‘King of the Hill’s Toby Huss on Taking Over the Voice of Dale and Saying Goodbye to Kahn

When Johnny Hardwick, who voiced King of the Hill’s lovable conspiracy theorist Dale Gribble, died in August 2023, fans couldn’t help but wonder what that meant for the then-recently announced KOTH revival. Would Dale, one of the core characters, be killed off? Would he be recast?

Two years later, they finally got their answer when Variety reported that Toby Huss would be taking over the character.

In the original series, Huss provided the voices for Hank Hill’s neighbor Kahn Souphanousinphone, Hank’s father Cotton Hill and Hank’s co-worker Joe Jack. With Hank’s retirement and Cotton’s death in Season 12, it’s unclear if Huss will ever play those latter two roles again, but it’s been confirmed that he will not reprise the role of Kahn, as it was decided that the Laotian character should be played by an Asian actor. And so, The Daily Show’s Ronny Chieng, who was born in Malaysia, will take over the role instead. 

To talk about letting go of Kahn and taking over for Dale, Huss recently joined me via phone just in time for King of the Hill’s imminent return on Monday.

What’s it been like for you to come back to King of the Hill after so many years?

It’s like a homecoming. It’s getting to work again with people that I worked with for years and who I love and trust and have a great time with. It’s less like a job and more like going to kind of a family reunion that keeps going.

One of the big headlines that came out about this season was you taking over the role of Dale.

Yeah, they were considering using some A.I. to help augment Johnny’s voice because he voiced, I think, the first six episodes. Then I read for Dale in a read-through, and they said, “Well, that kind of works okay. Why don’t we just have Toby do it?” I said, “Okay,” and that was about it. They offered it to me, and that’s something you can't turn down. It’s too wonderful, and it’s too good.

And it was Johnny. So, there’s a lot of humility in taking this role and a lot of respect for those guys — (creators) Mike Judge and Greg Daniels and (showrunner) Saladin Patterson — for trusting me with it.

What was it like working with Johnny during the show’s original run?

He was a sweet guy, and it was so fun to hang out with him. Just doing read-throughs at Fox and then sitting in the green room for hours while people did voices, hanging out with Johnny and drinking a cup of coffee and having cigarettes on the roof. Those were fun times.

He didn’t start off as an actor. He started off as a stand-up, so he came to acting kind of as an afterthought, which made him really good and really unique, too. It was so great to watch him in the studio coming up with these very Dale things.

There was a lot of Dale in him, right?

Yeah. Not in terms of being a crazy conspiracy nut, but in terms of their body types and their earnestness. Even though Dale can come off as a nut a lot of the time, he’s still a warm guy and he’s a real friend to these guys. He’s always trying his best. That was Johnny, too. He wasn’t a slacker at all. He was always Johnny; he was very authentic, and he was trying his best at all times. A good man, a really good man.

How do you step into a role that was someone else’s and, on top of that, someone you knew?

I don’t think I’m ever going to be adding anything to what Johnny did. I’m going to be doing something other. It’ll sound a lot like Johnny’s, but Johnny laid everything down, and he knew the secrets of Dale. He knew the ins and outs of Dale. He knew Dale more than anyone, and he’s not here to transfer all this Dale knowledge. So, it’s up to me to be as Dale as I can in following the road that Johnny laid out. It’s not just mimicking him — I’ve come up with my own things to add to it — but I’m not the expert on Dale. Johnny is.

In terms of Kahn, how do you feel about giving up the character? You seemed to have a lot of fun with him back in the day.

Kahn was really fun to do. I had a great time. But back then, we didn’t really ask the question culturally that we ask now. So, we started to ask the question about the appropriateness of me doing the voice, and we decided it was… I mean, I wasn’t part of the decision-making process, but the guys decided they wanted to go in a different direction and I totally agree. Culturally, it’s important to keep evolving, moving forward and asking these questions about what’s right and what’s appropriate.

Have you interacted at all with Ronny Chieng?

No, I haven’t spoken to him at all, and I haven’t seen him in any read-throughs either because I was added later. But from what I know about him, he’s a super funny, sweet dude. His Daily Show stuff is really funny, and his specials are great. So I’m sure he fits right in with the rest of the cast seamlessly.

I’d love to talk about my favorite character: Cotton Hill. 

I loved playing Cotton. I based him a little bit on my Uncle Tom Rollins who looked like him a little bit — Uncle Tom wasn’t the tallest man in the world — but attitude-wise, Cotton was in a world of his own. I love that dude because he was such a nod to that old, irascible, authentic guy that I remember meeting when I was a kid in Iowa. There were still World War II vets running around there, and you’d meet them now and again and they were just tough old bastards.

Any chance we’ll see Cotton in a flashback or anything in the new episodes?

There might be something in there. I guess you’ll have to get your Hulu membership all up-to-date.