FOXThe preening queens of The Hills? Reigning media darlings. The animated cast of King of the Hill? Out of a job.
Fox has finally called time on its Sunday-night staple, opting not to pick up any more episodes of the second-longest-running animated prime-time series in history, behind The Simpsons, after the end of its 13-episode 13th season.
Talk about unlucky. And familiar.
The network has more than flirted with canceling the show in the past, actually wrapping production on the Hank Hill-centric series before turning around and ordering more episodes.
And while Fox's M.O. is apparently to never say never—having revived both Family Guy and Futurama in recent years—it appears that 260 episodes out from its 1997 debut, the network is officially over the Hill.
Not that everyone's on board.
"We've been here before," exec producer John Altschuler told Variety. "When it's time for King of the Hill to go, it will go. But I think with the ratings this good, and with the quality that doesn't seem to be diminishing, it would be very odd for King of the Hill not to keep going."
Odd, but seemingly natural.
Both of the series' creators, Greg Daniels and Mike Judge, have moved on to other prime-time projects, namely The Office and ABC's soon-to-launch The Goode Family, respectively.
King of the Hill revolved around the blue-collar Texas-based Hill family and featured the vocal talents of Brittany Murphy, Kathy Najimy, Stephen Root, Tom Petty and Judge himself.
Sadly, the show will taper out without a proper sendoff: No series finale has or will be made.
As for Fox, it's wasting no time in filling the new animated-comedy hole in its lineup, with two new series, the Family Guy spinoff The Cleveland Show and Sit Down, Shut Up, already in production. It was also announced this morning that the network has ordered a fifth season of American Dad.