Now that King of the Hill isn’t beholden to broadcast TV, we can now expect the Hills and company to curse from time to time. It was also hard to get that Goldilocks ratio down, too.
Speaking with IGN, series creator Mike Judge and showrunner Saladin Patterson share that cursing is something the team is doing from creative standpoint, but it’s not doing it excessively. A big part being Hulu not wanting to see the show get a TV-MA rating.
Of note, though, some characters are gonna curse, such as main character Hank Hill, which as Patterson put “creates some opportunities for some jokes.”
“I mean, we certainly talked about that creatively. How much do we want to push it? And it was all about staying within the tone and character of the original show and the characters themselves. But yes, we certainly did take advantage of being able to say a few more curse words, but not gratuitous. In fact, we have fun with the fact that other characters can curse, but Hank doesn’t. So it creates some opportunities for some jokes there. Hulu may have made us go back and take out some curse words because they want to make sure that we don’t get that TV-MA rating.”
Oh yeah, also Strickland Propane’s still around and while the patriarch of the Hill family doesn’t work there anymore, he still loves propane.
King of the Hill returns on August 4 on Hulu.