Family Guy

Family Guy
File:FamGuy.png Family Guy title screen
Created by	Seth MacFarlane
Developed by	Seth MacFarlane David Zuckerman
Starring	Seth MacFarlane Alex Borstein Seth Green Mila Kunis
Country of origin	USA
No. of episodes	83
Production
Running time	20–23 minutes
Original release
Network	FOX
Release	January 31, 1999 – February 14, 2002; May 1, 2005 – present

Template:Infobox TV ratings Family Guy is an American animated comedy created by Seth MacFarlane for FOX in 1999. The show was cancelled once in 2000 and again in 2002, but strong DVD sales and re-runs on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim led FOX to resume production of the show in 2005 (see "Return to television" below). To date it is one of only a handful of shows in television history to be cancelled and later revived by the power of their fan bases, and one of the few shows to be brought back to air by the same network that cancelled it (see also Cagney and Lacey and Doctor Who). The title character is Peter Griffin, an inept blue collar head of a lower-middle class family frequently beset by the consequences of his foolish antics. Family Guy's brand of humor is notable for the usually brief, frequently nonsensical cutaways (usually featuring oddball pop culture references) and flashbacks to various points in history, geography, and reality involving the characters and their ludicrous actions (see "Structure and comedic approach" below).

MacFarlane, the show's creator, does not serve as a full time writer on the show; he has only written for two full episodes: the pilot, "Death Has a Shadow", and the first returning episode of season four, "North by North Quahog." However, he does voice many of the characters (Peter, Brian, Stewie, Glenn Quagmire, Tom Tucker, and some others), and he works as a gag writer on many episodes of the show. Other voice actors include That '70s Show's star Mila Kunis (Meg), actor Seth Green (Chris), former MADtv star Alex Borstein (Lois, Tricia Takanawa, Loretta Brown, and cameo of Bunny Swan), Writer/Producer Mike Henry (Cleveland, Cleveland Jr., Performance Artist, and Greased-up Deaf Guy), and comedic character actor Patrick Warburton (Joe Swanson). Actress Lacey Chabert was originally cast as the voice of Meg; however, because of a contractual agreement (it is not clear whether it was at Chabert's, Fox's, or the producers', request), she was never credited, and Fox has never admitted officially that she was ever the voice of Meg. The episodes Chabert voiced, however, are spread throughout seasons 1-2.

History

Creation

Main article: Larry shorts

Initial run

Family Guy in the United States on the Fox Broadcasting Company on January 31, 1999, after Super Bowl XXXIII, attracting 22 million viewers. The show premiered as a regular series in April and ran for six more episodes until the season finale in the middle of May. The first season contained seven episodes and introduced the viewer to the show's main characters. The second season began on September 23, 1999, and suffered competition from other shows. After only two episodes of the second season, Family Guy was taken off the network's permanent schedule and was shown irregularly thereafter. The show returned March 2000 to finish airing the second season which contained 22 episodes. The third season contained 21 episodes and began its run on July 11, 2001. During its second and third-season runs, Fox frequently moved the show around different days and time slots with little or no notice and as a result the show's ratings suffered.

When Family Guy was shown in the UK, and when the DVDs were subsequently released there (November 12, 2001), the first seven episodes of the second season were included with the first season, balancing them out with 14 episodes each.

There was a great deal of debate and rumor during the second and third seasons about whether Family Guy would be cancelled or renewed. Fox publicly announced that the show had been cancelled at the end of the second season. In an attempt to convince Fox to renew the show, dismayed fans created websites, signed petitions, and wrote letters; some even sent diapers and baby food to the network for Stewie.

A shift in power at Fox resulted in thirteen new episodes being ordered, which formed the basis of the third season. The show's writers, aware of the uncertainty of the show's future, referenced it in several episodes. During the third season, Fox announced that the show was cancelled for good.

Revival efforts

The news of Fox's cancellation in the third season was met with dismay by fans, and renewed efforts were made to convince Fox to resurrect the show. An online petition was launched, which garnered over 10,000 signatures within a few weeks. The petition gained over 100,000 signatures total, but this along with mass e-mailing and letter writing to Fox executives and organized street protests failed to save Family Guy. Later efforts to get other networks, particularly UPN, to buy Family Guy also failed.

