Family Guy is an adult animated sitcom created by Seth MacFarlane that premiered in 1999. Since the very beginning, the series has dealt with comparisons to The Simpsons, which is not only a similar show with a similar set of characters, but also happened to air on the same network – Fox.
More than ten years later, however, Family Guy has earned its place on television and is appreciated around the world, being credited as the project that gave Seth MacFarlane’s career a jumpstart.
Audiences mostly Family Guy for its irreverent, sarcastic, and envelope-pushing humor. The show is known for flashbacks, celebrity cameos, and popular catchphrases, to the pleasure (and also distaste) of many in Hollywood. 24 Emmy nominations – and 7 wins – later, Family Guy is finally seeing a slow decline in ratings, but still manages to capture mainstream attention whenever it tackles a controversial topic.
It comes as no surprise that a TV show that throws so many punches would inevitably have its own secrets behind the scenes, and it just so happens that the production behind Family Guy is not immune to controversy, drama, legal battles, and questionable choices.
These are 17 Dark Secrets Behind Family Guy.
17. SETH MACFARLANE WISHES THE SHOW WAS OVER
16 seasons later, you might think that Seth MacFarlane would be happy that his first mainstream project is still going strong. However, that is not necessarily the case.
During an infamous interview with The Hollywood Reporter in 2011, Seth MacFarlane itted loud and clear to the fact that he wishes Family Guy was over. He justified it by saying, “I think seven seasons is about the right lifespan for a TV series.”
It is definitely difficult to pinpoint exactly where this sentiment from Seth MacFarlane comes from, especially with the realization that other successful adult animated series went on to air for decades. South Park is already at season 21 and The Simpsons was renewed for a 30th season. American Dad! – the other animated sitcom created by Seth MacFarlane – has aired for 15 seasons, also betraying the notion that a TV show should end after 7 years.
16. MACFARLANE DOESN’T EVEN WRITE THE SHOW ANYMORE
Seth MacFarlane not only wishes Family Guy was over, but he also puts his money where his mouth is. During a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” session he held in 2017, MacFarlane confirmed that he hasn’t written for the show since 2010. He only does the voice work for the several characters he brings to life (such as Peter, Stewie, and Brian), no longer crafting the show’s stories.
Family Guy is by all means still billed as a Seth MacFarlane project, but it is definitely curious to hear confirmation that, since 2010, he has been nothing but a voice actor on the show. MacFarlane has prioritized his movie projects – like Ted and A Million Ways To Die In The West – and live-action TV work such as The Orville.
15. THE SHOW PREDICTED THE KEVIN SPACEY REVELATIONS
Back in 2005, Family Guy had an episode in which Stewie ran through a department store yelling that he had just escaped Kevin Spacey’s basement.
In 2017, Anthony Rapp told Buzzfeed News in an interview that, in 1986, while he was underage, Kevin Spacey tried to seduce him and made unwanted advances toward him. Both Rapp and Spacey were working on Broadway at the time, and were therefore linked to one another through work.
In hindsight, it’s almost as if Family Guy knew something about Kevin Spacey, or was eerily predicting what had happened many years before (and made public many years later). Seth MacFarlane has clearly stated that the writers from the show knew nothing about Kevin Spacey’s predatory behavior, and that the “joke” on Family Guy was written completely at random.
14. MILA KUNIS ISN'T THE ORIGINAL MEG
Actress Mila Kunis has famously voiced the character of Meg Griffin since 1999, when Family Guy premiered its second season.
The truth is out there: Kunis is not actually Meg’s original voice.
When Family Guy first went on air, it was Lacey Chabert who voiced Meg. Yes, Lacey Chabert who played Gretchen in Mean Girls and Penny in Lost In Space. She had already been successful in voice acting for portraying Eliza Thornberry in the Nickelodeon animated series The Wild Thornberrys, but it seems like Family Guy wasn’t a great fit for her, because she left after just one season.
Another curious thing about Meg’s voice is that Mila Kunis doesn’t lend her voice to the character’s singing parts in the show. Tara Strong, a veteran voice actress, does all of Meg’s singing in Family Guy.
