List of characters in King of the Hill

When Mike Judge pitched the series, Hank, Peggy, and Bobby were the only characters who resembled the way they would appear on the series. In a unique move, Mike Judge changed many of the other characters to look like the actors and actresses providing their voices: Bill, Luanne, Nancy, and John Redcorn are all physically modeled on their voice actors. Fact|date=March 2008

Hills and Platters

*Hank Hill (1957-) (Mike Judge) proudly sells "propane and propane accessories" as the assistant manager at Strickland Propane. He resembles -- in both voice and appearance -- the Tom Anderson character from "Beavis and Butthead", a character also voiced by Judge. Hank is a generally well-meaning father, but is often frustrated and confused by modern trends and the antics of his friends and family members. Hank suffers from a narrow urethra, which made Bobby's conception difficult. He is uncomfortable with intimacy and discussing sex and it is made clear he tries very hard in many ways to prove his masculinity and tends to be somewhat homophobic, but has a healthy relationship with his family. In addition to propane, Hank enjoys car repair and yard work, and is shown in some episodes doing his neighbor's yard work or surreptitiously creating more for himself to do. Hank's trademark wail of distress in times of discomfort and his phrase "I tell you what" are running gags on the series.
*Margaret 'Peggy' Hill (1959-) (Kathy Najimy), Hank's wife, is a substitute teacher who specializes in teaching Spanish. Her knowledge and pronunciation of the language is lacking, and she refers to it phonetically as "es-pa-nole". Peggy is also a freelance newspaper columnist, Notary Public, a Boggle champion, and she starts a career in Real Estate. Although well-meaning and open-minded, she often accidentally displays her naïveté and ignorance; she considers herself more knowledgeable and clever than she actually is (she claims that her IQ is above average, but once revealed this was an "educated guess" made by herself), and in a number of episodes, this gets her into trouble. Peggy is self-conscious about her larger than normal (size 16 1/2) feet. Peggy frequently speaks the phrases "Oh, yeah!" when she exerts effort into a task and "Oh, Peggy!" a self-compliment after she says something that she finds to be especially clever.
*Bobby Hill (1986-) (Pamela Adlon, sometimes as Pamela Segall Adlon), Hank and Peggy's husky 13-year-old son, wants to be a famous prop comic when he is older. Bobby displays little interest in gender roles and dislikes playing football. Hank's discomfort with Bobby's sensibilities is a regular narrative element in the series. "That boy ain't right."
*Cotton Hill (1925-2000) (Toby Huss), Hank's father, is a deranged, politically incorrect misogynist with a hair-trigger temper. His shins were blown off in WWII and his feet were reattached to his knees, resulting in a short height and stilted gait. Despite his disability, he eventually reached the rank of Colonel in the State Militia, and is addressed as such by his friends. After divorcing Hank's mother, he marries a much younger, dimwitted blonde nurse named Didi who gives birth to his son and later divorces him. He calls Peggy "Hank's Wife" and makes frequent references to his (perhaps dubious) wartime heroism, including his killing of "fiddy men". He died in the episode 218, "Death Picks Cotton". Oddly, in the episode "Chasing Bobby" Peggy stated that Hank's greatest fear was his father dying without telling him how much he loved him, which is exactly what happened.
*Didi Hill (1957?-) (Ashley Gardner) is Cotton's second wife and candy striper. It has been known that she went to kindergarten with Hank. She has breast implants and suffers from postpartum depression. Usually, she is generally depicted as docile and unintelligent, although she has a degree in optometry. Didi speaks in a constant monotone. She was absent while her husband died. According to what Cotton said to Hank that "nobody loves me, and I don't wanna be loved", it is possible that Didi left him at some unspecified point. It is most likely that she was retired from the series in anticipation of Cotton's yet-to-come demise.
*G. H. Hill (1999-) is Cotton's and Didi's infant son, and Hank's younger half-brother. G.H. is an abbreviation for "Good Hank", implying that the original Hank was unsatisfactory to his father. Hank feels envious of the new Hank being his father's favorite, and he does not consider him his brother, who most strongly resembles his son Bobby. G.H was also nowhere to be seen at the time of his father's death.
*Junichiro (1946-) (David Carradine) is Hank's elder half-Japanese half-brother who has lived in Japan all his life. Hank and Junichiro have the same father, and strongly resemble each other. Like Hank, Junichiro also has a narrow urethra. He is initially uncomfortable with the idea of meeting either Cotton or Hank and his comments send Cotton on a rampage through Japan, but with Hank's help the family reconciles before Hank returns to the U.S.
*Tilly Hill (1928?-?) (Tammy Wynette, K Callan) is Cotton's first wife and Hank's mother. She divorced Cotton after suffering years of verbal abuse. A kind woman who collects miniatures, Tilly lives in Arizona with her Jewish boyfriend Gary (voiced by Carl Reiner); Hank was initially unhappy with her dating Gary and went blind when he walked in on them making love, but later expressed his approval of her new man when Gary threatened to kick Cotton's ass if he insulted Tilly in his presence. Hank has trouble emotionally connecting with Tilly, but is a loving son who defends his mother in spite of Cotton's insults. K Callan took over the role after Wynette's death.
*Luanne Platter Kleinschmidt (1975-) (Brittany Murphy), Peggy's college-age niece, is a student at the beauty academy and later at Arlen Junior College. She is often portrayed as an , although she is also an expert mechanic and is good at logic puzzles. Luanne is promiscuous, but she settles down after attending a church-sponsored "second virginity" program and starting a bible study class. In the 10th season finale, Luanne reveals that she's pregnant with the child of Lucky, whom she married in the 11th season finale.
*Leanne Platter (1953?-) (Pamela Segall) is Luanne's violent alcoholic mother, who was imprisoned for stabbing her husband with a fork. She is frequently mentioned during the course of the series, but seen only in one episode, "Leanne's Saga", in which she is released from prison and has an abusive affair with Bill, during which the two are engaged.Hank stated that Peggy's brother, [Hoyt] was about to marry a pretty Pharmacist gal,until he was entertained by Leanne at his bachelor party and ended up marrying Leanne who [literally] stabbed him in the back 18 years later. All the men except for Bill [until later down the road] see her as an un-ladylike, psychotic menace to society, which is amplified when she's inebriated.
*Hoyt Platter (1947?-) (Johnny Knoxville) is Luanne's father who ran from Arlen after being stabbed in the back with a fork from Leanne. It was later found out that he never worked on an oil rig, but was in jail for most of Luanne's life and the oil rig story was a cover so Luanne wouldn't know her father was a convict. He is only in one episode, "Life; a Loser's Manual", in which he continues his bad ways, to the point of bullying Lucky into confessing to a robbery Hoyt committed. Thanks to some crafty work by Hank and Peggy, Hoyt was caught for another crime and convinced to take the rap for the robbery, and put back in jail presumably for life, with Luanne believing the false story that he "signed a lifetime contract to return to the oil rig".
*Ladybird Hill (1984-) is the Hills' 14-year-old purebred bloodhound. Her companionship temporarily relieved Hank's stress (and narrow urethra), allowing him to impregnate Peggy. She is named after the famous Texan and Democratic U.S. President Lyndon Johnson's wife Lady Bird Johnson. Hank is skeptical about breeding her until her thirteenth year, when he finally breaks down and attempts to stud her with one of Mr. Strickland's hounds. But, come to find out, Ladybird has a narrow uterus, which is a sort of parody of Hank's narrow urethra. It is also suggested in Doggone Crazy that LadyBird had gone deaf.
*Dusty Hill (1949-) is Hank's cousin who was given Cotton's cadillac in episode Hank Gets Dusted. He is a member of the band "ZZ Top".

