We would have ordered King of the Hill to series after seeing this 1996 pencil test, too
An unearthed, two-minute sales pitch to Fox TV execs further solidifies just how wonderful Mike Judge's show was from the very start
Mike Judge and Greg Daniels’ King of the Hill was such a fully formed, wonderful show right out the gate that it’s easy to forget that, at one point, its creators would have needed to convince a bunch of television executives the series would be worth their investment. Of course, despite Judge’s pull from MTV’s Beavis and Butthead, selling a national TV corporation on the merits of a cartoon ode to small-town, mundane Southern life does sound like a bit of an uphill battle, even today.
It’s perhaps knowing this that Judge crafted a two-minute King of the Hill pencil test for Fox execs introducing them to Arlen’s best and brightest residents back in 1996. While first uploaded to YouTube quite a while back by Don Smith, the bit of archival gold has recently resurfaced thanks to a keen-eyed Redditor, and is now rightfully making the rounds once again.