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Template:Infobox television 2 Family Guy is an animated television series set in the fictional town of Quahog (pronounced "KOH-hog"), Rhode Island. The show was created by Seth MacFarlane, who voices many of the characters. The cast also includes actress Jennifer Tilly, That '70s Show star Mila Kunis, actor Seth Green, MADtv star Alex Borstein, and comedic actor Patrick Warburton. Former Batman star Adam West and Haley Joel Osment, among others, also occasionally appear.

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Characters

Main article: List of characters from Family Guy

The show centers around the adventures of Peter Griffin and his family. Peter is an incompetent production line worker at a toy factory (and later, an incompetent fisherman or the President of Eldarado Cigarettes' toy company) and a bumbling, drunken father, yet still a dedicated family man. His wife, Lois, is a stay-at-home mom/piano teacher and the daughter of wealthy socialites. Their children are the socially-awkward and status-conscious Meg, the mentally slow, yet artistically gifted Chris, and the diabolically super-intelligent and potentially matricidal baby Stewie. The family also lives with an intelligent, cynical, alcoholic, talking dog named Brian, though it may be somewhat of a misnomer to call him a pet.

Other common characters include Griffin family's neighbors, as well as various coworkers and town personalities. Unlike The Simpsons, Family Guy does not have an especially large cast of recurring minor characters, and most episodes center chiefly around the exploits of the Griffin family. MacFarlane states that this is because he had few episodes in which to use minor characters (the show was originally cancelled after just 3 seasons). Plans for the episodes to come promise more liberal usage of minor characters.

Cutaways

Family Guy is known for its frequent use of cutaways. Every episode features repeated switches between the main action and other scenes, with obvious pop culture tie-ins. These scenes are usually initiated when a main character refers to a past event with, "remember that time…" followed by the cutaway, at the end of which the main action becomes the focus again. Though these cutaway scenes usually last for only one or two seconds, long enough for a quick gag, they occasionally play on this audience expectation; in the episode "Da Boom!", Peter recalls a fight with a giant chicken in a scene that lasts several minutes. In another episode, "I Am Peter, Hear Me Roar", the series' own "remember that time…" construction is self-referentially mocked when Peter uses the phrase to introduce a cutaway to a scene which occurred only seconds earlier in the same episode.

In another episode, Lois tells Peter that their English neighbor, Nigel Pinchley, is charming. Peter responds "Yeah, right. That's what they said about Benjamin Disraeli." Then it cuts to a scene of an old-fashioned looking British man (Disraeli) writing with a quill. "You don't even know who I am," he says. Disraeli was England's first and only Jewish prime minister and is credited to have had a quick though sometimes insulting wit.

Many times, the cutaways occur while the Griffins are watching television at home. Many television shows have been spoofed. For example, The Brady Bunch: Mike Brady sent Greg to a "snake pit" for having cigarettes in his possession, a real plot point dealt with in the original series, sans punishment. For tattling on Greg, Mike sent Jan to "the chamber of fire." The show also parodies real commercial ideas: a doctor told a woman that her tumor was malignant, causing her to exclaim "Oh, my god!" At the end of the commercial, the announcer intones with a non-sequitur: "Got Milk?" In another commercial, the Mentos commercials (called "Mintos" on Family Guy) illustrated a botched assassination attempt on Abraham Lincoln.

Continuity

The show generally reverts back to normalcy at the end of each episode. However, there is a kind of ongoing continuity behind whatever is taking place in the fore of any episode. Peter Griffin originally worked in the Happy-Go-Lucky toy Factory, and was promptly fired along with the rest of his co-workers when Mr. Weed, the owner, died in a dinner roll related accident. Peter spent the rest of that episode first as a hooker, then as a knight in a Middle Ages fair. After that, he eventually bought a boat and became a fisherman.

Unlike The Simpsons, to which Family Guy is often compared, Family Guy does not always restrict its plot turns to the realm of plausible possibility. Whereas Family Guy makes use of impossibility to further comedy, The Simpsons has generally tried to avoid this, especially in the earlier seasons. A good example of the Family Guy's often comical violation of plausible possibility is when a giant, anthropomorphized pitcher of Kool-Aid bursts through a courtroom wall in season one, parodying the famous commercials of the 1990s. An example of The Simpsons not violating plausible possibility is at the end of Who Shot Mr. Burns Part 1, when Dr. Hibbert asks, seemingly to the viewers, "Well I can't solve this case. Can you?". The scene pauses a beat, then the camera pans out to show Hibbert was actually talking to a character inside the show, thus not breaking the fourth wall and preserving plausible possibility, unless you consider that one line as a reference to the "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" contest.

