All Hail!

The animators and writers of The Simpsons and Beavis and Butthead havecreated King of the Hill, Fox's animated sitcom about life in thefictitious Texas suburb of Arlen. The half-hour show stars Hank Hill, apropane salesman; his faithful wife, Peggy; their 12-year-old son Bobby;Luanne, their 18-year-old live-in niece; and neighbors.

"It has a lot of charm and is not real cute," says supervising director WesArcher, of Film Roman, Hollywood. Archer, one of the original animators ofThe Simpsons from the Tracy Ullman days, recalls reactions at the debut ofThe Simpsons. "People thought they were so ugly at first, but afterrefining them they started to look more attractive," he says.

Mike Judge, creator of MTV's Beavis and Butthead, came up with the initialconcept of King and further developed the show with writer/executiveproducer Greg Daniels, who also worked on The Simpsons. "I liked that thescript was very observational humor," says Daniels. "It is real-world andnot crazy, and although the show has some of the same elements as Beavisand Simpsons, it is also unique. King is a populist show where Simpsons issatirical and Beavis is nihilistic."

Film Roman creates the storyboards and timing sheets for the show, whichare shipped off to Korean ink-and-paint shops Rough Draft and Plus One. "TVanimation is limited. We are not allowed an unlimited number of drawings,"says Archer, "which is why the storyboards need to be drawn precisely. Weare cranking out half-hour episodes, so we can't be as lush as if we wereworking on a movie where you have more like a year or two to perfect theanimation."

After the animation process is completed, the 35mm film is transferred toDigital Betacam and edited on a Spectra System at Fox by Mark McJimsey,supervising editor, and Joe Boucher, producer. Audio editing is done on anAvid AudioVision by sound editor Bobby Mackston; sound effects are done byGreg King of Sounddogs, Culver City. The creative team is currently workingon King's 22-show second season, as opposed to their 13-episode firstseason. "When you have a new show it takes at least a year just to build upa library of how you want the backgrounds and characters to look," saysArcher, "But once you have that down it just gets easier."