List of King of The Hill Characters - Main Characters

Main Characters

• Henry Rutherford "Hank" Hill (voiced by Mike Judge) — Hank is the main protagonist who proudly sells "propane and propane accessories" as the assistant manager at Strickland Propane, and throughout the entire series always makes a big deal about the job when everybody around Hank finds his occupation boring. Hank used to sell Jeans and Tractors. He resembles—in both voice and appearance—the Tom Anderson character from Beavis and Butthead, a character also voiced by Judge. Hank is generally a 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. Hank is uncomfortable with public displays of intimacy with his wife and son. He has a very difficult time saying, "I love you" to any member of his family, as he thinks it is unmanly. The reason for this lies in the fact that Hank's cantankerous, self-centered father, Cotton, never told Hank he loved him as a boy. Any discussion about sex, especially when women are present, causes him to blush. Hank is a product of the 1940s or '50s in practicing good manners and it is very clear he considers a sense of his masculinity very important. He was a high school football hero. Hank thinks football is the greatest thing anyone can participate in or watch on television. Hank also has no use for liberals in New York or Los Angeles, he considers himself a Texan and is proud of Texas culture, and he enjoys Tex-Mex cuisine and especially knowing he is a native Texan—even when he experiences a bout of something like culture shock after learning he was really born in the ladies room in the Yankees Stadium in New York and brought to Texas three days later. It is revealed in the same episode that his real name is not Henry. Hank's interests are much like any high school student's from the 1920s through the 1960s: he enjoys car repair and tuning up his riding lawnmower (which he once entered in an organized race along with Bill, Dale and Boomhauer). He also likes woodworking and has a shop in his garage. Hank has a solid knowledge of electrical repair and plumbing and can name gauges of pipe, nails, wire and other hardware items at the drop of a caliper. He takes pride in doing good work and does all his own home repairs with expert craftsmanship. Hank has a strong relationship with his family and really does love them, despite not being able to say so. Both Hank and his wife, Peggy, have lived rather sheltered lives. Hank's middle name is "Rutherford" in honor of President Rutherford B. Hayes. In addition to propane, Hank immensely enjoys yard work, and is shown in some episodes mowing his neighbor's yard or surreptitiously creating more yard work for himself to do. Hank's trademark wail of distress in times of discomfort (sounding like "Bwaaaah!") and his phrase "I tell you what" ("what" in his dialect being pronounced /ˈhwʌt/) are running gags on the series.

• Margaret "Peggy" J. Hill (voiced by Kathy Najimy) — Hank's wife, Peggy (née Platter), was born in Montana and raised on her family's cattle ranch. Her strained relationship with her mother is a source of drama for her, which all comes to a head in an episode wherein she and the Hills go to Montana to help her mother's ailing ranch. Peggy is now a substitute teacher in Arlen, Texas. She specializes in teaching Spanish. She believes she speaks the language fluently, but in actuality has a poor grasp of the language. She thinks carniceria (meat market) means carnival. Her poor grammar, syntax and pronunciation often makes native Spanish speakers think she is insulting them if they understand what she's saying at all. Peggy's knowledge and pronunciation of the language is feeble at best, and she refers to it with her Texas drawl as /ˌɛs.ˌpæn.ˈoʊl/ and pronounces por favor as /ˌpɔrfeɪˈvɔr/. At one point her poor Spanish-language skills cause international terrorist incidents in Mexico, Guatemala, and Peru. Despite her self-delusion that she speaks Spanish well, Peggy jumps at any chance to be a temporary sub for any other class at Tom Landry Middle School. Peggy is also a freelance newspaper columnist, notary public, an exemplary softball pitcher and a Boggle champion and has started a career in real estate. She has a habit of adding or changing ingredients to ordinary dishes then naming them after herself. "SpaPeggy & Meatballs" and "Apple Brown Peggy" are conspicuous examples. In a number of episodes, this gets her into trouble. Peggy is very self-conscious about her larger-than-normal feet (size 16 ½ on the left, 16 on the right). Peggy will often excitedly murmur "Ho, yeah!" when she completes a task well, and "Oh, Peggy!": a self-awarded compliment accompanied by a modest giggle after coming up with a phrase she finds especially clever. Peggy can be likeable and is a fairly good mother despite her foibles. She has been known to offer good advice to Luanne and Bobby—and even to Hank. Hank and she are very much in love with each other. They have eyes for no one else—although Peggy briefly contemplated adultery with the actor who stars as a secret-agent–priest in "Los Dias y Las Noches de Monsignor Martinez," a fictional Spanish-language TV series. Peggy occasionally has her classes watch this program as a homework assignment.