Return to television

In 2003, Family Guy gained its first syndicated run on Canada's Teletoon network, where it quickly gained massive popularity due to frequent airings. Several months later, reruns of the series finally found a permanent home at Cartoon Network's late-night Adult Swim block, where, as of 2006, it continues to play. According to a Cartoon Network press release,

FAMILY GUY ranks #1 in its time period on cable among Adults and Men 18–24, and also beats both The Late Show with David Letterman and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in head-to-head competition among Men 18–34 and Men 18–24.

(This was only an occasional ratings outcome.)

The series found further success on DVD, when it was finally released for the US market (NTSC, Region 1) on April 15, 2003. Divided into two volumes, Family Guy sold 2.2 million DVD units in the first year, reportedly surpassing every other TV-based DVD released in 2003, including Sex and the City and Friends compilations. The significant Cartoon Network ratings, combined with the unprecedented DVD sales, led to widespread rumors that Fox was in talks to revive the series.

On November 19, 2003, the E! Entertainment Television channel and its website (see below) reported that Fox was negotiating with Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane to revive the show with 35 new episodes. On February 27, 2004, in an interview with IGN, Seth MacFarlane confirmed that Family Guy would resume production. MacFarlane provided even more information in a BBC interview.

On March 26, 2004, Fox television officially announced that it had committed to producing at least 22 more episodes of Family Guy to be broadcast in early 2005. Adult Swim had retained a window to run these episodes, starting on May 1, 2005. Seth MacFarlane was quoted as saying,

I'm just incredibly excited that we're back in business on Family Guy. Now all those crazy kids who've been hounding me to bring the show back can stop bothering me and move onto more serious matters—like saving Coupling.

The fourth-season premiere of Family Guy took place on Sunday, May 1, 2005, 9:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Fox, and immediately poked fun at the situation by showing a flashback to 2002, with Peter listing all of the Fox shows that would have to fail (and did) before 'Family Guy' would be able to return.

One aspect that has helped the show's current success is its placement on Sunday night with the other Fox animated programs. Reruns of the fourth season began play during Adult Swim on June 9, 2005.

Furthermore, a Family Guy direct-to-DVD movie, titled Family Guy Presents Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story, which was a collection of three Family Guy episodes strung together in one collected plot with additional added scenes, was released on September 27, 2005. The 88-minute film is unrated and includes commentary, deleted material, and other bonus features. An edited version of the film was shown as the Season 4 finale on May 21, 2006. The film's plot is about Stewie finding out what he is like in the future. Originally, the movie was going to be created even before the TV episodes, but the film got pushed back when the ideas within the episodes took off.

A Family Guy video game is currently in production under the 2K Games banner, and will be developed by High Voltage Software. Playable characters include Peter, Brian, and Stewie. The game is slated for a 2006 release on the PlayStation Portable, Xbox, and PlayStation 2. According to Gamespot, it will also be available for the GameCube. There are also rumors of a Nintendo DS version.

On September 27, 2005, Variety reported that 20th Century Fox greenlit production of 22 additional all new episodes of Family Guy. These episodes began airing on FOX on September 10, 2006.

The fourth season of Family Guy was released in Ireland and the UK on April 24, 2006. The DVD box set was released in the UK and Ireland before the series aired, and set new sales records. The DVD debuted at #1 on the Irish DVD charts (the highest ever for a TV show DVD) for week ending 27 April, and maintained it for 4 weeks . Due to this success in Ireland and the UK, it is thought that Fox may try

