The New York Post today quotes King of the Hill creator Mike Judge saying that the new fall season of the hit FOX animated series may be the last. Following the antics of red-blooded American family man Hank Hill and his eccentric suburban neighbors, the show will begin its 10th season on Sept. 18.
“There is an end in sight here. I think 10 [seasons] is a good, round number.” Judge told the publication.
King of the Hill took to the airwaves in 1997, introducing audiences to the title Texas propane salesman, his substitute teacher wife, Peggy, his oddball son, Bobby, and his aimless niece, Luanne. While it never achieved the kind of success enjoyed by fellow FOX toon The Simpsons, the show has been a staple of the FOX Sunday night primetime lineup, pulling consistently strong ratings and securing those all-important syndication deals, which will ensure that the series remains on the air in reruns for years to come. Basic cabler FX routinely airs popular marathons of the toon.
The character of Hank Hill had its origins in Judge’s earlier cartoon creation, Beavis & Butt-Head, which featured a beer-swilling, lawn tractor-driving suburbanite named Anderson. Judge recycled the voice but tweaked the character, giving him a new name, a younger appearance and a family to play off of.
The Bobby character was also preexisting, if only in early sketches. During a stop on his traveling toon festival, The Animation Show, Judge revealed that one day he was in an appliance store and witnessed a kind of chubby, buzz-haired boy staring at a washing machine. He went home and drew the kid, eventually making him the perfect comic foil for Hank.
FOX representatives say the network has not made any decisions regarding the future of the show. Perhaps some salary bumps can convince Judge and crew to stay on, should the network choose to pursue an extension. In the meantime, FOX is focusing on keeping Seth McFarlane’s revived Family Guy going strong, and building a sustainable franchise out of American Dad, the new Sunday Night animated series McFarlane co-created with Mike Barker and Matt Weitzman. Barker and Weitzman have also been tapped by the network to develop other series.
In contrast, The Simpsons creator Matt Groening recently assured fans that Homer and his clan will be getting into new adventures for some time to come. He told a crowd at the San Diego Comic-Con Int’l in July, “[The Simpsons] will go on for at least another couple seasons and probably a couple more after that. I see no end in sight.”
Both The Simpsons and King of the Hill are animated by Film Roman, a subsidiary of IDT Corp.
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