109 Fun Facts About King of the Hill

Who co-created King of the Hill with Mike Judge?

Greg Daniels, an experienced prime-time comedy writer, rewrote Judge's pilot and added characters such as Luanne and Cotton, so Judge gave him full co-creator credit instead of the usual 'developed by'.

On which Arlen street do the Hills live?

Rainey Street. The alley behind the Hills' house is where Hank and his friends gather to drink beer, and the other three streets are home to rival cartoon families.

Which grilling fuel do Peggy and Bobby have to hide from Hank, a propane loyalist?

Charcoal. In 'Hank and the Great Glass Elevator' Peggy and Bobby get a taste for charcoal-grilled burgers and hold a secret cookout, until Hank comes home to their stash of briquettes.

What is the name of the company Hank works for during the original run?

Strickland Propane. Hank is its assistant manager and reveres its owner, Buck, even though Buck is a hard-drinking, compulsive gambler who cheats on his wife.

Which actress voices Bobby Hill?

Pamela Adlon. Her naturally low voice kept landing her boy roles, and she has pointed out the practical edge: a woman playing a boy won't have her voice break midway through a long run.

What subject does Peggy Hill teach as a substitute at the start of the series?

Peggy is a substitute Spanish teacher whose own Spanish is notoriously poor; in 'Lupe's Revenge' her class trip to Mexico ends with her charged with kidnapping a girl.

In which US state was Peggy Hill born?

Montana. Peggy grew up on her family's cattle ranch there, and when the Hills visit in 'A Rover Runs Through It' they find her disapproving mother about to lose the ranch.

Bobby is a student at which Arlen institution?

Tom Landry Middle School. In 'No Bobby Left Behind' its principal, Carl Moss, moves Bobby and Joseph into a 'special needs' class just to keep their low scores out of a standardized test.

What kind of performer does Bobby dream of becoming?

A prop comic. Bobby's hero is 'Celery Head', a thinly veiled Carrot Top, and the ambition dismays Hank, who would far rather his son cared about football.

How is Luanne Platter related to the Hills?

Luanne is Peggy's niece, the daughter of Peggy's brother Hoyt Platter; she moves in after her mother stabs her father with a fork in a trailer fight.

Hank's paranoid neighbour Dale is president of which Arlen club?

The gun club. Dale presides over the Arlen Gun Club, yet it is his neighbour Minh, a crack shot of championship standard, who raises its game when she joins.

What alias does Dale use to hide his identity from the government?

Rusty Shackleford. Dale took the name from a real person, and in 'Peggy's Gone to Pots' the genuine Rusty tracks him down over the years of trouble it has caused him.

Who is Joseph Gribble's biological father?

John Redcorn, Nancy's long-time 'healer', is Joseph's biological father; practically everyone in town knows except Nancy's husband, who once concluded that aliens had fathered the boy.

Nancy Gribble's long affair with her 'healer' was passed off as treatment for which ailment?

Headaches. The cover held for 14 years, until Nancy fell for her husband again and her lover, by then his friend, refused to carry on.

What is Bill Dauterive's job?

Army barber. Bill cuts soldiers' hair at Fort Blanda, and in 'My Hair Lady' he lands a second job at Arlen's hippest salon, where he has to pretend to be gay to keep it.

What was Bill's nickname in his high-school football days?

The Billdozer. When a younger player takes Bill's old touchdown record unfairly, Hank finds a loophole that puts the middle-aged Bill back on the field to set things right.

What is Boomhauer's first name?

Jeff. The name goes unspoken for twelve seasons, until a Canadian woman greets him with it in season 13's 'Uh-oh, Canada'.

What job does Boomhauer turn out to have, revealed only in the closing moments of the Fox finale?

Texas Ranger. The show kept Boomhauer's work vague for 13 seasons, then the finale shows a Texas Ranger badge in the wallet lying open on his dresser.

From which country did the Hills' neighbours, the Souphanousinphones, emigrate?