Gribbles

*Dale Gribble (1958?-) (Johnny Hardwick) is the Hills' chain-smoking neighbor, an insect exterminator, conspiracy theorist, and borderline maniac. Dale is also his gun club's president and a licensed bounty hunter. Though boastful, he is a coward who recoils in the face of violence. He often uses the stolen identity of "Rusty Shackleford"; an old classmate whom Dale thought died in the third grade. Dale is unaware that his wife cuckolded him for 14 years, although almost everyone else does know.
*Joseph Gribble (1985-) (prepubescent, Brittany Murphy/pubescent, Breckin Meyer) is Dale's muscular 13-year-old son and one of Bobby's best friends. Despite Joseph's obvious Native American features, rendering him almost identical to John Redcorn, neither he nor Dale is aware that Redcorn is his biological father, the result of a 14-year affair. Redcorn's occasional awkward attempts to get closer to Joseph (against Nancy's wishes) lead Joseph to regard him as strange and creepy. Joseph is something of a pervert, objectifying almost all girls with the exception of Connie.
*Nancy Gribble (1959?-) (Ashley Gardner) is Dale's wife and the weather girl turned reporter for a local television station. She had a 14-year affair with John Redcorn, which produced her son, Joseph. She frequently addresses other characters as "sug" (short for "sugar", phonetically "shʊg").

