King of the Hill is back on television, but not without changes. Its return to the 2025 TV schedule happened with Dale's voice actor Johnny Hardwick's death amidst production, and the show chose to hand the role to Toby Huss, who had relinquished voicing Kahn to Asian actor Ronny Chieng. It was a big shake-up, but as Huss told CinemaBlend, one he was happy to make.
I spoke to the cast of King of the Hill at San Diego Comic-Con and asked Huss if there were any bittersweet feelings about having to pass the torch from Kahn. Without hesitation, the voice actor, who had previously voiced the character and others for the entirety of the previous series, explained why he wasn't upset about losing the role:
No, you know, it's interesting. I think a little bit because that's a character that I made years ago and I love doing it, but you know, we didn't ask a lot of questions culturally back in the late 90s, early 2000s, and now we're asking those questions and I think it's great that we're doing that. Especially with this show, we're not just asking the questions, but we're giving answers. One of the answers was, 'I don't think it's OK for Toby to play that anymore.' We made changes, and I like the idea that we're moving forward culturally somehow.
King of the Hill did the same thing many other animated shows have done before it, as other shows evaluated whether it was appropriate to have white actors voice minorities of a different cultural background. It remains a topic of debate in the animation world in 2025, and it feels the series and its cast made a statement about where they stood on the matter.
Toby Huss was happy to step aside, and with the vacant position left open, now voices Dale on the back half of the latest season available with a Hulu subscription. Connie and Minh actress Lauren Tom spoke about how she felt about Huss stepping away from Kahn, and applauded him on his attitude throughout it:
I just have to say to you that Toby showed so much grace about understanding that concept and stepping aside, so it was just so wonderful to know that Toby's in the family doing Dale. It just made complete sense.
It did make sense, and much like how King of the Hill figured out what to do with Bobby's voice now that he's an adult, the series found a way to keep one of its prominent contributing voice actors in the mix. It also set a precedent for how casting will go with future characters, assuming new characters join the series along the way.
This does raise the question of what will happen with John Redcorn, given the death of voice actor Jonathan Joss. It's unclear if King of the Hill will find a new voice actor to play the character, or if it'll avoid featuring John Redcorn as it has done with other characters whose voice actors have passed away.
There has been some mixed reception online regarding the voice casting decisions King of the Hill made. The gist is that many don't believe Ronny Chieng sounds enough like the original voice of Kahn, and it's jarring for some classic fans to hear the new voice. Again, this is nothing new to animation; however, comparisons always get made when new voice actors take on a role.
On the other side of the coin, I believe that when listening to Dale's voice in the newest episodes of King of the Hill, he sounds more like the classic version of the character when Toby Huss is voicing him. Voice acting can be strange in that way, as almost everyone's voice changes with age.
For that reason, I defer to what makes the actors happy, and if Huss is fine with the way things are, I don't see much reason to complain. Of course, I had Rick and Morty to help me come to this realization a while back, so I'd understand if it'll take others longer to adjust.
King of the Hill's latest season is available to stream over on Hulu right now. I'm eager to learn if there are more episodes on the way, so I hope we get an announcement about that soon.
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