It feels like Family Guy, along with American Dad and The Simpsons, is turning into what the Looney Tunes was for millennials growing up: old cartoons with seemingly infinite number of episodes that will constantly be on TV and air until the end of time.
So it’s just as well that creator Seth MacFarlane has no plans to stop the animated series as it celebrates its 25th (!) anniversary this year. In a new interview with the LA Times, MacFarlane said:
“At this point, I don’t see a good reason to stop. People still love it. It makes people happy and it funds some good causes. It’s a lot of extraneous cash that you can donate to Rainforest Trust and you can still go out to dinner that night.”
He continued:
“There was a time when I thought, it’s time to wrap it up. At this point, we’ve reached escape velocity. I don’t know that there’s any reason to stop at this point unless people get sick of it. Unless the numbers show that people just are, ‘Eh, we don’t care about Family Guy anymore.’ But that hasn’t happened yet.”
Family Guy premiered in January 1999 on Fox and was canceled after two seasons. A last-minute pickup at the network gave the show a third season before it was axed for good. Eventually it picked up a cult following with reruns on the Cartoon Network and on DVD, so Fox decided to pick it up again for a 4th season in May 2005. The show has been going strong ever since, and is now currently on Season 22.
I genuinely had no clue that Family Guy had such a rocky start to life, but to be fair I also didn’t have a clue it was still airing new episodes. I just assumed they were all re-runs!
From what I can gather online, the sentiment seems to be that the newer episodes aren’t as great as the older seasons, but are still good fun and a perfect ‘comfort’ show for people who grew up watching Peter Griffin and co.
Also nice to see Seth MacFarlane be honest about the fact that money is a primary motivator in him keeping the show going (duh), and it would make no sense to stop unless people stop watching.
After all, he didn’t just create the show, he also voices Peter, Brian, Stewie and Quagmire. That’s got to be a laugh every time they’re in the studio churning out new Family Guy episodes. Long may it continue.
For the time the voice actor behind Officer Joe Swanson refused to apologise for voicing a paraplegic cartoon character, click HERE.