Laos. The family settled first in Anaheim, California, and moved to Arlen after falling out with their neighbours there.

Connie Souphanousinphone is a 'Jr.', named after which character?

Kahn. Her father wanted a son and gave his daughter his own name anyway, so her parents call her Kahn Jr.

How did Cotton Hill lose his shins?

Cotton's shins were shot off by Japanese machine-gun fire in World War II, in the Pacific; surgeons reattached his feet to his knees, hence his stilted walk and short stature.

How many men does Cotton Hill boast of having killed in combat?

Cotton boasts of having killed fifty men, 'fitty' as he says it, a tally he repeats at every opportunity; the count is dubious, but his combat service is not.

What does Cotton name the son he has with his second wife Didi?

Good Hank. Cotton shortens it to 'G.H.', a pointed dig implying that the first Hank was not good enough, and it is Bobby who ends up helping to deliver the baby.

What breed is the Hills' dog Ladybird?

Georgia bloodhound. Ladybird is a purebred, and Hank likes to claim that her mother helped track down James Earl Ray, the man who shot Martin Luther King.

Which medical condition of Hank's made Bobby's conception difficult?

A narrow urethra. Hank credits his dog for the cure: he believes that playing with the new puppy Ladybird relaxed him enough for the couple to conceive Bobby at last.

In which unlikely place was proud Texan Hank Hill actually born?

In 'Yankee Hankee' Hank learns he was born in a ladies' room at Yankee Stadium, making him a native New Yorker rather than a Texan, a revelation he treats as shameful.

What brand of beer do Hank and his friends drink in the alley?

Alamo. The made-up brand turned real in 2025, when a San Antonio brewery released an officially licensed King of the Hill beer to promote the revival.

Which NFL team is Hank devoted to?

Hank is a devoted Dallas Cowboys fan; in 'Hank's Cowboy Movie' he shoots a promotional video to lure the team's training camp to his hometown.

How does conspiracy theorist Dale Gribble earn his living?

Exterminator. When a doctor warns Dale that his own insecticide will kill him, he takes an office job instead and proves alarmingly good at firing people.

Which real Dallas suburb where Mike Judge once lived helped inspire Arlen?

Garland. Judge once lived there and drew on it for the show's setting, though he has said the series was based more specifically on nearby Richardson, another Dallas suburb he called home.

Which Mike Judge character is Hank often compared to in voice and appearance?

Tom Anderson from Beavis and Butt-Head. Judge voices both men, which is why Hank sounds so like the grumbling old neighbour, a likeness that is strongest in the earliest episodes.

Which band performs the opening theme 'Yahoos and Triangles'?

The Refreshments. The tune grew out of a jam from their soundchecks, and for the demo they played it at a concert and asked the crowd to cheer at the end to help them land the job.

What does Cotton Hill usually call his daughter-in-law Peggy?

Hank's wife. Cotton has so little respect for Peggy that he calls her that rather than use her name, even on the rare occasions when he is trying to be nice to her.

Why does a social worker investigate Hank Hill in the pilot?

In the pilot Bobby gets a black eye from a baseball at a Little League game, and social worker Anthony Page takes the bruise for evidence that Hank beats him.

Which country music legend does Bobby accidentally hit with a golf club in season one?

Willie Nelson, voicing himself, takes a stray golf club to the head from Bobby in season one's 'Hank's Got the Willies', horrifying Hank, who idolises him.

How does Hank punish Bobby for smoking a cigarette in a gas-station bathroom?

In 'Keeping Up with Our Joneses' Hank makes Bobby smoke a whole carton to sicken him off cigarettes; instead Bobby, Hank and Peggy all end up hooked.

In 'Peggy the Boggle Champ', what event tempts Hank away from coaching Peggy at the state championship?

The Dallas Mower Expo. Hank only agrees to coach Peggy once he learns the Boggle finals share a city and a weekend with the mower show, and his friends duly lure him away.

Which jazz musician promotes Mega Lo Mart and plays a concert there in King of the Hill's season-two finale?