13. CHRIS’ VOICE WAS INSPIRED BY BUFFALO BILL
Chris is a nice enough kid despite coming from a family such as the Griffins, but there’s a reason why his voice sounds so eerie. According to Family Guy producers, the voice of Chris Griffin was inspired by the serial killer Buffalo Bill from 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs.
Family Guy alluded to this connection when, in the 13th episode of the show’s 7th season, Chris Griffin reenacted the infamous Silence of the Lambs scene in which Buffalo Bill dances disturbingly in his bedroom.
Chris Griffin is voiced by Seth Green, who himself created the adult-leaning animated series Robot Chicken, a series that is closely associated with Family Guy for its similar, brash humor and target audience.
12. FAMILY GUY WAS CANCELED... TWICE
Everyone knows Family Guy as a successful animated TV show on a major broadcast network, but the truth is that, throughout the years, Family Guy was actually canceled twice due to some dissatisfaction from the network.
The first time the show was canceled was right after its second season, which aired between 1999 and 2000. This caused Family Guy to go off the air for over a year, but the show eventually made its way back to Fox. The second time the show was canceled was even longer, between 2002 and 2005, a timeframe that happened within the third and fourth seasons of Family Guy.
During that three-year hiatus, Family Guy kept doing incredible numbers in DVD sales and Adult Swim ratings, to the point where Fox took notice and decided to revive the series. “North By North Quahog”, which premiered in 2005, was the first episode of the show being officially back on air.
11. DEATH WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE UNDERLYING THEME
A recurring character on Family Guy, Death itself has played a major role in several episodes of the series. Originally, Death was going to be even more important to the show, to the point where every episode would receive a spooky title and “death” was going to be the underlying theme across the entire series.
This original intent is particularly noticeable in the first four episodes of Family Guy’s first season, which are titled: “Death Has A Shadow”, “I Never Met The Dead Man”, “Chitty Chitty Death Bang”, and “Mind Over Murder.”
The reason behind this recurring theme was Seth MacFarlane being a huge fan of suspenseful radio shows from the 1930s and 1940s. However, as Family Guy progressed, it became evident that the show had to move on from this idea.
10. THE U.S. PARENTS TELEVISION COUNCIL REALLY HATES IT
The U.S. Parents Television Council was founded in 1995 in an attempt to label TV shows as either favorable or harmful from a “family values” perspective. The Council has historically opposed television series that they are deemed indecent and/or off-color, so it comes as no surprise that Family Guy has been a recurring target of the organization.
The Parents Television Council releases a weekly statement called “Worst TV Show of the Week,” which essentially proclaims which television show of that given week was just “the worst” according to their standards. Family Guy has been elected the Council’s “Worst TV Show of the Week” on at least 40 occasions, and has even made it to the “Worst TV Show of the Season” list, which takes into consideration an entire season of television.
9. THERE ARE TWO VERSIONS OF ALMOST EVERY EPISODE
We all know that Family Guy can be a little off-color, to say the least, despite airing on a major broadcast network. though the show’s core fan-base loves that brash humor, Fox can only air what is deemed appropriate by network executives and U.S. rating associations.
For this reason, nearly all Family Guy episodes have two versions: a clean, safe-for-TV version, and an uncensored, late-night version that is released on DVD and through Adult Swim reruns. This means that when a new episode of Family Guy first premieres, it is actually not being shown in its entirety by Fox, as the show needs to be appropriate for a Sunday night crowd.
While it is unfortunate that Family Guy has to go through this sort of censorship, the reasoning behind it is understandable. It also creates an appeal for fans to re-watch episodes later on DVDs and reruns.
8. AN EPISODE WAS BANNED FROM TV
Though nearly all episodes of Family Guy have two cuts – a safe-for-TV version and an unrated version – there was one particular episode that Fox deemed so controversial that it decided to not air it at all, no matter how producers edited it
This particular episode, titled “Partial of Endearment”, was the 21st episode of the show’s 8th season.
What was so controversial about it? Lois agrees to be the surrogate mother to a friend, but after that friend and her husband are killed in a car accident, Lois finds herself carrying a child that no longer has parents. This brings Lois and Peter to consider terminating the pregnancy.
Spoiler alert: Lois goes for the termination. The episode never made it on air, and had to be released as a DVD special in order to see the light of day.
