KING OF THE HILL Creators Talk About Their Decision to Keep Bobby's Original Voice Actor

King of the Hill is a fan-favorite series that has viewers excited to see it return. The show began in 1997, and ran for 13 seasons before leaving, but it now has a plan for making at least two more seasons, which fans are pretty pumped about. The show welcomes back its original cast, but one character’s voice was actually debated by the show’s creators before their return was decided.

While it was easy to welcome back the returning cast members like Hank and Peggy, who look the same as they did in the original run, one character was a bit trickier to decide on. In a move surprising to some, the Hills’ son Bobby was shown in the trailer to have actually aged in the time since the show left the air.

This invites a whole new type of storylines for the character, and I think it was a good move. But would the adult Bobby sound the same as his teen self?

The creators ultimately decided yes, and voice actress Pamela Adlon talked about her return to the character while at San Diego Comic-Con, where she told CinemaBlend:

“I was like, ‘OK, what are we doing?’ I did all my research. Adults whose voices never changed? I googled it. I'm grateful to be doing it, but you don't want Bobby to fall in between somebody who sounds very young and a middle-aged lady.”

Showrunner Saladin Patterson explained that the reason they ultimately decided to give Bobby the exact same voice is that he decided that is what the fans would want:

“Greg and I had a conversation about what the fans are gonna really wanna see when they revisit this. We personally like hearing Pam just do Bobby, you know, not trying to change it, not trying to pitch it up, whatever, you know, we, we feel that that's going to be most comfortable for people to hear that voice they recognize and it's Pam. I mean it's magical, right? So you know why, why tweak the magic?”

The character Bobby has such a specific voice. It really would have been weird if he sounded much different. I look forward to seeing how the show picks up and plays out this time around. King of the Hill season 14 returns this week.