King of the Hill is about to return from near-cancellation limbo to an 11th season on FOX, nestled in a dream slot between The Simpsons and Family Guy. All King of the Hill images ™ & © 2007 TCFFC. All rights res

One would think Beavis and Butt-Head creator Mike Judge would be a happy man right now. For one, his biggest hit, the long-running King of the Hill is returning from the limbo of near-cancellation to an 11th season on FOX Jan. 28, 2007, nestled in a Sunday night dream slot between The Simpsons and Family Guy. For another, the third edition of The Animation Show, the Judge-curated compilation of short cartoons is touring the U.S.

But then there's Idiocracy, Judge's scathing live-action satire of America's dumbed-down entertainment and consumer culture. After a long sit on distributor FOX's shelf followed by a brief, below-the-radar theatrical release (no advance reviews please, we're nervous), the film recently resurfaced on DVD to a more than decent critical reception and cheers from Judge's not inconsiderable fan base.

"Mike had no say on the [DVD's] cover art, its release or trailers," says Robert May, The Animation Show's PR guy. "Mike's just so over the moon about it, he's clamping down -- he's in no-comment mode."

For whatever their reasons, no one from Film Roman, the series' animation house, or any of FOX's programming execs were made available to talk about King of the Hill's return either. Fortunately, exec producers John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky weren't quite as reticent.

Even though it had vanished from FOX's schedule, "the show was never officially cancelled," according to Krinsky, "We told FOX we needed to start production by a certain date, but they never got back to us. We lost our offices, our whole staff."

Altschuler adds that, "Gail Berman [then the president of the Fox Network and recently departed from Paramount Pictures] decided they didn't need King of the Hill anymore. It was very surprising -- the show was better than ever, our ratings were excellent. The last three years its ratings have grown without any promotion, even though it was airing inconsistently at odd times -- we've been all over map."

Right now Mike Judge should be a happy man between the resurgence of KOTH, the third edition of The Animation Show touring the U.S. and the DVD release of his feature Idiocracy (right). © Fox Home Ent.

In spite of occasional rumors about a series pickup, the renewal also caught the pair by surprise. "There were rumblings, but we'd heard them for so long," recalls Krinsky. "There was still some work going on. John and I and a couple of post-production people were all that was left. We lost our lease on our offices and were sequestered on the lot in a little tiny space. We were really in the end game, all our writers and directors had moved onto other jobs. Then one day the call came: 'Okay, it looks like it's happening.' Waaait a minute -- how do we start?