Episodes

See: List of Family Guy episodes

History

While studying at the Rhode Island School of Design, Seth MacFarlane created a short film entitled The Life of Larry about a middle-aged slob named Larry and his talking dog, Steve. After being hired at Hanna-Barbera Productions, MacFarlane was given a chance to direct a sequel to the short entitled Larry and Steve which was broadcast as an episode of the What-A-Cartoon! Show. Executives at the Fox Television Network saw both shorts, and MacFarlane was given the opportunity to develop a show based on Larry and Steve, who eventually evolved into Peter and Brian Griffin.

The first episode was aired in the U.S. on the Fox Network on January 31, 1999, appearing after the Super Bowl. 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 contained 22 episodes, one of which, "When You Wish Upon a Weinstein", was not shown on the Fox Television Network in the U.S. due to fears that its content was too controversial. It was finally shown on Friday, December 10, 2004, on Fox (It was, however, shown on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim in November 2003). The third season contained 21 episodes and began its run on July 11, 2001. Fox angered some fans by often changing the scheduling for the show at short notice during the second and third seasons. Indeed after only two episodes of the second season Family Guy was taken off of the network's schedule and was shown irregularly thereafter.

There was a great deal of debate and rumor during both the second and third seasons about whether Family Guy would be cancelled or renewed. The show was 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 that formed the basis of the third season. The writers were aware of the uncertainty of the show's future and would make reference to this in several episodes; in Road to Rhode Island, Brian and Stewie perform a duet featuring the lines "Until we're syndicated Fox will never let us die... please!" During the third season, Fox announced that the show was cancelled for good.

Due to exceptional ratings for the repeats on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block (where the show has been given a regular time slot) and over 1.5 million DVD sales (reportedly surpassing every other TV-based DVD released in 2003, including Sex and the City and Friends compilations), it has been confirmed that it will return to Fox and Cartoon Network on May 1, 2005. MacFarlane had never given up on the characters and had been working on putting together a straight-to-DVD film as a result of the great sales, but now all attention has been shifted towards producing new episodes. A three-part episode in the fourth season is rumored to be this movie.

Controversies

One of the main elements that makes Family Guy more of an adult-oriented program is the number of controversial references included in the show. The episode "When You Wish Upon A Weinstein" was not aired initially on the Fox network due to its controversial plot, centering around Peter's attempts to convert Chris to Judaism in hopes of making Chris financially successful. As mentioned above, Fox aired the episode several years later on December 10, 2004, with the second-to-last line changed in the song "I Need a Jew." It was later released on DVD and was aired on Cartoon Network in syndication.

Another key controversy occurred in the episode: "Road To Rhode Island" which had a scene cut from all DVD and syndication versions of the show after the September 11, 2001 attacks. In the episode as it was originally broadcast, Stewie smuggles weapons through airport customs by distracting the guards at the security checkpoint with a song and dance routine (the song being "On the Good Ship Lollipop", which was originally sung by Shirley Temple). After he gets away with it, he quips, "I hope Osama bin Laden doesn't know show tunes". This was followed by a clip showing Osama bin Laden fooling the guards in a similar manner while singing "God I Hope I Get It" from A Chorus Line. This scene was restored in the "The Freakin' Sweet Collection" DVD released December 14, 2004. A scene never to be restored but from the same episode is an alternate version of the first time Peter watches the "marital counseling video." It shows more that was meant to be, and was also meant to be an in-joke. But it seeped out and is now widely available for download.

When reruns of the Family Guy episodes began to air, the controversial episodes were often restricted to broadcast times after 9pm Eastern and Pacific time. Executives at the Fox Network feared that viewer complaints to the FCC may prompt an investigation and a "Notice of an Apparent Liability." For a short-time TBS Superstation aired Family Guy during the afternoon. However, that did not last very long; executives at Superstation TBS, which also broadcasts its programming on terrestrial TV station WTBS-TV Channel 17 in Atlanta, Georgia, also feared FCC intervention. Superstation TBS eventually created a slot of adult oriented programming called "Too Funny To Sleep" which airs on late Friday/early Saturday. It includes episodes from Family Guy, Baby Blues, Futurama, The Oblongs, and Mr. Show with Bob and David. The Cartoon Network airings of Family Guy have generally been unaffected or unedited because their Adult Swim block of cartoons all air after 11pm Eastern and Pacific Time.

