King Of The Hill To Find New Life On ABC

ABC is looking to add King of the Hill to the lineup to compliment Mike Judge produced The Goode Family, an animated comedy series lined up for a midseason premiere. A spokesman for producer 20th Century Fox TV would only confirm that “another network is interested” in the show. ABC had no comment, and there is no deal is in place.

While a possible pairing of King of the Hill and The Goode Family would make a lot of sense for ABC, creating a Judge animated block could be logistically difficult. King of the Hill takes nine months to produce new episodes because of the animation work involved. So while The Goode Family is slated for midseason, “King” wouldn’t be ready until the fall. If ABC orders the show and The Goode Family flops, the network would be left with an expensive half-hour animated show with no partner in the fall. ABC might just opt for a script order, which would getting the ball rolling on another King of the Hill season while leaving the network time to test The Goode Family on the air.

Another option for King of the Hill is to move to cable. But between cost of the show’s animation and voice talent, the show is considered pricey and likely too rich for a network like Cartoon Network’s programming block Adult Swim.