Movies - TV
How A Paper Route And Couple Of Beers Helped Inspire King Of The Hill
By TRAVIS YATES
Mike Judge’s “King of the Hill” debuted on Fox in 1997 and ran for 13 seasons, coming when the world was quickly changing with new technological advancements and tragedy. This series about old ideals giving way to a new generation and the desire for simpler times didn’t come about as a response to change, but found inspiration from a modest beginning.
The show’s concept came from Judge’s college days, where he and a friend would be “sitting around drinking beer and talking about what’s in the news or whatever.” However, the characters’ inspiration came from Judge’s youth: “I had a paper route that was sort of in a blue-collar neighborhood with lots of Texas transplants, so early on I had these kinds of characters around me.”
The animator combined these experiences, explaining, “I just had this image of just four guys with beers standing out in front of the fence, kind of like I used to see when I’d look out my kitchen window. And I just drew them all saying, ‘Yep, yep, yep.’ That’s still basically the drawing you see at the beginning of the show, is those four guys and their beers. That was really the seed of the idea.”