 2009. At that point, however, four fully-produced episodes of the show remained unaired. These episodes later aired on syndication in May 2010. There have been murmurs about a potential King of the Hill revival for a number of years now. It was late this past January, mere days after Daniels' Collider interview, that the revival received a straight-to-series order at Hulu, with the original voice cast returning.
King of the Hill Joins the Reboot Party
Of course, King of the Hill isn't the only former Fox animated series to land a continuation on Hulu. In February 2022, a revival of Futurama was given a 20-episode order at the Disney majority-owned streaming platform. Created by Matt Groening, Futurama originally aired on Fox for four seasons from 1999 to 2003. Starting in 2007, the show was revived in the form of four straight-to-DVD movies. These movies were split up into 16 episodes and aired as Season 5 on Comedy Central from 2008 to 2009. Futurama was then revived again, with two additional seasons airing on Comedy Central from 2010 to 2013. The original iterations of both King of the Hill and Futurama are currently streaming on Hulu.
What's more, King of the Hill isn't even the only Mike Judge animated series to be rebooted for a modern streaming platform. A revival of Judge's Beavis and Butt-Head premiered on Paramount+ in August 2022, with a second season kicking off earlier this month on April 20. Beavis and Butt-Head as a standalone series originally aired on MTV for seven seasons from 1993 to 1997. Prior to last year's Paramount+ relaunch, MTV revived Beavis and Butt-Headfor Season 8 in 2011.
Source: Screen Rant