King of the Hill enjoyed more than a decade on the air, running from 1997 to 2014 and ending with season 13, but apparently, the King is not done yet. mxdwn got the chance to sit down with Saladin K. Patterson to discuss Peggy and Hank’s return to Arlen in The King Of The Hill revival. Patterson acted as executive producer and showrunner of the upcoming season. He has also recently revived The Wonder Years at ABC and worked as the showrunner for the Little Dicky inspired comedy Dave.
mxdwn: So, thank you so much for meeting with us today. I am a writer for mxdwn.com, and today we are lucky enough to have the showrunner of season fourteen of King of the Hill, Saladin K. Patterson. Just to start off, Hank is somewhat of an old-fashioned guy, and there’s a time skip, and now we’re living in a modern world. Can you just tell me a little bit about how Hank and Peggy are both dealing with those updates in a world with electric cars, AI, and self-driving cars, too?
Patterson: I think it was very smart of Mike and Greg to come up with the backstory that Hank and Peggy had been staying in Saudi Arabia at Aramco for the last 10 years of their time. Because that Aramco base is actually modeled after a slice of Americana that doesn’t even exist here anymore, right? So they’re actually coming from further in the past than even than we imagined coming back to present day. And so we wanted to have fun with a character like Hank, who’s always been very opinionated and, like you said, old-fashioned, and see how he interacts in a modern-day world. But it was tricky because it’s not like he was in a cave. He certainly is exposed to certain things. And so the example I’ve been using is not that Hank doesn’t know how a cell phone works, it’s just that Hank isn’t crazy about how we use cell phones for things we shouldn’t use cell phones for these days. They shouldn’t take their place of human interaction? And so that’s the sort of comedic conflict that we have fun with seeing Hank now have to experience. It’s not that he’s not aware of electric cars, but you know, when he comes back and his route back to the alley at home is now complicated because the city planners have made traffic flow more efficient by making everything one way, that’s frustrating to Hank because his routine is affected. So we get to have fun with Hank asking why is this better, if it’s inconveniencing the people who live here. Those kinds of questions are the ones that Hank always was very good at being an example of in terms of what makes common sense and what doesn’t. And the comedy comes from things that don’t fit common sense but should.
mxdwn: Yeah, that’s awesome, and I love to hear that as a fan of the show myself. But also just what you said about Saudi Arabia, the slice of Americana. The prospect of Hank and Peggy going to Saudi Arabia seems super interesting. Are we going to get any snippets of that kind of life and flashbacks?
Patterson: We do, like in the first episode of the revival, we see a couple of flashbacks to what they are leaving behind, quote-unquote, in Saudi Arabia as they try to adjust to what life is like back here. Some things that they’re familiar with, some things they aren’t. And then you’ll see throughout this first season we certainly reference their time in Saudi Arabia and see some more flashbacks in terms of what they experienced there that they’re now bringing back to Arlen in a way that may surprise not only the fans but maybe even some of their friends who have to now deal with how Hank and Peggy grew when they were there.
mxdwn: I mean, speaking of the friends. How are the friends? How are they doing? Are there any kind of big changes that have been happening with the main group, or any additions maybe?
Patterson: Hank comes back to Arlen in the alley, and in some ways everything looks the same, but in some ways things are different. First and foremost, there’s a new character named Brian Robertson, who was the person who leased Hank’s house while they were in Saudi Arabia. And he fit right into the alley, and he still comes around now that Hank is back in a way. He’s played by Keith David, who’s an amazing, amazing actor, [I] would never pass an opportunity to work with Keith. I think the bigger change is the fact that when Hank left, his best buddy, Dale Gribble, represented the fringe of conspiracy theorists and things like that. They’re very, very extreme. Hank comes back to a time where real life has run past Dale in terms of conspiracy theory. So now Dale Gribble doesn’t represent the fringe or extreme anymore, and that’s a crazy thing to wrap our heads around, those who are fans of the original. The fact that in real life now, the things that are quote-unquote taken as news are so much crazier than the conspiracy theories that Dale used to spout, that he now represents something that’s closer to reality.
mxdwn: Wow, okay. That’s really interesting. So just one last question, about you yourself as well. This seems to be your first kind of major foray into animation, and I just wanted to hear about what the difference is about working on a show like King of the Hill, that’s one of the trailblazers in adult animation, and what that meant to you, and also how it differed from live action production.
Patterson: So I was a huge fan of the original King of the Hill, first of all. And so the show being animated was something that I was a big fan of because it was such a unique approach to animation, and so grounded. I actually had an opportunity to work on the first original version of King of the Hill, but then went to Frasier instead. And Greg Daniels never lets me live that down. But it’s great that we’ve come full circle when they approached me to run this revival. And I’ve always been a huge fan of animation. I was on The PJs back in the day, and then Greg and I developed an animated show called The Cops for TBS years ago. But you’re right, this is my first time running an animated show to this capacity. And there are certain challenges. In some ways, the writing of it all, the story breaking of it all, especially for a grounded show like King of the Hill, that’s not so different from what I would do on live-action shows. And coming and kind of reimagining a beloved property is certainly something that I did with the reimagining of The Wonder Years that I did for ABC. But that being said, the animation process is certainly different than shooting something. And so I was very blessed to have people from the original who are also a part of the revival, like Wes Archer, the supervising director of the original, and Eli Doleman, who’s our line producer, who was also involved in the original, and even one of my writers, Norm Hiscock was a part of the original as well. That certainly helped me in terms of, you know, they were able to kind of walk me through things that were going to be new in terms of the process, and then help me just kind of fold that into how I run a show. And I’m very grateful for them. I stood on their shoulders a lot. And I do think it’s a situation where the whole was greater than the sum of the parts.
mxdwn: Okay, that’s wonderful to hear. Any production is a conglomeration of a lot of people, but I think that is our time. Thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate it. And I’m excited for the fans to see season 14.