- For other uses, see Family Guy (disambiguation).
Family Guy is an American adult animated sitcom created by Seth MacFarlane for the FOX television network.
Series Overview[]
Family Guy centers on the dysfunctional, nuclear, suburban family, the Griffins, who reside on Spooner Street in Quahog, Rhode Island. With the top parents being the dim-witted (but well-meaning) breadwinner Peter and his smart and efficient (but neglectful and wild) housewife Lois, the two have three kids. Meg, the eldest child, is a social outcast, and Chris is a soft-spoken boy who's awkward and clueless when it comes to the opposite sex yet has a passion for artistry. The youngest, Stewie, is a genius baby bent on killing his mother and destroying the world. and the anthropomorphic talking family dog, Brian, keeps Stewie in check while sipping martinis and sorting through his own life issues. Alongside them, they're occasionally joined by their extended family. Peter's side of the family, with the unhinged religious Francis and nice but ill-tempered Thelma, and Lois' side of the family, with her billionaire parents Carter and Babs. And the family can find misadventures anywhere. The show exhibits much of its humor in the form of cutaway gags that often lampoon American culture.
Biography[]
For a full documentation, see: Family Guy History
The family was conceived by MacFarlane after developing two animated films, The Life of Larry and Larry & Steve. MacFarlane redesigned the films' protagonist, Larry, and his dog, Steve, and renamed them Peter and Brian, respectively. MacFarlane pitched a three-minute pilot to Fox in 1998, and the show was greenlit and began production.
MacFarlane initially conceived Family Guy in 1995 while studying animation at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). During college, he created his thesis film entitled The Life of Larry, which was submitted by his professor at RISD to Hanna-Barbera. MacFarlane was hired by the company. In 1996 MacFarlane created a sequel to The Life of Larry entitled Larry and Steve, which featured a middle-aged character named Larry and an intellectual dog, Steve; the short was broadcast in 1997 as one of Cartoon Network's World Premiere Toons.
Executives at Fox saw the Larry shorts and contracted MacFarlane to create a series, entitled Family Guy, based on the characters. Fox proposed MacFarlane complete a 3-minute short, and gave him a budget of $10,000. Several aspects of Family Guy were inspired by the Larry shorts. While working on the series, the characters of Larry and his dog Steve slowly evolved into Peter and Brian. MacFarlane stated that the difference between The Life of Larry and Family Guy was that "Life of Larry was shown primarily in my dorm room and Family Guy was shown after the Super Bowl." After the pilot aired, the series was given the green light. MacFarlane drew inspiration from several sitcoms such as The Simpsons and All in the Family. Premises were drawn from several 1980s Saturday morning cartoons he watched as a child, such as The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang and Rubik, the Amazing Cube.
The Griffin family first appeared on the demo that MacFarlane pitched to Fox in mid-1997. Family Guy was originally planned to start out as short movies for the sketch show MADtv, but the plan changed because MADtv's budget was not large enough to support animation production. MacFarlane noted that he then wanted to pitch it to Fox, as he thought that that was the place to create a prime-time animation show. Family Guy was originally pitched to Fox in the same year as King of the Hill, but the show was not bought until years later, when King of the Hill became successful. Fox ordered 18 episodes of Family Guy to air in midseason after MacFarlane impressed executives with the three-minute demo.
First-Run and Cancellation[]
Family Guy debuted on January 31st, 1999 and had a good starting point, as it's pilot episode "Death Has a Shadow" premiered right after the Super Bowl, making it the most watched episode of the series, with an estimated 22 million viewers. And garnered decent ratings in Fox's 8:30 pm slot on Sunday, scheduled between The Simpsons and The X-Files. At the end of its first season the show ranked at No. 33 in the Nielsen ratings, with 12.8 million households tuning in. However, when the second season premiered, FOX gave it a new time slot, Thursday at 9 pm, on September 9th, 1999. Family Guy was pitted against NBC's Frasier, and the series' ratings declined sharply. Subsequently, Fox began trying to air episodes again on Sundays, but always seemed to flip-flop between Sundays and Thursday, causing the rating to get even more hurt.
In 2000, FOX returned the show on January 4, 2000, at 8:30 pm on Tuesdays, where it was constantly beaten in the ratings by ABC's then-new breakout hit Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. This caused some more timeslot screwy and caused the last two episodes of the second season to be delayed. And for the third season, it was even worse. With it return on October 5, 2000, with once again in a tough time slot: Thursday nights at 8:00 pm. This slot brought it into competition with Survivor and Friends (a situation that was later referenced in Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story). During its third season, Fox frequently moved the show around to different days and time slots with little or no notice and, consequently, the show's ratings suffered. Upon Fox's annual unveiling of its 2001 fall line-up on May 14, 2001, Family Guy was absent. Fox announced that the show had been officially canceled shortly thereafter.
