When "King of the Hill" came back to Hulu this month, Richardson had a particular claim on it. Arlen, the fictional Texas town where Hank Hill has been mowing his lawn and selling propane since 1997, was modeled on Richardson.
Hulu released all 10 episodes of season 15 on July 20. It is the second season since the series was revived in 2025, and Hulu has already renewed the show through season 17.
Co-creator Mike Judge has pointed to Richardson as Arlen's model. Judge grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and came to the Dallas area later, living in Richardson in the 1990s as he was developing the series. In a 2009 interview with The New York Times, he said Arlen was based on Richardson.
The resemblance was never meant to be exact. Arlen has long been described as a composite of Dallas-area suburbs, with pieces of Garland, Arlington and Allen mixed in, and the show deliberately keeps the town's precise location vague. What carried over is the texture of the place: wide streets, alley fences, backyard grills and the settled pride of a mid-century suburb.
This season the link is more literal. Season 15 features the University of Texas at Dallas, which despite its name sits in Richardson, on West Campbell Road in the city's Telecom Corridor. The campus mascot Temoc and the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering both appear.
Other North Texas landmarks turn up across the season. Hank is shown repairing the waving arm of Big Tex at the State Fair of Texas, and Whataburger makes an appearance.
The season finds Hank and Peggy settling into retirement on Rainey Street while trying to keep their neighbors from going off the rails. Bobby, now grown, runs a Japanese and German fusion restaurant called Robata Chane in Dallas, rooms with his childhood friend Joseph Gribble, and spends the season trying to land a spot on a reality cooking show.