The animated series King of the Hill finally said goodbye in 2010 after a whopping thirteen seasons — so why was King of the Hill cancelled? Premiering back in 1997, Mike Judge's creation stands as one of the longest-running primetime animated programs in TV history. It spent much of its existence as part of FOX's famous Sunday night Animation Domination programming block, alongside other long-runners like The Simpsons and Family Guy. While those two shows are often compared, King of the Hill stood out by going a different route.
Unlike Simpsons or Family Guy, which revel in over-the-top gags and take refuge in audacity, King of the Hill is more of a realistic animated sitcom. That's not to say things didn't get wacky or weird at times, as this was still a sitcom. Overall though, the triumphs and struggles of the King of the Hill main cast, Hank Hill, his wife Peggy, their son Bobby, and Peggy's niece Luanne as they go through their fairly average lives in the small Texas town of Arlen proved a lot easier for most to relate to than the craziness found in other adult animated series.
King of the Hill's long-term success made it all the stranger when FOX abruptly decided to cancel the show in 2008 prior to the already produced King of the Hill season 13 premiere. Reports now suggest a King of the Hill revival is in the works, but here are the factors that saw King of the Hill cancelled explained and why its original ending was so sudden.
Why FOX Cancelled King of the Hill
Most of the time when a broadcast TV show gets cancelled by its network, poor or declining ratings are the primary reason. If enough people in the advertiser-coveted 18-49 viewer demographic aren't tuning in, the show's value is questioned. That's partially the case with King of the Hill, as while the ratings for its final seasons were somewhat consistent, they also were noticeably down from prior years, and that didn't look great when shows like Seth MacFarlane's Family Guy were performing much better on the same night. However, ratings aren't the whole story behind the reason Fox had King of the Hill cancelled.
FOX was also looking to clear a spot in the Animation Domination line-up for The Cleveland Show, MacFarlane's Family Guy spinoff centered around Cleveland Brown and his family. That gave MacFarlane three different animated shows on FOX at once, with American Dad also running strong at the time. One can argue that this was a poor decision, as The Cleveland Show isn't really remembered that well today despite running for a respectable 4 seasons, and it had much less of a lasting impact than King of the Hill. Disappointingly, FOX did viewers a disservice by not airing much of King of the Hill season 13, instead sending those episodes straight to syndication. Sadly, King of the Hill's series finale episode — which did air on FOX — also wasn't really anything special, as it was not planned in advance to wrap things up and served as a pretty standard installment. The possible revival will hopefully let Judge end the show on his terms.
A King Of The Hill Reboot Is Happening
The King of the Hill reboot/revival may not have an official release date yet, but the new series will be on the horizon sometime in the future. In January of 2022, King of the Hill creators Mike Judge and Greg Daniels announced the birth of their own animation company known as Bandera Entertainment. While they do have other projects slated right out the gate, nothing has been anticipated more than a King of the Hill reboot. The revival has been in the planning stages since 2017, and initially, negotiations started with FOX. As of now, there isn't a streaming service or network attached to the reboot, but that doesn't rule it out from happening. Now that Judge and Daniels have the means to start the revival because of their newly formed production company, people can expect a King of the Hill reboot sometime in the future. There's no word as of yet who of the cast would return, although it's a pretty safe assumption that Judge will return with his myriad of voices, and hopefully, people will get to hear Kathy Najimy grace the animated series once more.