International syndication

• In the United Kingdom it is shown on FX and BBC Two & BBC Three. BBC Two started showing Season 3 in September 2005 along with American Dad!. The series was originally shown on Channel 4 and Sky One in early evening slots which led to several cut being made to the show . The first half of the fourth season of Family Guy was released on DVD on April 24, 2006 in the UK. The Season Three Of Family Guy Will Be Airing To Paramount Comedy 1 Soon .
• In Australia, the show has made its long awaited return, airing Thursday nights on the Seven Network during the summer non-ratings period. This was shifted to a later timeslot on the resumption of the ratings year. It is also shown 6 days a week on The Comedy Channel and FOX8, which are carried on the cable networks Foxtel, Optus and Austar. Season 4 has recently been released on DVD, and has replaced the seasons 1-3 box set at the top of the HMV and Sanity DVD charts.
• In Belgium the show has always been broadcast by Kanaal Twee (in Flanders) although with lengthy interruptions. The fourth season hasn't been shown yet. Episodes are never dubbed, they are subtitled in Dutch instead (as with most animated shows in Flanders).
• In Canada, it is shown on the Global Television Network, often simultaneously with the Fox telecasts across the border. Also, Teletoon continues to air syndicated reruns of the series. Reruns of the first three seasons are also presented in a dubbed French version on the French language Télétoon network. The French version of the show is called "Les Griffin".
• In Germany and Austria a dubbed version of the show is emitted on Pro7 Thursdays at 00:45 CET (at the moment Season 3)
• Swedish viewers can watch reruns of the show weekdays at 20:30 and the second latest season on Sundays at 20:00 CET on TV6. Family Guy is also shown Fridays on TV3 around 19:00 CET.
• In France, the cable channel Canal+ is broadcasting "Les Griffin".
• In Norway the show is sent on ZTV weekdays at 18:30. It was also shown on TV2, but was taken off after a few episodes.
• In Latin America the show is broadcasted by FOX Latinoamérica on Mondays and Tuesdays at midnight. It is named Uma Família da Pesada in Brazil, and Padre de Familia in Spanish-speaking countries.
• In the Middle East the show runs on the free-to-air emarati satellite channel One TV. It can be received through Arabsat or Nilesat.
• In Israel Israeli viewers can receive the show via yes sat. television.
• In Ireland, viewers can watch it on Channel 6, or the UK channels BBC Two and FX. It will also being coming soon to Paramount Comedy 1 Ireland, as the only difference between it and the UK's is the advertisements.
• In Spain, viewers can watch the last season on the FOX Channel and the new free-to-air channel La Sexta has just started to broadcast the first season.
• In Kuwait. KTV 2 showed the 1&2 seasons.
• In UAE, One TV shows an episode every weekday except Thursday.
• In New Zealand, TV3 shows all new episodes on Thursday nights at 10pm,
• In Iceland the show is shown on the TV station Skjár einn on Thursday nights.
• In Poland TV4 (the subchannel of Polsat) showed the 1&2 seasons. It was entitled Głowa Rodziny.
• In Portugal it can be seen on the Fox Channel and on Sic Radical.
• In Puerto Rico the show was picked up on its first syndication run. Local TV station WAPA-TV, Channel 4 (now known as Televicentro) broadcasted a couple of Season 1 episodes, Sundays at 10:00 P.M. Shortly after its revival on FOX, another local station WKAQ-TV, Channel 2 Telemundo picked the show up. However the same Seasons 1 & 2 episodes were broadcasted in more erratic schedule (with Saturdays and/or Sundays at 6:00 P.M. gaining prominence).
• In Italy the first two seasons were broadcast by channel Italia 1 since November 5, 2000 (reruns since September 4, 2004). The 3rd (previously broadcast by Italian Fox satellite channel) and 4th seasons has been broadcasted from July to September 2006. In Italy the show is known as "I Griffin" (The Griffins).
• In the Philippines, Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are shown on JackTV.
• In Turkey, the show is going to be broadcasted in autumn on CNBC-e.
• In Russia it's broadcasting on Ren-TV and called "Гриффины" (The Griffins)
• in Switzerland Season 1 is beeing broadcasted on [[SF2]
• On September 29th, the first two seasons of Family Guy will be released in Japan through FOX's Japanese website. The series debut in this country will depend on the sales made by the DVD.

Characters

The Griffin family, from left to right: Brian, Lois, Peter, Stewie, Chris, Meg.

Main article: List of characters from Family Guy

The show revolves around the adventures of Peter Griffin, a bumbling but well-intentioned blue-collar worker.

Peter is a Catholic Irish-American with a classic Rhode Island / Massachusetts accent (similar to a Boston accent). During the course of the series, he discovers he's part African-American (though he doesn't look it) and has been known to have Spanish, Scottish, Irish and German ancestors. His wife, Lois who has a similar accent with a mixed voice that sounds like a New England Edith Bunker, is a stay-at-home mom and piano teacher, is a member of the Pewterschmidts, (a wealthy socialite family). Peter and Lois have three children: teenage daughter Meg Griffin, who is frequently the butt of jokes for her apparent ugliness; goofy teenage son Chris Griffin, in many respects a younger version of his father; and a diabolically evil infant son, Stewie Griffin bent on world domination and the death of his mother, Lois. Stewie speaks fluently and eloquently, (with stereotypical british phrases) and even though the family can hear his ambitions of world domination and of Lois's demise, all but Brian wave it off as baby gibberish.

