Johnny Hardwick, the Voice of Dale Gribble on ‘King of the Hill,’ Dies at 64
The Texas native played the exterminator on the Fox show during its entire 13-season run and received an Emmy in 1999.
He was not on the list.
Johnny Hardwick, who voiced the chain-smoking exterminator Dale Gribble for the entire 13-season run of the Fox animated hit King of the Hill, has died. He was 64.
Officers responding to a call for a welfare check found Hardwick dead in his home in Austin on Tuesday, police said, adding that the case is not being investigated as a homicide and that the cause of death will be determined by the medical examiner’s office.
Hardwick voiced Dale — the conspiracy theorist who lives next door to his best friend, propane accessory salesman Hank Hill (co-creator Mike Judge), and uses pocket sand when necessary — from 1997-2010 and was a writer, story editor and producer on the show as well.
The animators were said to have drawn Dale to look (and smoke) just like Hardwick, and he appeared on more than 250 episodes. He shared an Emmy for outstanding animated program in 1999 and was nominated again in 2001 and ’02.
“It was the dream job of all time, like winning the lottery times 10,” he said in a 2019 interview.
He also had a YouTube channel on which he would perform songs as Dale.
“Johnny Hardwick was an incredibly beloved member of the King of the Hill family, whose tremendous talent, brilliant humor and friendship will be deeply missed by all who were fortunate enough to work with him over the past 25 years,” 20th Television Animation and Hulu said in a statement.
“Our deepest condolences go out to his friends and family as we mourn the loss of one of the animation greats. His voice gave life to one of our most iconic characters, and he will be truly missed.”
Hardwick said he loved working on the show because he didn’t have to put on makeup or memorize lines. “I did it the whole time and was completely anonymous … that’s meant so much to me,” he said.
Hardwick was set to participate in a revival of King of the Hill at Hulu, it was announced in January, with other original actors Kathy Najimy, Stephen Root, Pamela Adlon and Lauren Tom signing on as well.
Sources say he had recorded a couple of new episodes but had not completed his work. It’s unclear what Disney, which owns and produces the show, will do in terms of his character.
Born in Houston in 1958, John Michael Hardwick graduated from Texas Tech University with a degree in journalism, worked as a stand-up at clubs like the Velveeta Room in Austin and was the first comic on Jon Stewart’s MTV show. He was offered a sitcom at NBC, but that did not work out.
King of the Hill co-creator Greg Daniels hired Hardwick for a writing job after seeing him perform at The Improv in Los Angeles, and he went to work for him rather than taking another offer to serve as a regular on the MTV series Austin Stories.
Daniel Stern was hired to voice Dale but got into a dispute over money and was replaced by Hardwick in time for the pilot.
“Apparently, he wanted a whole bunch of money and they weren’t willing to negotiate with him, so I ended up getting the part,” he told The Austin Chronicle in 1999. “And, you know, it’s pretty much his loss since we’ve been able to renegotiate since then. I don’t think he had the imagination to see what the show could be.
“I thought that in the pilot [Dale] was written to be pretty dumb — he was mispronouncing things and all kinds of weird stuff. I ended up kind of basing his attitude on if he thought he was Jack Nicholson but he wasn’t, or if he just thought he was the coolest guy around, like Matthew McConaughey’s character in Dazed and Confused. The thing that they did have in Mike’s original pilot was that he was a conspiracy person, which I thought was a great touch.”
Hardwick noted that Daniels gave all the writers on the show
Philip K. Howard’s 1995 book The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating
America. “It’s about the run-in with bureaucracy, and because of those rules,
we end up with people in prison who shouldn’t be in prison or just whatever,”
he said. “It’s all these crazy things that are happening.”
Hardwick had been working for the past few years on a project called Trailer Metal with King of the Hill colleague Randy Kubaszak and animator-musician Scott St. Louis. Hardwick put his voice on the trailer a few weeks ago, and “it was his very last recording,” Kubaszak told The Hollywood Reporter.
“He was very proud of what we created and was looking forward for the world to see his creation,” he said. “His writing and talent will never be duplicated. He was the most talented writer I ever worked with.
The creators were “getting ready to go out and pitch,” Kubaszak added.
Filmography
Film roles by Johnny Hardwick
Year Title Role Notes
1996 Ruta Wakening Jester Independent film
1999 Natural
Selection Documentary Director
(voice) Short film
The Collegians Are Go!! Sleepy
Student
Television roles by Johnny Hardwick
Year Title Role Notes
1992 An Evening at
the Improv Himself
1997–2010 King
of the Hill Dale Gribble, Additional
voices 259 episodes
2003 The Making of
King of the Hill Himself Television documentary
2009 Ace of Cakes Episode: "King of Charm
City"
2019 Boomer
vs Zoomer Episode: "Zoomer
vs. Dale Gribble"
Video game roles for Johnny Hardwick
Year Title Role Notes
2000 King of the
Hill Dale Gribble PC game
2022 Warped
Kart Racers Mobile game;
archival recording
Production credits for Johnny Hardwick
Year Title Position Notes
1997–2002 King
of the Hill Producer,
supervising producer, consulting producer, writer and story editor 103 episodes
2005 Full Metal
Slacks Executive producer
2006 Safety First
2019 Shadows of Sofia Consulting producer
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