Chuck Mangione, voicing himself, is the chain's spokesman; his hit 'Feels So Good' turns up constantly, and Dale later finds him living secretly inside the store.

Which character dies in the Mega Lo Mart explosion?

Buckley. Luanne's slacker boyfriend later returns as an angel on a trampoline and talks her into giving up beauty school for something better, so she enrols at community college.

How is Peggy badly injured in 'As Old as the Hills'?

A parachute that fails while skydiving. The jump was an anniversary bid to prove the couple weren't too old to be cool; Cotton later coaches her back to walking in return for help winning a plot in the Texas State Cemetery.

In King of the Hill's season-six premiere, which YMCA class does Bobby end up taking?

A women's self-defence course. Bobby masters its one painful move, sees off his bully with it, and then turns it on Hank when his father tries to teach him to box.

Which episode, in which Bobby learns to fight dirty, won his voice actress a 2002 Emmy?

Bobby Goes Nuts. It won the only acting Emmy of the Fox run, for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance, yet the episode itself lost that year's Outstanding Animated Program award to Futurama.

How many Primetime Emmy Awards did King of the Hill win during its original Fox run?

The original run won two Primetime Emmys from seven nominations: Outstanding Animated Program in 1999 and a voice-over award in 2002; TIME listed the show among its 100 greatest series in 2007.

Which Seth MacFarlane series took over King of the Hill's Fox time slot in 2009?

The Cleveland Show, a Family Guy spin-off, inherited King of the Hill's Sunday-night slot when it premiered in September 2009, the same month Fox aired the King of the Hill finale.

In King of the Hill's Fox finale, what talent of Bobby's finally bonds him with Hank?

Grilling and grading beef. Bobby's eye for grading cuts wins him a place on a college meat-examination team, and the Fox run ends with father and son at the grill together.

On which streaming service did King of the Hill return in August 2025?

Hulu. The streamer ordered the revival in January 2023 and released all ten episodes at once on 4 August 2025, with the story moved on several years so the characters could age.

Where had Hank and Peggy been working before returning to Arlen in the revival?

Hank spent years working for the oil giant Aramco in Saudi Arabia; the revival opens with him and Peggy flying home to Texas, Hank having picked up an unlikely taste for soccer.

In the 2025 revival, what does adult Bobby do for a living?

Adult Bobby is a chef at a Dallas restaurant, a Japanese-German fusion place he runs with childhood rival Chane Wassanasong as his business partner.

Who took over voicing Dale in the revival after Johnny Hardwick's death?

Toby Huss, already the voice of Cotton and, in the original run, of Connie's father, took over Dale; Johnny Hardwick had recorded part of the revival before his death in August 2023.

Which comedian took over as the voice of Connie's father in the revival?

Ronny Chieng. The Daily Show correspondent let his casting slip on a podcast months before it was announced, while Lauren Tom carried on voicing both Minh and Connie.

Peggy Hill is self-conscious about which unusually large feature of hers?

Her feet. A shoe salesman tells her she takes a size 16-and-a-half, and her shame lifts only when a self-styled foot doctor makes her feet famous on the internet.

Hank's boss Buck closely resembles which real-life Texan in looks and habits?

Lyndon B. Johnson. Buck shares LBJ's habit of holding meetings from the bathroom, and the show nods to the president again in the name of Hank's dog, Ladybird.

Lucky lives off a $53,000 settlement won after slipping in the restroom of which store?

Costco. He slipped in a puddle of urine there and had part of his spine fused; the payout earned him the nickname Lucky and let him get by without a steady job.

In the revival, why was Dale mayor for only 36 hours?

He denied the result. Dale won the mayor's office with just 9% of the vote in a crowded field and then, true to form, refused to believe in an election he had won.

What was the name of Luanne's Christian puppet show on public-access TV?

The Manger Babies is Luanne's public-access puppet show about the animals at the Nativity, a cast that somehow includes a penguin and an octopus.

