Opinion: The Passing Of Tom Petty Should End Any Talk Of A “King of the Hill” Revival

It’s over.

Along with being one of the most prolific songwriters of our time, the recently departed Tom Petty was also a solid voice actor. Yes, I know, a lot of people remember him on The Simpsons in the episode “How I Spent My Summer Vacation” where he serenaded Homer Simpson in a lyric writing class, but by far and away, Tom’s acting voice should be known forever and always as “Elroy” from King of the Hill.

Not only was “Elroy” an important character in the lexicon of King of the Hill, Elroy was important in the history of animated television. For those that don’t know, Elroy would marry Peggy Hill’s (the matriarch of the Hill family of which the show is based on) niece Luanne (voiced by the deceased Brittany Murphy) and the two would have a baby kicking off one of the most important arcs in primetime animation history.

Now technically, The Flintstones did the whole “we have a baby on the way” bit first, but when Fred and Wilma were pregnant with Pebbles, the arc literally lasted only for a few weeks and aside from a few gags, the franchise never really dealt with some of the hardship that comes with having a kid. As a matter of fact, ABC aired the latter half of the third season out of order anyway, and as such, the show’s finale still featured a childless Flintstones family.

Written with way more vigor and importance, the Luanne-Elroy arc was one of the best-written storylines in the entire 13 season run of King of the Hill. In the show, Elroy aka “Lucky” was a stereotypical redneck with no education that just happened to “slip” into some money. Luanne was a very young girl, forced to move out of her parents’ house because of domestic violence and into the home of Hank and Peggy Hill. As a result, when Luanne begins her tryst with Lucky, it’s the Hills that had to put up with the consequences.

Because of this, it was the VIEWERS who became the winners. Because over the course of the next several seasons, we were treated to a pregnancy out of wedlock because of Elroy and Luanne, a marriage by the show’s 11th season, and finally, the final season when we were introduced to Gracie Margaret Kleinschmidt. A lot of this, was very taboo in animated television, especially when you’re dealing with a series like King of the Hill with a very conservative Texas setting.

Even today, really only animated shows on streaming services like Netflix and Hulu have really dealt with arcs this deep, though South Park has also had great success in making changes to its characters that help “place” what season you’re in whilst binge watching. But every one of these examples was after King of the Hill and now FOX wants to revive the animated series WITHOUT the voices of Luanne and Elroy?

I’m not buying it. Not when Dana Walden was just in an interview with TheWrap where she says that she thinks Netflix programming doesn’t offer weekly conversations like FOX programming does, which really is quite false when it comes to animated television. FOX wasn’t even all that supportive of the Luanne-Elroy arc when it came to airing schedules, but by far and away, Netflix has taken the animated conversation away from FOX animation, and it’s not even close. Really only The Simpsons has done a good job in stirring reactions like when they post stuff like this or in the case of Family Guy, extended social trending only comes post-mortem after voice actors pass away ala Adam West. Even when Bob’s Burgers won an Emmy, they did it in during an Emmys season that continues to post ratings declines year after year.

What FOX doesn’t realize, is that people build relationships with characters and by far and away, Luanne and Elroy were the most important part of King of the Hill over the course of the show’s final seasons. The outstanding writing from the staff has helped launch a lexicon of animated television that is changing the industry on Netflix and Brittany Murphy and Tom Petty were the souls of those characters. Simply recasting them just doesn’t do it for me, and I don’t know if audiences are going to accept a simple “write-off”. King of the Hill without Luanne and Elroy just isn’t King of the Hill.