The family lives with an intellectual talking dog, Brian Griffin, who has repeatedly expressed romantic interest in Lois. He's also the only member of the family who really understands Stewie, instead of treating him like an infant. Even though Brian has been completely anthropomorphized by the show's creators (he walks on two legs, drinks martinis, owns his own car, and engages in normal conversation with the Griffins), the Griffins still consider him a pet in many respects. Occasionally, Brian will act in a stereotypically canine manner, usually for comedic effect (such as his inability to stand up in the back of a car, chasing tennis balls, and his fear of the vacuum). He does, however, object to any overly submissive domestic behavior.

Other recurring characters include the Griffin family's colorful neighbors—paraplegic police officer Joe Swanson, his perpetually pregnant wife Bonnie; sex-crazed airline-pilot bachelor Glenn Quagmire. Glenn also lusts after Lois (and just about anyone or anything else female), and when he is enticed by the idea of women exclaims, "Giggity-Giggity-Goo", and, "All right!" Mild-mannered deli owner Cleveland Brown, his wife (ex-wife as of the fourth-season episode The Cleveland-Loretta Quagmire) Loretta Brown and their hyperactive son, Cleveland Jr. (who hasn't appeared again since Season 3); news anchors Tom Tucker and Diane Simmons along with "Asian Reporter Tricia Takanawa"; and the mayor, Adam West, modeled after and voiced by the actor of Batman fame, who is portrayed as paranoid and mentally ill; as well as other various co-workers and town personalities.

The Griffin Family Tree.

Family Guy does not have an especially large cast of recurring minor characters (though this has changed to an extent in Season 4, with many one-shot characters from prior episodes making appearances in new episodes), and most of the episode plotlines center chiefly around the exploits of the Griffin family.

There are also several semi-regular characters who serve as running gags. Examples include the Evil Monkey in Chris's closet; Herbert, the creepy old man who enjoys "watching" Chris; the Greased-Up Deaf Guy; Ollie Williams, the weather forecaster, who shouts everything he says in his "BlaccuWeather" forecast and appears to be an "angry black man" version of Al Roker; Jake Tucker, anchorman Tom Tucker's son (who appears to have an upside-down face); and Peter's nemesis the Giant Chicken (who originally poked fun at a Burger King commercial), whose fights with Peter parody Hollywood action films and usually end up causing huge amounts of damage to the city. The incarnation of Death (originally voiced by Norm MacDonald, but now by Adam Carolla) has also made a number of appearances. Template:Endspoiler

Episodes

Main article: List of Family Guy episodes

In keeping with the humorous tone of the series, most episode titles of Family Guy are parodies of popular television shows, movies, and mottos. No media product or cultural norm is immune from parody on this show.

For the first half of the first season, the writers tried to work the words "murder" or "death" into the title of every episode (e.g. Mind over Murder and Death Has a Shadow) to make the titles resemble those of old-fashioned radio mystery shows. On a DVD commentary, creator Seth MacFarlane says that the writers stopped doing this when they realized they were beginning to get the titles confused and couldn't remember which title went with which episode.

Structure and comedic approach

The animated skyline in Family Guy

The actual skyline of Providence

The characters live and work in Quahog (pronounced KOE-hog), Rhode Island, a hyperrealistic and intensely satirical version of a suburb of the capital and largest city of Rhode Island, Providence. As a reminder of vernacular, many shots feature in the background a distinct cluster of three medium-sized skyscrapers; the features of this row of drawn buildings are intended to correspond to a particular row of buildings in the actual Providence skyline (the actual buildings in downtown Providence are, from left to right, One Financial Center, 50 Kennedy Plaza, and the Bank of America Tower, see comparison at right). This leaves the writers free to make local references and gags specific to Rhode Island culture. A "quahog" is in fact a type of hard shell clam, the state mollusk for Rhode Island, and doubles as a regional slang term for "vagina", much like the word "clam."