New Life on [adult swim] and Rebirths[]
After its cancelation, Fox tried to sell rights for reruns of the show, but it was hard to find networks that were interested; Cartoon Network eventually bought the rights, "[...] basically for free", according to the president of 20th Century Fox Television Production.
When the reruns were shown on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim in late 2001, Family Guy became Adult Swim's most-watched show with an average 1.9 million viewers an episode. Following Family Guy's high ratings on Adult Swim, Family Guy: The Freakin' Sweet Collection, a DVD that hosted the first three seasons, released in April 2002. Sales of the DVD set reached 2.2 million copies, becoming the best-selling television DVD of 2002 and the second highest-selling television DVD ever, behind the first season of Comedy Central's Chappelle's Show. The show's popularity in both DVD sales and reruns rekindled Fox's interest in it. They ordered 23 new episodes, along with an additional special, in 2002, marking the first revival of a television show based on DVD sales.
Family Guy's second run unofficially premiered on April 29th, 2003, with "Live in Vegas", a double length musical, to gain back buzz in the show. The show debuted to 11 million viewers. The show officially returned on May 4th, 2003, with "North by North Quahog". Family Guy garnered decent ratings in Fox's 8:30 pm slot on Sunday, scheduled between The Simpsons and The X-Files. However, FOX began to toy with the time slot yet again, moving it from 7 to 9 pm, and the series' ratings declined sharply. Subsequently, Fox began airing episodes irregularly and make the show go on multiple hiatuses'. Leading to Fox announcing that the show had been canceled yet again in February 2004, around the end of the fourth season and around the time the movie, "Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story" was releasing, with the movie being the finale to the show and it would be cancelled "for good".
However, syndicated reruns on other channels such as TBS and more high DVD sales when they release Season 4 on DVD lead to Fox's interest rekindled again. They ordered 24 new episodes in 2005, set to air in 2006. Fox president Gail Berman said that it was one of her most difficult decisions to cancel the show twice, and was therefore happy it would return.
The third run would premiere on September 10th, 2006 with "Stewie Loves Lois", and the rest is history...
Movie Making[]
Many tie-in media have been released, including Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story, a straight-to-DVD special released in 2004; Family Guy: Live in Vegas, a musical special released in 2003, featuring music from the show as well as original music created by MacFarlane and Walter Murphy; a video game and pinball machine, released in 2006 and 2007, respectively; since 2005, six books published by Harper Adult based on the Family Guy universe; and Laugh It Up, Fuzzball: The Family Guy Trilogy (2010), a series of parodies of the original Star Wars trilogy. In 2008, MacFarlane confirmed that the cast was interested in producing a feature film and that he was working on a story for a film adaptation.
Tie-ins with Other Media[]
A spin-off series, The Cleveland Show, featuring Cleveland Brown, aired from September 27, 2009, to May 19, 2013. "The Simpsons Guy", a crossover episode with The Simpsons, aired on September 28, 2014. Family Guy is a joint production by Fuzzy Door Productions and 20th Century Fox Television and syndicated by 20th Television. In 2013, TV Guide ranked Family Guy the ninth Greatest TV Cartoon of All Time.
Cast[]
For a full list of the characters, see: Cast of Characters
Episodes[]
For a full list of episodes, see: List of Episodes
| Season | Episodes | Originally aired | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Series 1 | |||
| Pilot | 1998 | ||
| 1 | 18 | 1999 | |
| 2 | 23 | 1999–2000 | |
| 3 | 21 | 2000-2001 | |
| Series 2 | |||
| Family Guy: Live in Vegas | 2003 | ||
| 4 | 23 | 2003-2004 | |
| Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story | 3 | 2004 | |
| Series 3 | |||
| 5 | 24 | 2006-2007 | |
| 6 | 30 | 2007-2008 | |
| 7 | 26 | 2008-2009 | |
| 8 | 26 | 2009-2010 | |
| 9 | 26 | 2010-2011 | |
| 10 | 26 | 2011-2012 | |
| 11 | 26 | 2012-2013 | |
| 12 | 28 | 2013-2014 | |
| 13 | 22 | 2014-2015 | |
| 14 | 22 | 2015-2016 | |
| 15 | 24 | 2016-2017 | |
| 16 | 32 | 2017-2018 | |
| 17 | 26 | 2018-2019 | |
| 18 | 26 | 2019-2020 | |
| 19 | 26 | 2020-2021 | |
| 20 | 26 | 2021-2022 | |
| 21 | 26 | 2022-2023 | |
| 22 | 26 | 2023-2024 | |
| 23 | TBA | 2024-2025 | |
Animation Companies[]
- Jim Keeshen Productions ("Death Has a Shadow" only)
- Film Roman (Season 1 and "The Simpsons Guy")
- Sunwoo Entertainment (Season 2-Present)
- Rough Draft Studios (Season 2-Present)
- Koko Enterprises ("E. Peterbus Fargnum" only)
- Digital eMation (Season 7-Present)
See Also[]
| Adult Animated TV Shows |
|---|
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