Which dish is an example of the Hill matriarch's habit of renaming ordinary recipes after herself?

Spa-Peggy and Meatballs. The vanity that puts her name on plain spaghetti also makes Peggy an easy mark: told by an online test that she is a genius, she spends the retirement savings on a bogus degree.

Which rock star voices Lucky Kleinschmidt, the man Luanne marries?

Tom Petty voiced Lucky from 2004 until the Fox finale; Lucky, whose real name is Elroy, marries Luanne in 'Lucky's Wedding Suit' after she becomes pregnant.

Mike Judge has likened Arlen to Humble, a suburb of which Texas city?

Humble is a suburb of Houston, and Judge has said the show's town is 'a town like Humble'; most of the show's other real-world touchstones are Dallas-area suburbs.

Which network, about to launch Mike Judge's The Goode Family, was rumoured in early 2009 to be rescuing King of the Hill?

ABC. Its president, Steve McPherson, ended the rumour in January 2009 by saying he had no plans to pick the show up, and The Goode Family itself was cancelled after a single season.

Luanne Platter of King of the Hill is named after a combo plate at which real cafeteria chain?

Luby's serves the LuAnn Platter, a popular combination plate that gave the character her name. The series returns the favour with a lookalike cafeteria called Luly's.

Which Hollywood star voiced Patch, Boomhauer's womanising younger brother, in King of the Hill?

Brad Pitt voiced Patch Boomhauer, who talks in the same rapid-fire mumble as his brother and gets engaged to his brother's old flame.

Which rapper voiced Alabaster Jones, the pimp who mistakes Hank Hill for a rival?

Snoop Dogg played Alabaster Jones, who comes to town looking for Tammi, a new colleague of Hank's voiced by Renée Zellweger.

Pro-Pain, a video game Hank Hill gets hooked on in King of the Hill, is a knockoff of which series?

Grand Theft Auto is the target of Pro-Pain, whose hero is modelled on Hank himself. His habit starts while he is protesting a school scheme that lets failing gym students play video games.

Which stand-up star voiced the traffic school teacher who becomes Bobby Hill's comedy mentor?

Chris Rock voiced Roger Sack, known as Booda, whose advice Bobby misreads so badly that Booda has to win over an enraged crowd on his behalf.

Which Buffy the Vampire Slayer star voiced the classmate who breaks Bobby Hill's heart?

Sarah Michelle Gellar voiced Marie in And They Call It Bobby Love, which won the 1999 Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program.

Luanne's boxing career in King of the Hill leads to a bout with which heavyweight champ's daughter?

George Foreman and his daughter Freeda both voiced themselves, after Luanne learns that Buck had paid all her earlier opponents to take a dive.

Bobby Hill's comedy idol in King of the Hill is a thinly disguised parody of which red-haired comedian?

Carrot Top got his stage name from a swimming coach's nickname for his red hair; Celery Head is the idol Bobby hopes to follow to fame in New York.

Which ex-president appears in King of the Hill working on a building site alongside Hank Hill and his boss?

Jimmy Carter is building a Habitat for Humanity house when Buck promotes Hank to manager, and Hank's emotional thanks to his boss do not sit well with his own father, Cotton.

Which Sister Act actress has voiced Peggy Hill since King of the Hill first went on air?

Kathy Najimy, who played Sister Mary Patrick in Sister Act, won an Annie Award in 2001 for voicing Peggy.

Which Office Space actor voices both Bill Dauterive and Buck Strickland in King of the Hill?

Stephen Root, the mumbling Milton of Mike Judge's film Office Space, plays both the lonely divorced neighbour and the hard-drinking, hard-gambling Buck.

Which Clueless actress voiced Luanne Platter throughout King of the Hill's original run on Fox?

Brittany Murphy also voiced young Joseph Gribble until season five, when Breckin Meyer took over as the character shot up six inches.

Which pop-punk trio voiced the teenage garage band that takes on Hank Hill and friends at paintball?