Characters' lives largely revolve around items and ideas of popular culture, which are incorporated into everyday conversation and events. Some of these references have exaggerated grounding in reality — a paranoid and psychotic version of actor Adam West serves as Quahog's mayor, and public schools are named for Rhode Island natives James Woods and Buddy Cianci — while others unabashedly delve into the realm of fantasy without being questioned. It's entirely possible that we see the world through the eyes of the individual character, instead of the "real" world. This would explain why we understand Stewie's rants, Chris could have an evil monkey in his closet and a talking zit, and Peter could have stars like Gene Simmons pop in to answer questions, an ancestor who is a Jabba the Hutt-type creature, and the Transformer Soundwave as a co-worker. If we are seeing the world through each of these characters' eyes, their absurd imaginations become reality.

File:Stewie Griffin.jpg

Stewie dreams of eliminating Mr. Rogers with his Raygun.

Although Family Guy sometimes maintains a rough sense of continuity, complicated plots are most often traded for a concentration on comedy that is based largely on pop culture references and non sequiturs. Though this style is often played within the characters' world, the series is also known for its use of cutaways, where the plot is interrupted and segues into unrelated, self-contained sketches of variable length — known as "manatee gags," from a South Park parody of Family Guy that implied the jokes were so non-sensical that manatees choosing random concepts could assemble them. Often initiated when a character refers to a past event (accompanied by phrases such as "like that time when...", "I haven't felt like this since...", or "This is worse than the time..."), these sketches are wildly divergent in topic—ranging from classic film scenes to historical events to contemporary television commercials. Many times they encapsulate twisted, humorous takes on reality, and sometimes they are completely nonsensical, such as Peter's being a magic mirror for Kevin Federline, serving as Sandy Duncan's glass eye, or using his bulk to "provide nighttime warmth for Lara Flynn Boyle".

The show owes a great deal of its comedic inspiration to the Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker's Naked Gun/Police Squad! series (spoof, parody and screwball), whose structural comedic approach has been homaged by Family Guy. Slapstick gags, deadpan one-liners, non sequiturs, flashbacks, absurdity, and mainly parody on pop culture have been an influence on Family Guy. Family Guy finally parodied this ultimate parody movie in the fourth-season episode called PTV. Some have also noted that many jokes on the show and the pacing seem like an updated version of the British sitcom The Young Ones, although The Young Ones' cutaways frequently revolved around the world of the show, were relevant to story progression and involved the characters engaged in activities that seemed closer to reality than those of Family Guy.

Though earlier animated series (such as The Critic) experimented with this style, few before Family Guy wandered the line between reality and fantasy with such aggression. Indeed, the use of this style has been parodied by the show itself; an entire episode was revealed to have been a dream concocted by Pam Ewing, a character from the television series Dallas, which retconned an entire season to the same conceit.

Because of this approach, the series reverts to normality by the end of most episodes, and occurrences in past episodes are sometimes ignored. Some changes back to normality are accomplished by tortuous or unlikely means, while others are tacitly implied. The episode He's Too Sexy for His Fat offers examples of each: Peter's extensive liposuction and cosmetic surgery is reverted by having Peter have a car accident and land in a lard factory, where he consumes a whole vat of lard. In the episode The Perfect Castaway, Peter is seen eating Joe's legs for food while Peter, Joe, Cleveland and Quagmire are stranded on Quagmire's raft of blow-up dolls in the middle of the ocean. Joe is seen without legs until the end of the episode, and when questioned as to how he got them back, he says he received them from an inmate on death row about to get the chair. Unfortunately for Joe, the man was also a paraplegic. In one episode, Brian is viciously attacked by Stewie; he has shards of glass embedded in his head and face, is beaten repeatedly with a towel bar, and toilet seat, has his legs broken with a golf club, is thrown down a flight of stairs, is shot through both knees, and is roasted by a flamethrower; despite the immediate effects of this, he remains unscathed in his next scene, akin to traditional Warner Brothers' cartoon style humor.

