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Family Guy

Family Guy is an animated television series set in the fictional town of Quahog (pronounced “CO-hog”), Rhode Island. The show was created by Seth MacFarlane and was first aired in the US on the Fox Network on January 31, 1999 appearing after the Super Bowl. The show centres around the Griffin family; parents Peter and Lois, children Meg, Chris and Stewie; and Brian, their pet dog. The show makes many references to the real world, especially the entertainment industry and, for example, William Shatner, Star Wars and President Clinton all appear irregularly. The show includes many references to local Rhode Island culture, people, and places. Three seasons of the show were produced, a total of fifty episodes, before it was discontinued by Fox, and 1.5 million DVD's were sold before Fox revived it yet again.  Plans have now been announced to re-air the show again starting May or June of 2005.
		


Table of contents 







1 History

2 Characters

3 Controversies

4 Episodes


5 DVDs


6 Rhode Island References


7 Revival Efforts

8 External links




History

The first episode was aired on January 31, 1999.  This 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 never shown on the Fox Television Network in the U.S due to fears that its content was too controversial. 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 there-after.
There was a great deal of debate and rumor during both the second and third seasons about whether Family Guy would be canceled or renewed. The show was canceled at the end of the second season to the dismay of fans. Websites were set up to attempt to convince Fox to renew the show and petitions were signed, letters were written and some fans even sent diapers and baby food to Fox. A shift in power at Fox resulted in thirteen new episodes being ordered which formed the basis of the third season. The creators were aware of the uncertainty of the show's future and 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 cancelled the show for good.
Or so it was thought. Due to exceptional ratings for the repeats on the Cartoon Network (where the show has been given a regular time slot) and great DVD sales, it has been confirmed that it will return to the Fox and Cartoon Network in 2005. Seth MacFarlane, the show's creator, 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 getting the show back on the air.
This is great news for the many fans Family Guy has accumulated since it first started, but also should exist as an odd moment in television history. Rarely, if ever, has a show cancelled for so long been brought back into production.

Characters

List of characters from Family Guy

Controversies

One of the main points that makes Family Guy more of an adult oriented program is controversial references including one episode where Brian the family dog lusts sexually towards his human master Lois. Peter and Lois's one year old son Stewie seems to have homosexual tendencies. During a dream Lois discovers that Stewie is an evil genius bent on taking over the world and Lois proclaims "Why oh why did I smoke pot while I was pregnant!". There are references to alcoholism and gambling addiction.
The episode "When You Wish Upon A Weinstein" was never aired on the Fox network due to its controversial plot, centering around converting Chris to Judaisim in the hopes of improving his intelligence.  It was later released on DVD and was aired on Cartoon Network in syndication.

Episodes


Season 1


  • “Death Has a Shadow”\n:When Peter mistakenly receives a welfare check for $150,000, he attempts to return the money to the taxpayers from a blimp at the Super Bowl.\n*“I Never Met the Dead Man”\n:After Peter topples the local cable TV satelitte by crashing his car into it, he then drives the family nuts by spending more time with them - without television.\n*“Mind over Murder”\n:After punching out a woman he thought was a man at a soccer game, Peter is placed under house arrest and turns his basement into a bar where Lois becomes an acclaimed lounge singer.\n*“Chitty Chitty Death Bang”\n:Meg infuriates Lois by going to a party instead of celebrating Stewie's birthday, and to make matters worse, the party turns out to be a cult meeting.\n*“A Hero Sits Next Door”\n:Peter gets extremely annoyed when a wheelchair-bound neighbor one-ups him with his winning attitude and slick maneuvers at a company baseball game.\n*“The Son Also Draws”\n:Peter takes a wrong turn heading for NYC and winds up at a Native American casino where Lois becomes a slot machine addict.\n*“Brian: Portrait of a Dog”\n:Brian's misbehavior at a dog show temporarily lands him on death row at the pound.