Green Day's three members voiced Cane Skretteburg and his bandmates, who humiliate Hank's side in their first paintball game before losing the rematch.

Hank Hill's cousin Dusty, who voiced himself in King of the Hill, was the bassist of which band?

ZZ Top's Dusty Hill is given Cotton's prized Cadillac, enters it in a demolition derby, then makes peace with Hank by having it repaired.

Which ailment is Bobby Hill diagnosed with after eating chicken livers at a New York-style deli?

Gout strikes Bobby in the same episode in which an X-ray of Hank's colon becomes the main attraction at an art museum.

Peggy Hill accidentally kidnaps a girl named Lupe on a school field trip to which country?

Mexico is where Peggy's poor grasp of the local language lands her in trouble, while back home a police officer keeps pulling Hank over just to spend time with him.

In King of the Hill, Cotton Hill plots to steal which Mexican general's wooden leg from a museum?

Santa Anna's leg is Cotton's planned bargaining chip with the DMV after he loses his driving licence. The real prosthetic was captured in battle and kept in the United States as a war trophy.

Cotton Hill's last wish is for his ashes to be flushed down a toilet once used by which general?

George S. Patton once used the toilet in question, and Hank carries out the request after a box of his late father's belongings arrives with a list of bizarre final wishes.

Cotton Hill's death in King of the Hill follows severe burns and an allergic reaction to which food?

Shrimp triggers the reaction after a war flashback sends Cotton falling onto a restaurant grill, in the Emmy-nominated episode Death Picks Cotton.

Which Texas politician voiced herself in King of the Hill as a love interest for Bill Dauterive?

Ann Richards, the former governor, takes up with Bill after he shoulders the blame when his friends moon her on a day trip to Austin.

What name did a heavily medicated Luanne first want to give her baby girl in King of the Hill?

Lasagna was her pick because it was the couple's favourite food; once the hospital painkillers wore off, she chose a more conventional name.

The writer Fox paired with Mike Judge to develop King of the Hill came from which animated series?

The Simpsons veteran rewrote Judge's pilot and created Luanne and Cotton, which so pleased Judge that he shared the creator credit with him.

Which Stranger Things actor voices Hank Hill's teenage half-brother in the King of the Hill revival?

Finn Wolfhard plays the boy, who was only a baby in the original run and has grown into a withdrawn 13-year-old with no father figure.

Peggy Hill poses as a nun to teach at a Catholic school, but what denomination are the Hills?

Methodist is the family's church, and Peggy spends the episode fearing that lying about her religion will cost her her immortal soul.

Which later Fox cartoon shares a universe with King of the Hill, right down to the Mega-Lo-Mart?

Bless the Harts was created by Emily Spivey, a former King of the Hill writer who names the older series as her major influence.

Luanne moves in with the Hills after her mother stabs her father with what during a drunken fight?

A fork was the weapon in a fight that tipped the family trailer over, and it landed her mother in prison for assault.

What happens to Hank Hill after he walks in on his mother and her new boyfriend at Christmas?

He goes blind from the psychological shock of seeing the pair on his own kitchen table, with Carl Reiner guest-starring as the boyfriend.

Cans of which product, worn by Hank Hill in a belt holster, were sold to promote the revival?

WD-40 came in commemorative cans sold at The Home Depot, recalling a scene in which Hank uses a small holstered can to loosen the lid of a regular-sized one.

After the local paper fires her over a scathing article, Peggy Hill starts a career in which field?

Real estate beckons when the head of the agency she attacked in print is so impressed by her audacity that he hires her.

Lucky refuses to marry Luanne in King of the Hill until he has obtained what?

A GED matters to him as part of a firm personal code, and Peggy, sure he is holding Luanne back, feeds him wrong answers so that he flunks.

At a Nashville festival, Peggy Hill accuses which country star of stealing a song she wrote?

Randy Travis played himself as the accused, in an episode packed with country cameos from Vince Gill to Martina McBride.

Which band plays a prom in King of the Hill after Bobby poses as a pupil with a kidney disorder?

