King of the Hill is coming back with a new season of episodes releasing with Hulu in a little over a week, and the showrunner behind the revival series explained why Luanne and Lucky weren’t recast for the new era. One of the most appealing aspects of the new King of the Hill is the fact that much of the original creative team and core voice cast has returned for the new era. But there have been some necessary changes made behind the scenes thanks to how much has happened in the 15 years since the original show came to an end.
A few members of the original King of the Hill voice cast have unfortunately passed away in the time since the original series, and some of them had even passed during the production of the new episodes. But with both Luanne and Lucky playing key roles in the original series, there had been some questions as to how the new revival series would handle their potential returns. As showrunner Saladin K. Patternson explained to IGN, the path the King of the Hill team decided to take was to retire the two characters rather than recast to better honor Brittany Murphy and Tom Petty.
King of the Hill Explains Luanne & Lucky’s Absence
“The analogy I use as a sports fan is, sometimes the best way to honor someone’s work is to hang their jersey up in the rafters as a show of respect and what they meant to the organization,” Patterson explained. “It didn’t seem right to recast certain characters. I don’t want to spoil anything, but (we) figured out other ways in the storytelling to honor those characters.” This falls in line with Patternson’s previous teases about the missing duo as shared during the Austin ATX Festival earlier this Summer, but now it’s been confirmed that it didn’t quite seem right to the team to recast them.
Funny enough, King of the Hill series co-creator Mike Judge revealed that the team had been dealing with Brittany Murphy’s absence since the original series too and had to write around her time in Hollywood, “(With) Brittany,” Judge noted, “I don’t know what season we were in, but she started to really take off as a movie star and become unavailable, so Luanne was not in a lot and Lucky came along later in the series.” Now it seems like the team has figured out a more cemented future for the duo to explain their absence in the revival.
What Happens to Luanne and Lucky?
Lucky and Luanne were a very important part of the original King of the Hill series, and got even more focus as a couple in the later seasons. The episode where the two of them get married, “Lucky’s Wedding Suit” almost ended up as a full series finale for the original run before it was renewed. It would have been a full circle moment from Luanne coming to live with the Hill family at the start of the series, and her finding some peace with Lucky before moving out of the house for good.
There are still lots of questions as to their fate in the new King of the Hill series, but the nearly ten year time jump offers some room to work with. It’s possible the two have since decided to move away from Arlen to pursue happiness elsewhere, or maybe even their daughter can make an appearance in a future episode of the revival as a cool way to truly honor the two actors. We’ll see for ourselves soon enough when King of the Hill Season 14 premieres with Hulu on August 4th with ten episodes dropping at once.
HT – IGN