Other issues include:

• Recreational drug use and addiction, in particular cocaine and cannabis and Lois' use of the latter while pregnant with her son Stewie which may explain Stewie's paranoid and psychopathic behavior. Brian's addiction to cocaine while employed at the Quahog Police Department as a drug-detecting dog
• Alcoholism and gambling addiction
• Sexism and the treatment of homosexuals and people with disabilities
• Racism such as the episode in which Peter discovers his multiple-great grandfather was a slave employed by Lois' family. Some degrading jokes and scenes referencing to Filipino Americans.
• Bestiality as Brian the family dog expresses sexual desire towards his human master, Lois
• Religion: Judaism, and Christianity in general are sometimes the targets of gags this also includes Peter kidnapping the Pope to convince his father he is a good son and catholic.
• Nihilism
• Sex: For example, Stewie once catches his parents in a naked embrace and later enters Peter's body, destroying all his sperm so he'll remain the baby of the family. A fan-favorite is Peter's best friend, Glen Quagmire, whose numerous sexual escapades spawn some of the most memorable jokes, such as buying a plug-in playmate with his tax return, coming to the door naked to receive a package from a female UPS driver, shaving his pubic hair in the shape of a "Q", and his famous obscene hip-thrust.
• Marital infidelity and pre-marital sex: in the show it has been well established that Lois was not a white veiled virgin when she married Peter; in fact some of her well-known lovers include Chaim Witz (aka Gene Simmons) from the band Kiss, J. Geils from the J. Geils band, the pyrotechnics guy from the band Whitesnake and a moment of infidelity by Lois during her marriage to Peter with a man only identified by Brian in a courtroom as Stan Thompson. This moment of marital infidelity resulted in the conception and nine months later the birth of their daughter Meg though in the show's continuity in the later episodes seems to contradict this event and that Meg was in fact fathered by Peter.
• Masturbation: Throughout the series there has been various references to the pratice of masturbation.
• Sadism and masochism: In the episode "Let's Go To The Hop", one scene shows Lois and Peter engaging in S&M, specifically femdom. Lois is in the bedroom wearing a skimpy and revealing leather dominatrix outfit, and Peter is wearing a leather outfit with a spiked dog collar and a zippered mask. In S&M, sexual gratification occurs through pain and suffering, so participants often use a safeword to indicate that the play has exceeded a participant's boundaries. Lois tells Peter their safeword is "banana".
• Strippers and prostitution: After losing his job in one episode, Lois finds Peter on a street corner wearing a mini-skirt, a tube-top, lipstick, and fish-net stockings. After she yells at him to get in the car, he offers her a Cleveland Steamer. At the end of another episode, Peter makes an impassioned speech about an earlier commotion in a strip club: "…but I'll tell you what's not funny – killing strippers. Strippers are people too; naked people who may be willing to pleasure you for a price you negotiate later behind the curtain of a VIP room. Besides, there's no reason to kill them, 'cause most of them are already dead inside… Good night, folks!"

In some episodes there are moral lessons learned and social issues tackled in more positive ways. For example, though many other characters initially treated the physically disabled character Joe Swanson with derision, he was soon accepted as a friend, and often goes drinking with Peter, Cleveland, and Quagmire.

DVDs

Region 1

• Family Guy Volume 1, Seasons 1 & 2 is a four-disc DVD box set containing all the episodes from Seasons 1 and 2. Select episodes (6 total) have audio commentary tracks.
• Family Guy Volume 2, Season 3 is a three-disc box set that includes all episodes from the final season of Family Guy, including the previously un-aired episode, "When You Wish Upon A Weinstein". The set contains six audio commentary tracks.
• Family Guy – The Freakin' Sweet Collection, released in December 2004, is a five-episode sampler including the episodes "When You Wish Upon a Weinstein", "Road to Rhode Island" (including the restored scene involving bin Laden), "To Live and Die in Dixie", "I Am Peter, Hear Me Roar", and "Lethal Weapons". The set includes new commentaries and previews for Family Guy Season 4 and American Dad, another cartoon created by MacFarlane, which premeired after the 2005 superbowl, and continues May 1, 2005 on Fox.

Region 2

• Family Guy Season One contains all fourteen episodes from Season 1, including the seven episodes that were produced in the first season but aired in the second.
• Family Guy Season Two contains all fifteen episodes produced for season 2 (which aired along with some season one episodes, see above), including the unaired "When You Wish Upon A Weinstein".
• Family Guy Season Three contains all episodes of season 3 in a boxset.
• Family Guy Family Sized DVD Collection is a box set containing the above three sets (the Season 3 collection is repackaged in one plastic case) plus a bonus 2-disc set, Family Guy Uncovered, containing special features, including deleted scenes, featurettes, and 14 previously-released episodes with added audio commentaries.