But there are also cases of episodes making changes to continuity that are upheld and even elaborated on in later episodes, such as Peter's occupation being shifted from a toy factory assembly line worker to a fisherman, to a lowly worker at a beer factory; the breakup and subsequent divorce of secondary characters Cleveland and Loretta Brown; and the recent birth of Peter's son (via sperm donation) and Stewie's new rival, Bertram, to a lesbian couple. In a recent fourth season episode, The Fat Guy Strangler, Brian picked up a rock and hit Peter in the head, telling him that it was revenge for keeping the window rolled up when Brian tried to jump head-first into the family car, which Peter had repainted at the time to resemble the General Lee, an event that took place in the Season 3 episode To Live and Die in Dixie.

Being a native of Kent, Connecticut, and a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, MacFarlane has written a number of in-jokes and references into Family Guy which allude to real life places in Rhode Island and the surrounding New England area, including Providence, Pawtucket, Narragansett, Barrington, Newport, Warwick, Hartford, Natick, Framingham, Upton, South Attleboro, and Webster. The last scene of Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story featured an aerial view of the School. Template:Endspoiler

Criticism

Main article: Criticism of Family Guy

Ever since its initial run, Family Guy has received much criticism from a variety of sources. Of particular concern to television watch groups is the show's adult content and disregard for traditional morality. The Parents Television Council has registered their disapproval of the show, giving it second place on their 2000 and 2005 lists of "worst prime-time shows for family viewing."

File:Mad458.jpg

Cover of the October 2005 issue of Mad Magazine.

Family Guy has also received harsh criticism for what critics see as premises and humor too similar to those featured in The Simpsons, another animated series on the Fox network. In 2005, the similarities were spoofed on a cover of Mad magazine, which featured an illustration of the main Family Guy characters altered to look like the characters on The Simpsons. Under it ran the headline "We salute Family Guy: TV's most original animated series!" (In the Australian version of this cover, the picture was that of the Family Guy family sitting on a couch closely resembling that of the Simpsons and giving off silhouettes resembling their corresponding Simpsons character.)

The Simpsons staff has taken shots at Family Guy several times, including:

• In "Missionary: Impossible", a television is shown bearing the Family Guy logo before being turned off by guest star Betty White.

• In "The Italian Bob", a book contains an image of Peter Griffin, above the caption "Plagarismo". A second image in the sequence shows Stan Smith from American Dad!, with the caption "Plagarismo de plagarismo."

• In "Treehouse of Horror XIII," Homer obtains a "magic hammock" that clones him. One duplicate that is made of Homer is Peter Griffin.

Seth MacFarlane has stated in interviews that he and The Simpsons creator Matt Groening have an amicable relationship despite the jabs from The Simpsons writing staff. In an AV Club interview, MacFarlane commented on the controversy:

Apparently they hate our guts. I'm not sure why. I've said this before, but that show, at its best, is up there with the best episodes of All In The Family, Mary Tyler Moore, and Dick Van Dyke, I think. I was reading a quote from one of the writers, from a lecture that he gave, that said "The Simpsons staff hates Family Guy." Who knows why? I'm not losing any sleep over it.

The creators of Family Guy were able to make a return jab at The Simpsons in the introduction to the episode "PTV" in season 4, by having Stewie run Homer Simpson over with his tricycle, followed by Peter remarking, "Who the hell is that?" This spoof, however, is visibly a more aggressive and anger-infused attack than any of those featured on the Simpsons, with the Simpsons ones usually being incidental and satirical, rather than right-out direct referencing.

In an April 2006 interview, Matt Groening revealed that the rivalry between Family Guy and The Simpsons is "very affectionate", complementing MacFarlane and comparing the competition to The Addams Family and The Munsters in the 1960s.

File:FGToLiveandDieinDixie.png

Chris and Sam embrace in "To Love and Die in Dixie"

Family Guy has been panned by certain television critics, most notably from Entertainment Weekly, which was in turn attacked by MacFarlane during a scene in the straight-to-DVD movie Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story.

Other cartoonists who have publicly criticized Family Guy include John Kricfalusi, creator of Ren and Stimpy, who argued that "If you're a kid wanting to be a cartoonist today, and you're looking at Family Guy, you don't have to aim very high...The standards are extremely low.

