Fox Will Shake Up Schedule

Fox is making some changes in its Sunday and Monday night schedules after the first of the year, including the introduction of a new animated sitcom, “King of the Hill,” on Sundays.

“King,” from the creator of “Beavis and Butt-head” and the co-executive producer of “The Simpsons,” will be introduced Jan. 12 in the 8:30 time slot currently occupied by “Ned & Stacey.”

Meanwhile, “Ned” and “Married … With Children,” whose back-to-back episodes now occupy the 7 p.m. hour on Sundays, will move to Mondays on Jan. 6. “Ned” will be at 9, followed by a single half-hour of “Married … With Children.”

“King of the Hill,” Fox’s idea of family fare, tells “small, real stories about Hank Hill, his family and their neighbors” in the fictional suburb of Arlen, Texas. Hank, (voiced by Mike Judge) is the hard-working assistant manager of Strickland Propane, “who sees himself as the voice of common sense and reason in a world of incompetent sales clerks, meddling bureaucrats and do-good liberals.”

Aside from wife Peggy and 12-year-old son Bobby, there’s “Hank’s nubile 18-year-old niece,” Fox says.

Clinton honors Hume

ABC News apparently isn’t the only place where Brit Hume is going to be missed as he leaves the White House beat for a big Washington job with Fox News.

Before he answered a question from Hume at his Friday news conference, President Clinton said: “Let me say before you leave, I know this is your last White House press conference. You’ll be too important to mess with presidents and other people before long. But over the last several years, I think all of us think you have done an extraordinary, professional job under Republican and Democratic administrations alike.”