• Robert Jeffrey "Bobby" Hill (voiced by Pamela S. Adlon) — Hank and Peggy's husky thirteen-year-old son and best friend to Joseph and Connie. Although friendly and generally well-liked, he isn't very bright and often prone to making bad decisions even when basic comprehension would suggest otherwise. As Hank revealed in the episode "Lucky see, Monkey do", he made many mistakes with Bobby as a child due to the awkward things he says, does and is interested with. He wants to be a famous prop comic and move to New York when he is older. Bobby displays little interest in gender roles and dislikes sports, often taking such classes as Home Economics and Peer Counseling, instead of more traditionally "masculine classes". Despite Hank's discomfort with Bobby's sensibilities, Hank loves his son and often saves him when his bad decisions catch up with him, but when Bobby does make a bad decision, Hank usually punishes him firmly, but more or less fairly. In the final episode, Bobby and Hank finally bond when Hank discovers that Bobby has a talent for distinguishing cuts of meat and is put on the Heimlich County Junior College meat inspection team.

• Luanne Platter Kleinschmidt (voiced by Brittany Murphy) — Luanne (née Platter) is the Hills' college-age niece, daughter of Peggy's scheming brother Hoyt and his alcoholic, exhibitionist ex-wife Leanne. Luanne moves in with the Hills after her mother Leanne stabs Hoyt with a fork during a drunken fight which tips over their trailer. Hank initially makes frequent attempts to encourage Luanne to move out on her own, but later more-or-less accepts her as a member of the family. She was a student at the beauty academy and later at Arlen Community College. She was often portrayed as an airhead, but was shown to be an expert mechanic in the first two seasons and is good at logic puzzles. Luanne's basic problem is having been raised by poor parents who had no interest in educating her. Luanne was promiscuous, but she settles down after being visited by the spirit of her first boyfriend, the slacker Buckley, whom she calls "Buckley's angel"; and then attending a church-sponsored "born-again virgin" program and starts a Bible study class. Luanne has success operating a "Manger Babies" puppet show for a Public-access television cable TV station. In the 10th season finale, Luanne revealed that she was pregnant with the child of Lucky, whom she married in the 11th season finale. In the 13th Season, she has a baby girl named Gracie Margaret Kleinschmidt, after the family and friends persuaded her and Lucky not to name the baby girl "Lasagna." Prior to being married, her full name was "Luanne Leanne Platter," though the series makes it unclear as to whether she kept her middle name or adopted her former last name as her new middle name after marrying Lucky.

• Dale Alvin Gribble (voiced by Johnny Hardwick) — Dale is the Hills' chain-smoking neighbor who is also a part-time insect exterminator. His greatest expertise lies in his knowledge of conspiracy theories. He believes in most urban legends and the better known conspiracies, including the BEAST and the US government's cover-up of aliens landing on earth. Dale is paranoid about any government activity. He refuses to register to vote, pay taxes, or sign his real name on any form that has the faintest resemblance to a government document. He also claims to have the birth certificate of a child that died in 1953. It is shown in "Hank's Dirty Laundry" that it is Rusty Shackelford, an old classmate of Dale, whom he believes died in the third grade. It is also hinted that Dale has Shackelford's driver's license, which he uses for everything from ordering pizza to signing government documents. He is also a borderline maniac. Dale is the president of the Arlen gun club and a licensed bounty hunter. Though boastful, he is a coward who recoils in the face of violence; a running joke in the series is of Dale running away in the background whenever the characters of the show encounter trouble or danger in any form. Dale remains completely oblivious to the fact that his wife, Nancy, has cheated on him with John Redcorn for fourteen years and his son Joseph is not actually his biological son. Everyone else knows but chooses not to tell him because of his total obliviousness, the loving, trusting relationship he has with Joseph and Nancy, and the fact that Dale is more of a father to Joseph than John Redcorn is. Hank considers Dale a close friend, but he often becomes very annoyed with his schemes and conspiracies. Dale closely resembles Hunter S. Thompson in appearance and mannerisms, such as spouting random phrasings, i.e. claiming he is actually a super-warrior from 2087 and believing that aliens impregnated his wife with his own semen, which explains how Nancy was impregnated while he was away but not why his son looks like John Redcorn.

