The most well-known British King, Henry VIII, was a large bulky man with a bushy red beard, dressed exactly as you imagine a King would be.

I imagine he’s something of a blueprint for the appearances of fictional kings.

I have never made that sort of connection. Fictional kings? IRL kings? Sacramento Kings?Can you give some examples?

Because none of the other characters are? It’s a quick way to set them apart at a glance, I reckon.

The cartoons I’ve seen that always had a fat, red-haired king character were very obviously making reference to Henry VIII, who was a king, he was fat, had red hair, and did some silly things.

I’ve never noticed such a pattern myself and I’m not sure I’d agree that most kings are depicted as red-headed. It would be a little odd considering the relative rarity of red hair in people. What specific depictions are you talking about? Could you give us a list of examples? If you google “cartoon king”, you’ll find only a few redheads among dozens of brown or white-haired kings, which is what I’d expected to find. Maybe if this is a legit trend you see, it could be regional thing? Are there many red-headed people in your country?

I can’t say I’ve noticed this, but depending on the design, it might just be about ensuring contrast of different elements. Red contrasts a yellow crown and beige skin pretty well whereas blonde hair would blend with skin and crown, and brown isn’t as bad but isn’t great and doesn’t work with brown skin. Black works, but can be hard to do with any detail in a minimalist style or one using black outlines. This leaves, red, and grey (with grey being them more common option in my experience).

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Because it goes with the red-black color scheme of the cards?

my mental image is brown hair

If I go to Google image search and put in “cartoon king”, there appear to be a mix of blonde, black, red and white haired kings. Red doesn’t appear to be over-represented here. What cartoons are you thinking about?

Do they? Most cartoon kings I can think of have either white or gray hair.