Luanne Leanne Kleinschmidt (née Platter) (born December 3, 1983) is the daughter of Hoyt and Leanne Platter- though more notably the niece of Peggy Hill, cousin of Bobby Hill and niece-in-law of Hank Hill.
Luanne is introduced in the first episode of Season One, where she is invited to stay with the Hills, claiming her parents need space to resolve some marital difficulties. Near the end of the first episode, a tearful Luanne informs Hank and Peggy that her mother stabbed her father with a fork during an argument, leaving her mother in jail and trailer home repossessed. Moving in to Rainy Street, Hank's beloved den is turned into Luanne's “temporary” bedroom until she got married and moved to a house across from the Hill residence.
Biography[]
Blindfolded Luanne
Luanne was born to a teenaged Leanne and adult, con artist Hoyt Platter after the latter dumped his fianceé to marry Leanne after he met her when she served as the entertainment at his bachelor party. The two got married and moved in with Luanne to a trailer in Shiny Pines, where the family lived until Luanne was eighteen and Leanne and Hoyt's marriage went downhill as it was stated that they fought constantly, which deeply affected their child. Sometime after Luanne turned eighteen, her parents sent her to stay with her aunt and her family, the Hills, since they wanted some space in order to try and resolve their marriage problems but this proved to be fruitless after Leanne stabbed Hoyt with a fork due to Hoyt throwing away a quarter of beer that Leanne was going to drink before going to bed. The incident was even featured in TV as revealed by a tearful Luanne, who had to stay with the Hills since she had nowhere else to go after her mother was arrested, her father went to "work on an oil rig" and couldn't come back until he had Leanne's death certificate faxed to him (this was later revealed to be a ruse since Peggy wanted to keep it secret from her family that Hoyt was actually arrested as well but for getting involved with drugs) and their trailer tipped over while Luanne lied about the trailer being destroyed because it brought bad memories. After Hank discovers Luanne lied about the trailer he convinces her to move back to her trailer and childhood home, which she does until a twister destroys it and she was able to move back with her aunt's family and her matenal relatives' influence helped her improve her life and not end up like her parents.
Religion[]
Luanne has always been enthusiastically religious with the Christian God, and became a born-again-virgin for that reason. Luanne attends a Bible study class and briefly taught her own Bible study class from her swimming pool. Of course, this attracted the attention of the neighborhood men. The Bible study ended when Mr. Strickland became so enamored with Luanne that he asked her to marry him, a request that was quickly declined.
According to Luanne, whenever she's faced with a tough decision, she asks herself "What would Jesus do?"
The Manger Babies[]
In another early episode ("Meet the Manger Babies"), a glum Luanne discovers a box of cheap sock puppets at a garage sale and uses them to create a Christian-themed puppet show called "The Manger Babies", about the adventures of the animals who witnessed the birth of Jesus Christ. Despite the cast witnessing the birth of Jesus, all their adventures take place in modern times, with lessons like, "Don't sneak into a movie." or, "Don't drink and drive.", and Hank being cast as God. The popularity of Luanne's show lands her a part-time job performing weekly shows for local TV station Channel 84, a job she maintained throughout the run of the series.
Eventually, Luanne was able to produce a Manger Babies DVD with the help of John Redcorn, which sold out on release. Unfortunately, preschool shows are too competitive. In an attempt to regain her popularity, she revamped the Manger Babies into a modern "gangsta" style theme, replacing Gurgle-Gurgle Reality TV style with a gun character. Dale took offense to it, as he had submitted a children's story featuring a gun character to John Redcorn. Dale destroyed them in the laundry. She gave Gurgle-Gurgle to her daughter, Gracie.
Education[]
When the series began, Luanne was beginning classes at the Arlen Beauty Academy, with the ambition of becoming a Hollywood makeup artist and successfully hiding the bags beneath Michael Douglas' eyes. Luanne proved to be a terrible hairstylist, and struggled to complete beauty school. Following Buckley's death, she had visions of Buckley in angelic form, who informed her that Jesus wanted her to take a different path. During one of these visions, Luanne crashed her car near the parking lot of a community college, where she was mistaken for a student, and the students who found her were genuinely concerned, unlike her Beauty School peers who usually made fun of her. Luanne took this as a sign to begin pursuing a higher education and dropped out of beauty school and enrolled in the community college. Luanne seems to have changed her field of study several times, as in one episode she mentions "pre-med", in another she states she is a "pre-education major," and in yet another, implies that she's taking psychology, though her definition of the word to Peggy ("the disease of psychology") indicates she was probably failing the class. Luanne eventually drops out of college and fulfills her life long dream of becoming a hair stylist.
Career Fulfillment[]
After quitting college and earning her beauty school certificate, Luanne began working part-time at a hip unisex (albeit loosely) salon called "Hottyz" with Hank's best friend Bill Dauterive, where her ability earned her the position of first chair (the closest chair to the door, reserved for the best stylist in the salon). Bill was only permitted to work at the salon because the other employees thought he was gay, and under the assumption that only gay men can properly style hair. When the manager of Hottyz found out that Bill was straight, he was fired, but Luanne was offered to keep her position on her own as first chair. She instead decided to quit her position to remain fair to her partner and family friend, Bill. Hank approached his increasingly-demented barber, Jack, about giving Luanne a job. Upon discovering that he would be "stealing" Hottyz's first chair, Jack happily accepted. Luanne left college and became a full-time hair stylist for Jack, and moved back in with the Hills (after an offer from Peggy) in order to save money.
Appearance[]
Luanne is petite and shapely with chest-length blonde hair. After a near fatal accident, she lost her hair for awhile and decided to leave her bald head exposed after realizing she didn't like the strange looking, multicolored wig her classmates at beauty school had made for her until her hair slowly started growing back over the course of the series, growing into a bob hairstyle, to a small ponytail and finally back to normal.
She’s often considered a particularly beautiful young woman with rather large breasts. She has large eyes, full lips, and stands at 5'4". Luanne's usual outfit is a green crop top that exposes her midriff and tight, knee length, red shorts but is often seen wearing a tight orange shirt and mid-blue jeans with a brown belt.
Personality[]
Luanne is a sweet-natured, caring, but somewhat absent-minded, dim-witted, and overly-emotional young woman. She is also very innocent and naive, which makes her an easy target for men who want to take advantage of her. However, she does possess a certain level of common sense unlike the stereotypical "dumb blonde". She is also shown to be tough, ambitious, and hardworking. She demands respect, and is determined to escape her "trailer-trash" background, though she is not ashamed of where she comes from.
Earlier in the series, Luanne was shown to be very good with mechanics, as she solves the problem to Hank's truck in the pilot, fixes Cotton's Cadillac when he comes to visit, and is occasionally seen repairing other vehicles.
Quotes[]
- "No, Uncle Hank. Mama and Daddy are still fighting."
- (sobbing) "Mama's in jail. She was saving a quart of beer for before bed, and Daddy threw it out and she went after him with a fork! And the trailer tipped over, and everything went upside down and it's gonna be on Real Stories of the Highway Patrol! And the wig I designed for the Beauty Academy is gonna be ruined! Oh, Uncle Hank, what am I gonna do?"
- "Dear Lord, I don't wanna go back to college so please help me be sexy. Amen."
- "It's like God takes our picture...before He kills us."
- "I'm wearing shorts."
- ”AHHH! AUNT PEGGY! MR. KHAN SAW ME NAKED!”
- (When talking about picking up a pizza) "Why the rush, Aunt Peggy? If we don't get there in 30 minutes it's free."
- "Boy. Aunt Peg the words I don't know could fill a dictionary."