Season 2


Season 3
\n*“The Thin White Line”\n:After becoming addicted to cocaine while working as a drug-sniffing police dog, Brian goes to rehab only to find Peter, faking an addiction, is his roommate.\n*“Brian Does Hollywood” (a sort-of sequel to The Thin White Line)\n:Brian moves to Lost Angeles to write screenplays but only finds work directing pornos, while Stewie's twisted rants on Kids Say The Darndest Things are thwarted by host Bill Cosby.\n*“Mr. Griffin Goes to Washington”\n:When Happy-Go-Lucky Toys is bought out by a tobacco conglomerate, Peter is made President and sent to Washington to lobby on behalf of the cigarette peddlers.\n*“One If By Clam, Two If By Sea”\n:Peter and his friends are arrested for allegedly burning down their favorite bar after it's transformed into a British pub; meanwhile Stewie tries to remove the neighbor baby's Cockney accent in a parody of My Fair Lady.\n*“And the Wiener is...”\n:Peter becomes competitive with Chris when he discovers that his son has a bigger penis, as Meg unsuccessfully tries to fit in with the cool crowd at school and is pelted with rancid meat.\n*“Death Lives”\n:After being struck by lightning while playing golf on his wedding anniversary, Peter pleads with Death to give him another chance to make it up to Lois, with a little help from Peter Frampton.\n*“Lethal Weapons”\n:Although her newly discovered Tae-Jitsu abilities are handy in dealing with obnoxious New Yorkers, Lois fears her own rage and enters the family into anger management therapy, which angers everyone.\n*“The Kiss Seen Around the World”\n:Meg leaps at an opportunity to intern at a local news station in order to be closer to her crush, news anchor Tom Tucker, only to discover that Neil, who has a crush on her, will also intern there.\n*“Mr. Saturday Knight”\n:After Peter's boss chokes to death at the Griffin home, the toy factory is sold and Peter is forced to take a job jousting at the local Renaissance fair.\n*“A Fish Out of Water”\n:Peter puts his family's house in jeopardy with a $50,000 loan for a fishing boat.  Meanwhile, Lois teaches Meg how to behave like a tramp during spring break.\n*“Emission Impossible”\n:When Lois and Peter decide to have another baby, Stewie hops aboard a microscopic spacecraft and enters Peter's body in an attempt to terminate his sperm.\n*“To Live and Die in Dixie”\n:After Chris identifies an armed robber who's now bent on revenge, the Griffins enter a witness protection program in a small southern town, where Peter becomes sheriff.\n*“Screwed the Pooch”\n:While visiting Lois's parents, Brian falls in love with Sea Breeze, the family greyhound, prompting an ugly custody battle when the bitch becomes pregnant.\n*“Peter Griffin: Husband, Father...Brother?”\n:Discovering he has black ancestry, Peter tries to connect with his alter-ethnicity, while Stewie becomes obsessed with discovering the mind control secrets of cheerleaders.\n*“Ready, Willing, and Disabled”\n:Unable to stop a car wash thief, Joe is humiliated until Peter encourages him to enter the "Special People's Games" and go for the gold.\n*“A Very Special Family Guy Freakin' Christmas”\n:Christmastime stress causes temporary insanity for Lois, and Stewie's faith in Santa Claus is renewed when he receives the plutonium he has put on his wish list.\n*“Brian Wallows and Peter's Swallows”\n:As part of his sentence for drunk driving, Brian must now care for a mean old hag.  Meanwhile, Peter houses an extremely rare bird in his new beard.\n*“From Method to Madness”\n:Meg and a young nudist boy hit it off until she brings him home and the Griffins get naked to greet him, as Stewie fails in his quest to become a local acting star.\n*“Stuck Together, Torn Apart”\n:Peter's jealousy lands him a separation from Lois and a date with Jennifer Love Hewitt, whom he thoroughly disgusts, while Brian and Stewie get glued together for an entire week.\n*“Road to Europe”\n:Hoping to join a wholesome TV show he thinks is real, Stewie hot air balloons to England, while Peter is proud to learn that Lois was once a groupie known as "Loose Lois" to the legendary rock group KISS.\n*“Family Guy Viewer Mail #1”\n:Viewer mail inspires three irreverent tales in which Peter becomes a gelatinous blob, the Griffins develop superhuman abilities, and young Peter and Lois live in a warped "Little Rascals"-type alternate reality.

DVDs


Region 1


  • Family Guy Volume 1, Seasons 1 & 2 is available. It is a four-disc box set containing all the episodes from Seasons 1 and 2. Select episodes (6 total) have audio commentary tracks. \n*Family Guy Volume 2, Season 3 is available. It 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.

Region 2


  • Family Guy Season One – contains all the episodes from Season 1 and the first seven episodes from Season 2.\n*Family Guy Season Two – contains the final fifteen episodes from Season 2, including the unaired When You Wish Upon A Weinstein.\n*Family Guy Season Three – contains the remaining episodes in a boxset with 3 DVDs in 3 cases.\n*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 had 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.

Rhode Island References

There are a great number of references to Rhode Island that are missed by the vast 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.

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.
Lois's wealthy parents live in Newport, which is indeed a real town.  Newport is famous partly for Bellevue Avenue, which boasts an array of mansions owned by the rich and famous.  In years past, 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.  Natick is actually a town that is not in Rhode Island, but rather in nearby Massachusetts.
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, MA, near the Rhode Island border.
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 neighboring Connecticut.

People

Chris's school on Family Guy is the Buddy Cianci Jr. 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 “Rennaisance” of Providence that caused the city to go from a rough industrial city to one with higher rents and an "artsy" brand.

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's called is a very popular Rhode Island icon.
There is an episode where a beer branded Pawtucket Patriot is featured.  Although Pawtucket is a real town in Rhode Island, there is no local brew by 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 label on the real-life Samuel Adams beer.

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;\n: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.\n: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.\n: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 organised 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.  The uncensored version can be found on the Volume 2 Family Guy DVD Box Set.
On November 19, 2003, the E! Entertainment Television channel and its website reported (See External Links) that the Fox Network was negotiating with Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane to revive the show with 35 new episodes, which would be a coup for fans who have been petitioning the Fox Network to return the show back onto network television since its cancellation in 2001.
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 intervew) (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 at a later date (Update: FOX has decided it will air the new Family Guy episodes in the summer of 2005). Seth McFarlane 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.'"

External links
\n*Official FOX Family Guy Website\n*Planet Family Guy\n*Damn You All Dot Net\n*Family Guy Multimedia Archive\n*Online petition to save Family Guy\n*E! Entertainment Television Reports Family Guy Reunion in the works.
\nCategory:Animated television series\nCategory:Family Guy\nCategory:Fox network shows

  







  
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