After some help from Married… with Children and The Tracey Ullman Show, The Simpsons really put the Fox network on the map. Over the past few decades, time and time again, the Fox network has been in danger of being shut down, and the unstoppable success of The Simpsons has kept it chugging along. Since then, Fox has become the go-to place for Simpsons-style adult-oriented animated sitcoms about dysfunctional families.
Over the years, Fox has given us a Texan version of The Simpsons (King of the Hill), a politically charged All in the Family version of The Simpsons (American Dad!), a version of The Simpsons set in a burger restaurant (Bob’s Burgers). Of all the Simpsons knockoffs that Fox itself has greenlit, Family Guy is perhaps the most shameless. Whereas the Hills and the Smiths and the Belchers all have major differences from the Simpsons, the Griffins are pretty much a carbon copy: the blue-collar, hard-drinking deadbeat dad; the frustrated housewife; the diabolical baby.
But despite these surface-level similarities, Family Guy couldn’t feel more different than The Simpsons. What sets Family Guy apart isn’t anything superficial about its characters or its setting; it’s the pitch-black comic tone that Seth MacFarlane brought to the table. Family Guy is like a version of The Simpsons with Todd Solondz’s sense of humor. It’s a version of The Simpsons where you’re not supposed to care about the characters or the story; you’re just supposed to laugh at the shock value.
Family Guy Was Cancelled More Than 20 Years Ago, But Quickly Bounced Back
It should come as no surprise that Fox executives were gunning to cancel Family Guy early on in its run. It was partly because the ratings were low, but it was partly because the show kept courting controversy with episodes mocking taboo topics. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the season 3 finale, “When You Wish Upon a Weinstein,” which Fox initially refused to air over concerns that it would be deemed anti-Semitic (despite the fact the episode’s writer, Ricky Blitt, is Jewish).
After that third season, Fox decided to cancel Family Guy and everyone moved on with their lives. But then, unedited, uncensored Family Guy episodes began airing on Adult Swim — including the infamous “When You Wish Upon a Weinstein” — and the show finally found its intended audience. Fox was trying to get Simpsons viewers to tune into Family Guy, but Family Guy’s ideal demographic is the kind of juvenile audiences that watch Cartoon Network late at night.
These Adult Swim numbers, paired with strong DVD sales, convinced Fox to revive Family Guy. The show came back for a fourth season, then a fifth and a sixth and a seventh, only getting more and more popular. Now, 18 additional seasons later, Family Guy is still going strong.
Family Guy Is Still Going Strong
Family Guy is currently in its 24th season as part of a massive four-season renewal from Disney in 2025, and while the laughs aren’t quite as consistent as they were in the show’s heyday, and the writers are having to scrape the bottom of the barrel to come up with new story ideas (there was a whole episode where Meg discovers the joys of pumpkin spice lattes), it’s still worth watching. I still look forward to watching the new Family Guy every week, and each episode still provides a solid four or five big laughs (and often much more than that).
In recent years, Family Guy has only gotten less interested in continuity and narrative consistency and character development. More than ever, the writers just want to make their audience laugh with self-aware jabs, fourth-wall breaks, random nonsequiturs, and a hefty dose of their notorious cutaway gags. Family Guy went away once, and I hope it never goes away again.
Family Guy
8/10
- Release Date
-
January 31, 1999
- Network
-
FOX
-
Seth MacFarlane
Peter Griffin / Brian Griffin / Stewie Griffin / Glenn Quagmire / Tom Tucker (voice)
-
Alex Borstein
Lois Griffin / Tricia Takanawa / Loretta Brown / Barbara Pewterschmidt (voice)