No Doubt's prom gig is the prize in a radio station contest, which Bobby helps the older students win by passing himself off as one of them.

In King of the Hill, Bobby undergoes tests to find out whether he is the reincarnation of what?

A Buddhist lama named Sanglug is the candidate, and the idea that his son could be the holy man reborn makes Hank deeply uncomfortable.

Hank Hill claims that the mother of his dog Ladybird helped catch which infamous assassin?

James Earl Ray is the fugitive Hank names in the season-one episode Westie Side Story; Ladybird herself, to Hank's sorrow, never has puppies.

In the episode Hank's Back Story, a doctor prescribes Hank Hill a prosthetic version of what?

His buttocks have wasted away, a condition the doctor calls diminished gluteal syndrome, and the shrunken muscles are putting pressure on his spine.

What does Hank Hill mistakenly buy to use as fishing bait, leaving him facing possible jail time?

Crack cocaine gets him into such trouble that his only way out is to prove the drug really can work as fish bait.

Peggy nominates Bobby for which honour in King of the Hill, only for Hank to win and bungle it?

Carrying the Olympic torch through his home town for the 2002 Winter Games falls to Hank, who was not even the one put forward for it.

Mike Judge based Boomhauer's rapid mumble in King of the Hill on what kind of message he received?

An angry voicemail from a man complaining about Judge's earlier MTV cartoon supplied the rhythm of Boomhauer's speech.

On which street do Hank Hill, his family and most of his beer-drinking neighbours live?

Rainey Street is home to the Hills and the other major characters, and the alley behind Hank's house is where the four friends gather to drink.

Nancy Gribble starts King of the Hill in which on-air job at the local station Channel 84?

Weather reporter Nancy, a former pageant winner, later moves up to the anchor's chair at Channel 84.

Bill Dauterive of King of the Hill grew up with his cousin Gilbert in which US state?

Louisiana gave Bill his Cajun heritage: he speaks Creole as well as English, and the old family home there stands in a bayou.

Where is Luanne Platter enrolled as a student during the early seasons of King of the Hill?

Beauty school leaves its mark on the Hill home: Peggy is horrified to find Bobby kissing the plastic practice head that Luanne uses for class.

King of the Hill's straight-A overachiever Connie Souphanousinphone is talented at which instrument?

Violin is one of many things Connie excels at under her father's very high standards, though in truth she works hard for her own sake.

Which rival of Hank Hill in a ten-gallon hat quit to open a crooked fuel company across the street?

M.F. Thatherton was first voiced by Burt Reynolds, and he lures customers to Thatherton Fuels with centrefold models rather than service.

Which gun-toting priest is the hero of a telenovela that King of the Hill's characters love?

Monsignor Martinez, voiced by Mike Judge, was even given a live-action pilot of his own, which was scrapped before airing and only later resurfaced among collectors.

Which deep-voiced, shaggy-haired classmate of Bobby Hill drily states the obvious after any event?

Stuart Dooley, voiced by Mike Judge, is also the class bully, and Peggy earns a fearsome reputation when she spanks him for humiliating her.

What is the name of Bill Dauterive's ex-wife, whose leaving he never gets over in King of the Hill?

Lenore is voiced by Ellen Barkin, and one Christmas a deluded, despairing Bill starts dressing in drag and impersonating her.

What is the first name of Hank Hill's kindly mother, a collector of miniatures who moved to Arizona?

Tilly took up collecting miniatures because they cheered her during her unhappy marriage to Cotton, whom she eventually divorced.

Which actress voiced Esmé, the matriarch of Bill Dauterive's dwindling family, in King of the Hill?

Meryl Streep played Aunt Esmé in an episode that also cast all three members of The Chicks as Bill's relatives.

Which film star voiced Yogi Victor, the teacher whose yoga classes heal Hank Hill's injured back?

Johnny Depp's Yogi Victor gets results, but the cure backfires when Hank's insurer uses the yoga to argue he is abusing workers' compensation.