King of the Hill Creators Confirm Hank’s Age in Revival

King of the Hill is coming back for a brand new revival season of episodes with Hulu, and the creative team behind the series has finally confirmed how old Hank is after the series’ big time skip. One of the biggest elements of the new King of the Hill season is the fact that it takes place about a decade from the events of the original series. This meant that each of the characters have been aged up a decade for their return to screens, but there have always been questions about how old any given character actually is. Especially when it comes to Hank.

Because while Hank’s son Bobby had been confirmed to now be 21 years old as of the start of the new King of the Hill season with Hulu, Hank’s age has been a little more uncertain. Outside of being able to figure out it’s been about 8-9 years thanks to how old Bobby has become, Hank and Peggy have generally just seemed “older.” But speaking with TexasMonthly, King of the Hill’s creative team have confirmed that Hank was 41 in the original series, and is now mid to late 50s as of the new episodes.

King of the Hill’s Hank Has Gotten Much Older

King of the Hill Season 14 showrunner Saladin K. Patterson confirmed Hank is “Mid to late fifties” as of the start of the new season, and series co-creator Greg Daniels explained that while it was not outright said in the original series, “We gave him an age on paper. Forty-one, I think.” But Hank’s age here really does emphasize the floating timeline that King of the Hill is operating with. Because while Bobby’s concrete age means that it’s been nearly a decade’s worth of time for these characters, Hank’s stated age likely means it’s been much more than a decade.

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This would help to explain some of the discrepancies between the original series and the new Hulu season, but also further emphasizes that the King of the Hill team is going to be able to work with a much wider span of time than initially thought. Rather than be nailed down directly to the decade of time set by Bobby’s current age (as he was 12-13 in the original show), King of the Hill is instead going to have more of the flow from the real time 15 year gap since the original series’ end.

What Else is Going to Change for New King of the Hill?

Along with the older characters, King of the Hill’s new home on Hulu offered the creative team more flexibility when it came to using more profane language when possible. In a recent interview with IGN, Patterson also revealed how language in the series was going to change, “I mean, we certainly talked about that creatively,” the showrunner explained. “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,” but Patternson confirmed that Hank wasn’t about to be throwing around those words. “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.” We’ll see it all in action very soon as King of the Hill Season 14 premieres with Hulu on August 4th.

HT – TexasMonthly