Family Guy at 25: An Off-Balance Retrospective.
Looking back on a quarter century in Quahog.
25 years ago - January 31st, 1999 - Family Guy premiered.
The show’s pilot episode, Death Has a Shadow, first aired following Super Bowl XXXIII. It was seen by an estimated 22 million people, as America met the Griffins - a wacky Rhode Island family with no qualms about saying what was on their mind.
And while it isn’t unheard of for television shows to struggle somewhat in the early-going as they find their identity, it is impressive, in hindsight, just how much of Family Guy felt fully formed, right from the jump.
Crass, utterly ridiculous (from the intellectual talking dog to the super-genius baby) and seemingly intent on lampooning anyone (and anything) unfortunate enough to enter their cutaway-gag-crosshairs: from organized religion, pop culture at large, to the network itself (and even its own voice actors).
A decade removed from The Simpsons (which began in 1989) and two years on from King of the Hill, there was a unmistakable through-line of shared DNA, which itself could be traced back, on a base level, even further, from The Flintstones, to All in the Family and The Honeymooners (and to a lesser extent, given the material, South Park).
A working-class family man and his equally bizarre neighbours, caught up in story-of-the-week shenanigans.
But while The Simpsons, at its peak, could often be counted on to produce genuine sentimentality and even moments of honest emotion, Family Guy had no such aspirations, at least, not to the same level.
No, not bound by any sense of visible morality nor an easy-to-point to “code”, if there was an off-colour joke to be made, about anyone, chances are, Family Guy was going to make it and dammit, you were going to laugh.
But there was an in-the-moment edginess to the characters and stories as well, a boldness, you simply wouldn’t find in Springfield: as Family Guy came into its own, it would experiment with various genres and storytelling angles, from blue and black comedy both, musicals (most notably, parodies of the Road To films) and science fiction (from time travel to the Star Wars episodes, which gleefully parodied the original trilogy).
Much of that identity, that inherent eclecticism, was by way of the show’s creator, creative architect and primary VA, Seth MacFarlane (who voices - and provides the singing - of, among many others, Peter, Stewie, Brian and Quagmire).
A standout student at the Rhode Island School of Design in the mid-1990s, MacFarlane was eventually hired by animation giant Hanna-Barbera on the strength of his thesis project: an animated short film called The Life of Larry (of which, in hindsight, was a prototype Family Guy).
Steadily moving his way up the ladder, MacFarlane then would work on various animated cult-classics from Johnny Bravo to Dexter’s Laboratory, before approaching Fox, at just 25, to develop a show of his own.
It wasn’t smooth-sailing, though.
While Family Guy would debut to strong viewership numbers, it struggled to maintain an audience, driven in part by low ratings, controversy over its material and shifting time slots (the show’s third season finale, When you Wish Upon a Weinstein, widely seen as anti-Semitic in nature, did not air on network TV until nearly a year after the rest of the season).
Initially cancelled in 2000, a last-minute reversal brought the show back for that third season but it didn’t last - until it did.
Propelled by success in syndication and favourable DVD sales, Family Guy returned in 2004 and hasn’t left since, renewed last year for what will be its 23rd season. Once following in the footsteps of animated shows past, now, it is now a medium benchmark in its own right, having gone from something of a niche underdog, to a prominent player.
The question is… to what end?
When it wants to, Family Guy is indeed capable of elevating its premise beyond a series of easy shots at low-hanging fruit, thanks in part to the unlikely dynamic between its most off-beat main characters, Stewie and Brian.
Maybe it is because there is just something so inherently hilarious about a talking baby who was once bent on world domination and an alcoholic, struggling writer who just so happens to be a dog, being best friends.
While the show’s ever-recurring gags - now, more often than not, distilled into TikTok’s or YouTube Shorts - have most strongly seared themselves into the pop culture consciousness, the dynamic between those two characters is, easily, the backbone of Family Guy’s best work over the past 25 years - including, perhaps, the only time the show chose to take itself seriously.
But nothing exists in a vacuum.
Even if there is an undercurrent of humour to the whole affair, the reality is, being an “equal opportunity” offender simply isn’t as funny as it used to be, if it ever truly was (just ask the Grand Theft Auto franchise, which has long grappled with similar questions).
Family Guy made its name as an outfit that wasn’t afraid to mock just about anyone, a style of comedy that often toes a close line.
When it is successful - from the quick-fire dialogue, to satirizing politicians or celebrities en masse (the entire cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation, included) or the all-time portrayal of his fictional self by the late Adam West as Quahog’s dangerously eccentric mayor?
Yeah, it works and works well.
At a certain point though? Continually playing boundary-pushing material for an ineffective laughs is disappointing, especially as it veers, as it always has, into transphobia, ableism and racial stereotypes.
It isn’t like the show, just now in 2024, is being held to a higher standard. It never was to begin with. And to graft retroactive outrage onto anything can be counterproductive, if not directed with the appropriate energy.
And yet, as viewers, as consumers and as creatives? We must do better.
By his own admission, MacFarlane isn’t even actively involved with Family Guy anymore. While he still contributes voice work, he mostly stepped away in 2011, instead committing most of his creative energy to other projects.
And to the show’s credit, it has undergone some noticeable shifts in recent years. In 2020, long-time voice actor Mike Henry stepped down from his most famous role as Family Guy’s Cleveland, citing the need for stronger real-world representation. And the Griffin’s middle child, Meg (voiced from the second season onwards by Mila Kunis) has gone from the show’s repeated punching bag to a more properly-realized character, albeit as much as one might expect in story-of-the-week storytelling.
That question though, lingers. What do we expect, what do we want, from Family Guy 25 years on? Occasional bemusement might have be enough were it not for the shows that followed it, continuing to raise the bar for adult animation as a whole (specifically, to this point, without the same reliance on outrage “humour”).
BoJack Horseman. Big Mouth. Rick and Morty. MacFarlane’s own co-creation, American Dad, which he developed with Mike Barker and Matt Weitzman, one-time Family Guy writers.
Running parallel to its sibling-show under Barker and Weitzman’s creative direction, American Dad developed a voice all its own, less reliant on cutaway humour and relentless punchlines, instead focusing on the absurdity presented by its characters as they went about their day-to-day.
At its best, from the third to ninth seasons, it was far and away superior to Family Guy - a reminder that while not everything must be capital-E exceptional, you can’t argue for a different take, either.
In the end, where Family Guy could go from here, potentially over the next five, ten years, is where the interest lies. Will it truly evolve? No.
It is, ultimately, what it is.
That doesn’t mean, however, that it won’t be reevaluated, either. It will never attempt legitimate social commentary or discussion, nor should we expect it to.
But to sustain itself creatively, is to look at the show’s trajectory over the past few seasons, an acknowledgment that there must be a shift in its thinking.
Will it take? Seems only time will tell.