Some British critics complained about the omission of the audio commentaries from the Region 2 releases. The Family Size Collection goes some way to address those complaints, although inevitably some buyers complained about having to buy the same discs a second time in order to get the bonus material, which was not released separately.

Region 4

• Family Guy Season One contains all fourteen episodes produced for season 1, including those that aired during season 2.
• Family Guy Season Two contains all fifteen episodes produced for season 2, including the unaired "When You Wish Upon A Weinstein".
• Family Guy Season Three is to be released in May 2005.

Like the Region 2 releases, no special features are contained on the discs, but it is expected that a box set of the first three seasons – like Region 2 – will eventually emerge, with extras.

Real world references

The show makes many references to the real world, especially the entertainment industry. For example, William Shatner, characters from Star Wars, Bob Dole and former President Bill Clinton all appear irregularly. In one episode, Alyssa Milano even appears in a live-action cameo, responding litigiously to an insult.

There are a great number of references to Rhode Island that are missed by the majority of Family Guy viewers. Although much of Family Guy is fictional, there are a great number of real-life parodies, no doubt as a result of author Seth McFarlane's attendance at RISD, a Rhode Island art school as well as his New England background (McFarlane was born in Kent, Connecticut).

Places

Although Quahog is not a real Rhode Island town, the shot of the Griffins' house includes a view of the skyscrapers of downtown Providence. The two largest buildings are the Fleet Building and One Sovereign Plaza. The orientation of these buildings indicates that Quahog is intended to be located just north of downtown Providence. There are also references to the Pawtucket Red Sox, the AAA affiliate of the Boston Red Sox, which is based in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Happy Go Lucky Toys is a parody of Hasbro Toys, which is also based in Pawtucket.

Lois's wealthy parents live in Newport, a real town famous partly for the mansions on Bellevue Avenue. During the Gilded Age, the Newport mansions were summer homes of the extremely rich and famous, and many of them will allow you to take a tour for a small price. McFarlane's presentation of Lois's family as part of the Newport elite thus fits in quite well.

There is an episode where there is a nuclear holocaust, and the family attempts to find a Twinkie factory in Natick. At the end of the episode, Framingham is also mentioned as having a Carvel factory. Both Framingham and Natick are actual towns in the nearby State of Massachusetts, and both contain said factories, although the Twinkie factory was shut down and is being replaced by an extension of the neighboring Natick Mall.

There is an episode where Chris and Quagmire visit a strip club called The Fuzzy Clam. Although there is no place by this name, it appears to be a veiled reference to The Fuzzy Grape, which is a real strip club in Webster, Massachusetts, near the Rhode Island border. Clam has also been interpreted as a lewd reference to female genitalia. There have also been several references to South Attleboro, Massachusetts, which is a real town bordering Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

In the episode "The Son Also Draws", while driving to New York City, the Griffins stop at Geronimo's Palace, a reference to the Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun Native American casinos located in Connecticut.

There is an episode in which Peter points to a bumper sticker that reads "I lost my self respect at Wes' Rib House". While the bumper sticker is not real, Wes' Rib house is a restaurant in the Olneyville area of Providence that serves primarily barbecued foods.

People

Chris's school on Family Guy is sometimes called Buddy Cianci Jr. High School (Though, in the episode 'Running Mates', it was briefly renamed Peter Griffin Junior High School.) Vincent "Buddy" Cianci, Jr. is the famous long-time mayor of Providence who was sentenced to prison for racketeering conspiracy. Although already once convicted for felony, Buddy Cianci was repeatedly reelected in Rhode Island, and claims credit for the "renaissance" of Providence that caused the city to go from a rough industrial city to one with higher rents and an "artsy" brand.

Meg's school on Family Guy is James Woods Regional High School (although it is sometimes abbreviated "QHS" for "Quahog High School"). The high school is named for actor James Woods who grew up in Warwick, Rhode Island.

Adam West is the mayor of Quahog; he is voiced by himself.

Things

There is at least on one occasion an animation of a pest control agency with a giant blue bug on top. This is a real place, and it is visible on the west side of Interstate 95 in Providence just north of the Thurbers Avenue curve. The "big blue bug" as it is called is a very popular Rhode Island icon.

