By Long-admired character performer Toby Huss has provided voices for King of the Hill since its first airing—among them the late patriarch Cotton Hill, father to Hank, and Hank’s prickly next-door neighbor Kahn Souphanousinphone Sr., a Laotian immigrant who settled in Arlen. Huss, who is Caucasian, has since stepped away from voicing Kahn for the series’ revival; Malaysian-Australian comic Ronnie Chieng, of Crazy Rich Asians acclaim, now inhabits the role. In a recent chat with THR, Huss described the change as evidence that society has “progressed to a healthier place.”
“I appreciate that today we’re raising cultural questions that barely surfaced—or weren’t very loud—in ’97,” he notes. “Now the conversation is open, and that feels like a positive shift. If the dialogue steers us toward course corrections, let’s make them.”
Huss does drop back in briefly as Cotton Hill via a season-14 flashback, while also inheriting the paranoid exterminator Dale Gribble, originally voiced by Johnny Hardwick, who died in 2023. Hardwick managed to lay down some tracks for the new episodes prior to his passing, leaving Huss to finish the remaining sessions.
“Regarding Dale, I once ran a line read in the booth and the team said, ‘Hey, Toby’s close enough—let’s roll with him.’ The invitation was touching and humbling,” he says.
“The entire cast was delighted that the role stayed ‘in-house,’ still part of the family,” he adds.