ouphanousinphones

*Kahn Souphanousinphone, Sr. (1956?-) (Toby Huss) is the Hills' materialistic, Laotian American next-door neighbor. "Kahn", interestingly, is an anagram of "Hank". He is prejudiced against whites, especially "hillbillies" as he often refers to his neighbors. He frequently boasts his superiority to the others, but Hank bails him out in several episodes, and Kahn has made it clear he strongly respects Hank (though he also has made it clear this respect does not extend to Bill, Boomhauer and especially Dale). Kahn occasionally wrestles with the fact that he has a daughter, and once when very angry with her stated "you lose, you no longer my son." (episode Bobby Slam. [http://www.geocities.com/arlen_texas/bobbyslam.htm] )
*Minh Souphanousinphone (1958?-) (Lauren Tom), Kahn's wife, is a housewife who grows roses in her front yard. She enjoys making catty comments about the neighbors, particularly Peggy.
*Kahn "Connie" Souphanousinphone, Jr. (1986?-) (Lauren Tom) is Kahn and Minh's daughter, a violin player and an A-student. She is one of Bobby's best friends and sometimes girlfriend. Connie is named for her father because Kahn wanted a boy.
*Doggy Kahn Souphanousinphone (1992?-) (a play on "Donkey Kong") is their West Highland White Terrier, who has the uncanny ability to turn backflips and is a competitive dancer. He once ran away with Ladybird.
*Tid Pao Souphanousinphone (1985?-) (Lucy Liu) is Connie's rebellious cousin from Los Angeles, who was sent to stay at Kahn's for a semester because her marks had been slipping. She attended Tom Landry Middle School in the meantime. She tricked Bobby into making a meth lab by pretending to help him with building a candy-machine for his group science project and persuaded him to steal gas tanks from Strickland Propane to complete the project. Upon seeing a policeman rating projects during the science fair, she took off saying to Bobby that the credit "was all his." She was sent away by Kahn to Exeter at the end of the episode because of her delinquency.
*Laoma Souphanousinphone (1932?-) (Amy Hill) is Kahn's mother. She is kind and hardworking and enjoys to do things about the house. She is disliked by Minh because of her criticism of Minh's housekeeping skills. The status-conscious Souphanousinphones are horrified when Laoma, bored and unwanted in her son's house, becomes the Hills' housemaid, and even more horrified, when she gets into a love affair with Bill Dauterive. There was no mention of their relationship, nor of Laoma herself in the later episodes, mainly because the creators nixed the original plan for her and Bill to become a regular couple, preferring for Bill to remain his usual single and miserable self.