There are several episodes where a beer by the brand name of Pawtucket Patriot is featured. (Peter's thoughts on this beer: "Everyone has their sanctuary, Lois. The Catholics have churches, fat people have Wisconsin, and I have the Pawtucket Brewery.") Although Pawtucket is a real town in Rhode Island, there was no local brew by this name, however as of January 2005 (first bottled batch) there is a local microbrew using this name. This is a reference to Samuel Adams beer, a beer bottled in nearby Massachusetts. This is supported by the fact that Samuel Adams was a famous patriot and by the fact that the label on Pawtucket Patriot is nearly identical to the real-life Samuel Adams label.

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 only a few weeks. The petition contained the following message, addressed to Gail Berman and Sandy Grushow, the President of Entertainment and Chairman of Fox at the time:

To: FOX Broadcasting

Dear Ms. Gail Berman and Mr. Sandy Grushow,

We are avid watchers of FOX programming, especially the show "Family Guy". We have recently heard that FOX Broadcasting has cancelled this show. We are informing you of a boycott of FOX Broadcasting, FX, FOX Sports Channel, and all products shown on FOX Broadcasting, FX, and FOX Sports Channel. We are all willing to comply with the boycott and do whatever it takes to get our favorite FOX show ("Family Guy") back on the air.

We will not only be boycotting your stations, we will be boycotting every product shown on those stations. These products include, but are not limited to: Nyquil, Schick, Valvoline, Gold Bond, Subway Sandwiches, Buick Motor Vehicles, Alka-Seltzer, Monistat 7, Diflucan, Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), Heartguard, Frontline, any product on TimeLife.com, Ranger Bass Boats, The Xtractor, any product made by MGM, 1-800-COLLECT, Hunt's Manwich, any product made by Reeses', any product made by Walt Disney, and Gevalia coffee and coffee makers.

As you can see, we are taking this cancellation very seriously. We will contact our local newspapers, and television stations; and with that we will gain more people in our "quest" to get "Family Guy" back on television.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

The petition gained over 100,000 signatures 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.

Fox cited poor viewing figures as part of their reason for not renewing the show but critics claimed this was due to the erratic scheduling the show had received and the fact that it was shown at the same time as Friends and Survivor, two very popular shows at the time. Also, reported costs of around $1.1 million per episode may have played a part in the decision.

At the current time, however, Cartoon Network is playing reruns of the show. According to a Cartoon Network press release, "FAMILY GUY ranks #1 in its time period on cable among Adults and Men 18-34 and 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". The network aired the previously unseen "When You Wish Upon a Weinstein" on November 9, 2003, although it was slightly censored, particularly the song sung by Peter in the first act, a parody of "When You Wish Upon A Star" from Walt Disney's movie Pinocchio, entitled "I Need A Jew". The uncensored version of this episode can be found on the Volume 2 Family Guy DVD box set, disc 3.

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. (IGN interview) (BBC interview)

On March 26, 2004, it was officially announced that 20th Century Fox Television has committed to producing at least 22 more episodes of Family Guy to be broadcast on Adult Swim in early 2005. The Fox Network has retained a window to run these episodes, presently scheduled to air 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."

On September 18, 2004, the Family Guy Reference Files reported that Fox has announced the titles of the 4th Season episodes and entered the episodes into their episode database.

There also were rumors of a Family Guy movie slated for release in 2006 or 2007. The rumors include a plot centering around Stewie finding his birth parents or furthering the series' (often blatant) hints that he is homosexual. With the series' confirmed renewal, the movie has apparently been converted into a three-part episode to air as episodes 4x05, 4x06, and 4x07 of season 4.

On January 17, 2005, it was announced that the season premiere of Family Guy season 4 will take place on Sunday, May 1, 2005, 21:00 EST on Fox.

Other rumours state that, there is a Family Guy video game in the works, and will possibly be for a portable system, such as the Nintendo DS or the PSP.

See also

• List of characters from Family Guy
• American Dad

External links

• Official Family Guy Website
• Planet Family Guy
• Family Guy Reference Archives
• Brian's Bar
• Damn You All Dot Net
• Family Guy Multimedia Archive
• Template:Tvtome show
• Online petition to save Family Guy
• E! Entertainment Television Reports Family Guy Reunion in the works.
• Family Guy at the Big Cartoon DataBase
• Family Guy at IMDb

• Animated television series
• Family Guy
• Fox network shows
• Sitcoms
• 1990s TV shows in the United States
• 2000s TV shows in the United States