The show was roasted in a two-part episode of South Park, in which characters called the show's jokes interchangeable, saying that they had no place in the storyline. In the two-part episode "Cartoon Wars," the writers of Family Guy were portrayed as manatees that moved various rubber balls inscribed with random topics (such as Gary Coleman or Mexico) into a giant bin that became the jokes written into each episode. Also a character similar to Bart Simpson is featured in the episode attempting to get Family Guy cancelled. But later, a man mentions that he likes the random jokes and "At least it doesn't get all preachy and up its own ass with messages, you know?," referring to the tendency of South Park episodes to have an explicit moral.

During his speech at the Harvard class day 2006, in character as Stewie Griffin, MacFarlane rebutted:

You're wondering to yourselves: what can I expect from the outside world? Will I find my niche? What should I know about the vast territory that lies beyond the confines of my little subcultural textbooks, Ramen noodles, coin-operated laundry and TV shows that seem to think they can skate by with random jokes about giant chickens that have absolutely nothing to do with the overall narrative? The boys at South Park are absolutely correct: Those cutaways and flashbacks have nothing to do with the story! They're just there to be ... funny. And that is a shallow indulgence that South Park is quite above, and for that I salute them.

"Stewie Griffin" part of speech on Youtube

TV to DVD media

The TV to DVD media has become a very successful enterprise. When Family Guy was canceled there were no reruns to be aired because no station had the rights. In 2003, Family Guy Volume 1 was released on DVD, then later that year Volume 2. Several TV stations started to pickup the rights to the show and began airing seasons 1-3. Having the episodes available on DVD gave the series a huge boost in popularity. Because of the DVDs, Fox realized that the series was widely popular, and the decision was made to bring it back. Then in November 2005, Volume 3 was released on DVD, followed by Volume 4 which is scheduled to be released on November 14, 2006.

DVD movie

Main article: Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story

The direct to DVD movie released on September 27, 2005, focuses on Stewie searching for his biological father, who he believes isn't Peter Griffin. Three separate but continuous episodes, originally intended for the end of the third season and start of the fourth in the event that the show would return, were instead combined into a full-length film. A one-minute scene from the movie can currently be viewed here. The movie was shown in the form of the individual episodes played in order serving as the show's 90-minute fourth-season finale on May 21, 2006. The open and close of the DVD feature long "news"-like sections covering the film's "premiere." These were cut out of the TV broadcast, along with many other scenes, as the 81 minute movie needed to run for 65 minutes on television. With commercials, credits, etc, the TV version ran for 90 minutes, and included one new scene: a parody of the end credits for Soap closed part 2.

UMD

On November 25, 2005, the first and second seasons were released on PSP UMD. Also Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story was released on September 27, 2005. Family Guy: The Freakin Sweet Collection became available on UMD as of May 9. The third season was released on September 19, 2006.

Theme song and score

Composed by Walter Murphy (A Fifth of Beethoven), the familiar theme music of the show begins as a parody of the opening theme of All in the Family, where Peter and Lois sing at the family piano, similar to Archie and Edith Bunker.

In keeping with the series's malleable comedy, the traditional opening song has been occasionally dropped in favor of different themes, including parodies of Law & Order, Family Ties, Police Squad!/The Naked Gun, 24, The Simpsons, the Rocky movies, and the Hope-Crosby "Road to..." movies.

Most of the early episodes have original music scores (consisting mostly of musical "stingers"), also composed by Murphy, while others have tracked music either from earlier episodes or other Fox animated shows (this was a practice done for television shows produced from the 1950s through the early 1980s).

Podcast

A free podcast is available to download as an MP4 from the official site or from iTunes. Seventeen episodes have been released. On several of the podcasts, cast members discuss upcoming episodes and joke amongst themselves.

See also

• List of characters from Family Guy
• List of Family Guy episodes
• List of places on Family Guy
• List of songs from Family Guy
• List of neologisms on Family Guy
• Criticism of Family Guy
• Family Guy DVDs
• Family Guy action figures
• List of Family Guy voice actors
• Larry shorts
• American Dad!

External links

• Official Family Guy Website
• The Family Guy Reference Archives
• Family Guy at Quahog5news.com
• Family Guy at the Big Cartoon DataBase
• Family Guy at IMDb
• Family Guy at Wikia
• Family Guy at JelloTV.com on-Demand
• Freakin' Sweet Family Guy Website
• Family Guy Clips Everything Family Guy Related
• CheekyBastard - Family Guy & American Dad Goodies
• Interview with Mike Henry on Canada.com by Maurie Sherman