Other main characters

*Boomhauer (1957-) (Mike Judge) is a slim, young-looking, womanizer whose mutterings are nearly incomprehensible to the audience, although his fellow characters understand him perfectly. Boomhauer is a classic car aficionado. In several episodes, he is depicted wearing speedos and bikini briefs.
*Officer Brown (1947-?) (Fred Willard) is a local police officer in Arlen who is commonly called upon by the main characters. In the episode "Cops and Robert" and he became a security guard at Bobby's school due to massive corruption
*Buckley (1974?-1998) (David Herman) was the slacker boyfriend of Luanne who is killed in a propane explosion while working at Mega Lo Mart. The character did return later (as "Buckley's Angel") for one time in the episode that leads Luanne to leave the Beauty School and enroll in a nearby community college.
*William "Bill" Fontaine De la Tour Dauterive (1957?-) (Stephen Root) is the Hills' overweight, divorced, clinically depressed, involuntarily celibate neighbor. He obsesses about his ex-wife, Lenore, and his suicidal tendencies are a running gag on the series. He is a barber in the United States Army. He frequently tries to flirt with and woo Peggy, and even steals, tapes together, and "Boggles" with Peggy's body cast after she gets it taken off following a skydiving accident. His last name is often phonetically mispronounced by characters who do not know him.
*Lenore Dauterive (Ellen Barkin) is Bill's ex-wife (also, in one episode, the name of his iguana). She is mentioned frequently throughout the course of the series, but only appeared twice. She enjoyed cheating on and mistreating Bill, but with help from Gov. Ann Richards Bill was finally able to tell her off and move on from her toxic influence.
*Gilbert Dauterive (David Herman) is Bill's cousin (likely based on Truman Capote) showing some signs of literary insight and a knowledge of philosophy. He is Bill's only living blood-relative after his cousin and aunt pass very suddenly in the night, though he seems to care very little for Bill and has a rather sadistic sense of humor. He runs a Poetry Magazine to continue the Dauterive family name, selling his families estate to pay or the costs of running it. It is strongly implied that he is a homosexual.
*Stuart Dooley (Mike Judge) is Bobby's deep voiced, laconic classmate. He has shaggy red hair. He always says something obvious (for example, to Bobby after witnessing a bully scare Bobby, "He scared you.") His character is based closely on the character Butt-head of "Beavis and Butt-head". He once ran away, prompting Peggy Hill's parenting techniques to be questioned after she admits not knowing where her son is at during a town meeting, but Bobby turned the Dooleys' pathetic family dynamic to Peggy's advantage when they needed to have a family portrait taken.
*Clark Peters (Pamela Adlon), Bobbys over-weight bully at Tom Landry Middle School. With his blonde ponytail in the back of his head he always sounds like he has a cold. He sometimes makes Bobby do homework for him, except when Bobby writes down that his favorite hobby is to knit. But as his teacher would say "The Clark Peters I know likes to burn things."
*Enrique (Danny Trejo) is a good-natured but annoying Hispanic truck driver at Strickland Propane. In the episode "Enrique-cilable Differences", Hank and Enrique had hardly ever talked to each other before, but suddenly Enrique forcibly befriends Hank after a nasty fight with his wife. Enrique ends up moving in with the Hills for a short time, but quickly patches things up with his wife after a fed-up Hank kicks him out. He has since made several appearances.
*Debbie Grund (1959?-2000) (Reese Witherspoon) was an employee of Strickland Propane and was Buck Strickland's mistress. When Strickland ended their relationship, she plotted to murder him and his wife, but accidentally killed herself when she inadvertently discharged her shotgun into her own torso, while attempting to climb into the dumpster she was using as a hiding place.
*Joe Jack (Toby Huss) is a fuel truck driver and co-worker with Hank at Strickland Propane. He has a drinking problem, as seen when he is a member of the Propaniacs. He has a habit of calling people "honey", regardless of gender. Almost upstaged and defeated Hank in a Grillstravaganza Propane sale, but was defeated in the end when a customer told Hank he is switching his Trailer Park to propane.
*Bob Jenkins (Henry Gibson) is a one-eyed reporter for the "Arlen Bystander", and is Peggy's main rival there.
*Elroy "Lucky" Kleinschmidt (Tom Petty) is Luanne's dimwitted, itinerant husband. He lives on the remainder of the $53,000 "settlement moneys" he received after slipping in a puddle of urine at Costco and is the father of Luanne's unborn child. Peggy tried very hard to break him and Luanne apart but after Luanne's pregnancy was revealed, she and Hank reconciled the two. He is also a former guitarist for John Redcorn's band, Big Mountain Fudgecake and occasionally plays gigs in biker bars. Surprisingly he has moments of insight that prove he isn't quite as stupid as he appears. Despite how he may come off, he loves Luanne very much, and is very involved with Lunanne and her family. He enjoys the "gentlemanly pursuits" of mudding, stickin, cat-fisting and stumping.
*Chuck Mangione, playing himself, shamelessly promotes Mega Lo Mart until he grows tired of going to every Mega Lo Mart opening (there are 400 per year) and becomes a hermit, living within the Arlen Mega Lo Mart in a "Toilet Paper Castle" (a giant tower made out of stacked packages of toilet paper) and stealing stocked items. He also apparently defecates on the floors in order to "Stick it to the man."
*Monsignor Martinez (Mike Judge) is the gun-toting priest hero of the fictional TV series "Los Dias y Las Noches de Monsignor Martinez," a favorite of many of "King of the Hill's" principal characters. Clips of his program are often inserted into episodes as part of a running gag. In one of the episodes, Hank mentions that Martinez is an undercover cop. The clips of his episodes which appear on the series usually feature him just about to kill one of his nemeses, uttering the words "Vaya con Dios".