• Sgt. William "Bill" Fontaine Delatour Dauterive (voiced by Stephen Root) — Bill is the Hills' overweight, divorced, clinically depressed, involuntarily celibate neighbor. Bill had a tough childhood with an abusive father who often locked Bill in a rabbit hutch, which Bill recalls in later years, saying, "I deserved it." His father was also known to make him wear dresses (although Bill looks back at this with nostalgia). He was formerly a rugged and attractive star lineman on Arlen High's football team, nicknamed the "Billdozer." When on the goal line, Bill would take Hank's place at running back and push his way forward for a touchdown. Bill once had a bright future in the Army, but ended up ruining his life after marrying the promiscuous Lenore, whom he found passed out in his lap after a Molly Hatchet concert. Bill is somewhat of a masochist and is often attracted to people who abuse him; after suffering under his father and Lenore, Bill has an almost complete lack of self-worth. He obsesses about his ex-wife, and his loneliness and suicidal tendencies are a running gag on the series. He is a sergeant barber in the United States Army. He frequently tries to flirt with and woo Peggy, and even steals, tapes together, and plays Boggle with Peggy's body cast after she gets it taken off following a skydiving accident. His last name is often mispronounced by characters who do not know him and is of Creole origin. He grew up in Louisiana with his cousin Gilbert and speaks French and English. Despite coming across as a loser, however, Bill has enjoyed several romantic successes (or near-successes), including Kahn's and Luanne's mothers, former Texas governor Ann Richards, and the young widows of two of his dead cousins. He is named after executive producer and writer Jim Dauterive.

• Jeffrey Dexter Boomhauer III (voiced by Mike Judge) — Boomhauer is a slim, young-looking womanizer whose mutterings are nearly hard to understand to the audience but easily understood by his friends. A running joke is when his friends fail to understand him for some reason other than his incoherence. His speech is usually heavily littered with the phrases, "dang" and "dang ol'". Boomhauer can mumble his words,but he sings clearly and speaks other languages clearly (mainly French and Spanish).Boomhauer is a classic-car aficionado, and, despite his incoherent ramblings and womanizing, often displays himself to be more intelligent and philosophical than his three friends; on episode 1 of season 3, Boomhauer explains to Hank his take on the meaning of life and on episode 17 of season 5, Boomhauer tells Bobby that bygones are bygones, and that life is too short to let past offenses affect one's relationship with lifelong friends. Although hinted at previously, in episode 18 of season 13, the Canadian woman who lives next door to the family who trades houses with him for the summer calls him Jeff, finally revealing his first name. He occasionally displays hints of goodwill, such as when he allowed Luanne to sleep on his couch when she had a falling out with Hank and made no attempt to take advantage of her, or when he broke up an old flame's engagement to his unfaithful brother. In one episode, Bobby asks the worldly-wise Boomhauer how to ask a woman out. Boomhauer takes him to a shoe store in the local mall and keeps hitting on one woman after another, using some pretty well-worn pickup lines. Bobby notes that Boomhauer is rejected a heck of a lot of times but finally gets a phone number which he shows Bobby. The boy is incredulous that Boomhauer's reputation as a smooth operator rests on such an obviously unoriginal, rejection-filled method. Boomhauer once fell in love with a woman who would jog by his house every morning. Bill first showed interest in her. In his not very adult ideas about how to meet women, Bill dug several holes in the street, expecting her to trip in one and need his assistance. As he stood by in a suit and tie ready to render assistance, Bill fell victim to his own immature plot as Boomhauer comes to the woman's rescue after she does trip and fall. Eventually Boomhauer actually proposes to this woman, even offering her his grandmother's wedding ring, which she rejects as her current lover comes in wondering if Boomhauer is the pizza delivery boy. In the end, after a pep talk from Bill, Boomhauer learns a lesson about how to treat women after suffering this profound rejection and the emotional aftermath. Throughout the series it is never known what he does for a living, but at the end of the final episode of the series, it is revealed that Boomhauer is a Texas Ranger.