*Eustis Miller (David Herman) is a wimpy, moustached patent lawyer and father of Bobby's classmate Randy, his wife was never shown one possibility is they may be divoriced, he mainly appeared in the first 5 seasons.
*Carl Moss (Dennis Burkley) is the principal of Tom Landry Middle School and one of Hank's high school classmates. Like most school administrators, his twin concerns are tight budgets and maintaining discipline. He once suspends Hank from teaching shop class on a temporary, volunteer basis due to a rule that prevents students from carrying weapons around campus. Not to mention he tries to stay out of conflict as much as possible, even going as far as faking a heart attack to get out of being the tie breaking vote in a PTA meeting.
*Lane Pratley (Dave Thomas) is a sleazy car dealer who owns Pratley Ford and Pratley Hyundai, and as he says, "I got my eye on Pratley Cadillac -- my daddy ain't doing so good."
*Octavio (Danny Trejo) is a Hispanic quasi-mercenary who does various favors for Dale, when paid enough money. His appearance was modeled after Danny Trejo.
*Anthony Page (David Herman) is an uptight employee with a by-the-book sense in Arlen Child Services and an Americans with Disabilities Act Employer. He had tried to get Bobby taken away from Hank and allowed a drug addict to work at Strickland Propane. Hank doesn't care for him, calling him "Twig Boy".
*John Redcorn (Jonathan Joss) is Nancy's former Native American "healer" and adulterous lover, and the biological father of Joseph Gribble. A former roadie for Winger and lead singer of Big Mountain Fudgecake, Redcorn enjoys classic rock music and hair bands. He works out of his trailer as a masseur, though he generally works only on women. He is also active in Native American rights campaigns, and Dale once earned him several acres of land from the Federal government. In Season 9, he began writing and performing his own children's music.
*Buck Strickland (Stephen Root), the overweight, balding owner of Strickland Propane, is Hank's boss. Buck is a compulsive gambler, chauvinist, alcoholic, cheat, adulterer, and womanizer. Hank is blindly loyal to Buck, who generally treats Hank poorly.
*Elizabeth "Miz Liz" Strickland (Kathleen Turner) is the deep-voiced, somewhat overbearing wife of Buck Strickland. Her hair is always pulled up in a bun. It is shown that Buck Strickland has a shotgun with her name engraved on it. Miz Liz also shows a love interest in Hank (she once attempted to seduce him in a propane-powered hot tub), but the interest is not reciprocated.
*Jack (Brian Doyle-Murray) is Hank's somewhat mentally unbalanced barber.
*Rev. Karen Stroup (Mary Tyler Moore) is the first female minister of Arlen First Methodist. She is originally from Minnesota, but is assigned to Arlen after the previous minister left to start an online ministry. She also is an avid Minnesota Vikings fan. She has shown hints that she had a crush on Bill where they finally became a couple in a later episode, yet he broke up with her when she moved in and felt like everything was moving too fast; she didn't take it well but there has been no talk about their relationship since that episode.
*M. F. Thatherton (Burt Reynolds) is a former employee of Strickland Propane who strikes out on his own and opens up the crooked Thatherton Fuels company across the street from Strickland. He is a sometime foil to Hank Hill.
*Toppington (aka Topsy) (Stephen Root) is an old wartime buddy of Cotton Hill. He often acts as an accomplice to Cotton's inane hate/revenge-driven schemes. In a later episode, he is left for dead by Cotton after a failed scheme; Cotton: "He's playing checkers with the worms". He was known to inflate his cheeks a la Dizzy Gillespie due to having all his teeth pulled out because they rotted as he never brushed them.
*Chane Wasonasong (Pamela Segall), is a smart but obnoxious classmate of Bobby and Connie. Connie's parents are constantly trying to fix her up with Chane, also Asian-American, as they see him as a very preferable alternative to Bobby Hill. Despite his high IQ, he is somewhat socially inept.The fact that he is a member of his school's track and field, combined with his arrogant behavior, he is characterized as a "jock" and used to bully Bobby but after a fight between the two which resulted in Chane receiving a rather painful groin injury, he settles more for verbally abusing Bobby rather than physically.
*Ted and Cindy Wasonasong (Mike Judge and Lauren Tom) are affluent Asian-American acquaintances of the Souphanousinphones. Kahn and Minh envy and resent them, but go to great lengths to gain their favor, such as inviting them over for dinner. They live in the upscale gated community of Arlen Heights and are prominent members of Nine Rivers Country Club. Ted and Cindy tolerate the Souphanousinphones but, in reality, do not care for them. The Wasonasong are friendly toward the Hills only when they need something from them, such as when Ted persuaded Hank to become the first non-Asian member of Nine Rivers so that a PGA tournament could take place there (Hank ultimately refused when Ted could not respond to Hank's question, "What do I sell for a living?"), and when Cindy offered Peggy a contract to sell their house if she took over Cindy's Cozy Kitchen sales job, which sucked Peggy into a pyramid scheme. They also apparently converted to the Episcopalian Church from Buddhism because it was "good for business"
*Jimmy Whichard (David Herman) is a violent mentally retarded man; local color claims that he wasn't born retarded, but rather gave himself brain damage by spending an entire day staring into the sun; as Dale points out, though, he couldn't have been very smart to stare at the sun in the first place. [http://www.fox.com/kingofthehill/episodes/0221.htm] He has had several jobs, including concession manager at the racetrack and modern artist. Bobby worked for him at the racetrack and Hank wasn't sympathetic to Bobby's horror stories until he visited the track and saw Jimmy mistreating his son; Hank then chased down Jimmy and (both literally and figuratively) kicked his ass.