[Amazing] 25 Family Guy Facts To Make You Say Giggity
Family Guy is one of the most popular animated television shows in history, winning countless awards and now chugging along strong into its fifteenth season. The show depicts the life and antics of the Griffin family – Peter, Lois, Meg, Chris, baby Stewie, and talking dog Brian – and the other residents of their Rhode Island town of Quahog including notable fan favorites Greased Up Deaf Guy and Herbert the Pervert. The show is particularly known for its frequent cutaway scenes and references to pop culture of both days past and the modern era.
Created by Seth MacFarlane, the show has ballooned into a massive empire worth around $2 billion. Its voice actors make $225,000 per episode, inching up to “The Simpsons” $400,000 per episode. The two shows have a (mostly) friendly rivalry, even creating an episode where the characters from both shows came together. (Speaking of, if you’d like to learn more about the Simpsons, check out our list of 25 Simpsons Facts You Probably Never Knew About.) Whether you’re a long-time superfan or just a casual viewer, in this list you’ll find out the answers to some of the most pressing questions regarding Family Guy, such as why Meg is so frequently abused and if Stewie is really gay. Find the answers to your biggest Family Guy questions in our list of 25 Family Guy Facts To Make You Say Giggity.
Family Guy's creator (and the voice actor for many of its characters), Seth MacFarlane, studied animation at the highly-regarded Rhode Island School of Design. His thesis was a short film about a witty dog and his owner, a concept which he was hired by Hanna Barbera to produce. (This is also the reason why the show has many cutaway spoofs of "The Jetsons" and "The Flintstones.") Once Fox heard of the concept, they hired him to develop Family Guy.
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Lois' iconic phrase, "What the hell?" has appeared in almost every episode. When she doesn't say it, another character says it in some way, and the only episode without this phrase is Season 3's "From Method to Madness."
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Joe's voice actor, Patrick Warburton, frequently receives calls from his mother - a devout Christian - begging him to quit the show. She even wrote the FCC asking it to ban the show.
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Brian's voice actor, Seth MacFarlane, basically uses his own voice for the talking dog - apropos since Brian is seen as the voice of reason throughout the show (and since some people speculate Brian is the actual writer of the show.)
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Despite all the abuse or ridicule it seems Quahog Mayor Adam West takes, the real Adam West actually loves the show and voices his own character.
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In the pilot episode, Lois had blond hair. The show's designers decided to change it to orange, but they didn't change Chris' hair to match - hence why Chris is the only Griffin with blond hair.
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Seth MacFarlane had a ticket booked on American Airlines Flight #11 on September 11, 2001. Due to a hangover, he was late to the airport and missed the plane which eventually crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
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Since MacFarlane voices most of the characters; listen for Dr. Hartman, Seamus the sailor, and Carter Pewterschmidt next time you watch the show. Fans of the show argue they all sound the same and that Peter and Ted (from the film of the same name) also sound the same.
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During Family Guy's initial production stages, the producers named each episode after a 1940's mystery radio show, such as "I Never Met a Dead Man" for Season 1, Episode 2. Since the overly sulky titles didn't match up well with the show's comedic tone, this idea was abandoned early on.
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Family Guy's opening sequence has become pretty famous, but did you know it's a direct parallel to the opening of the widely popular 1970's sitcom "All in the Family"?
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Family Guy was the first animated show to receive the Emmy nomination for "Outstanding Comedy Series" since "The Flintstones" did in 1961.
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Many fans wonder why the show is set in the town of Quahog: a fictional town in Rhode Island. Some people claim the quahog was the mascot at MacFarlane's alma mater, but that would actually be Scrotie the Scrotum. (It's not hard to wonder how something like Family Guy came out of a school with such a nutty mascot.) The real reason is just that quahogs, a colloquial term for a clam common in the northeast, are plentiful in Rhode Island and the name wouldn't offend people.
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Actor William H. Macy is more famous for his independent filmwork (and some larger roles such as in the film "Fargo"), but did you know he originally auditioned to be Brian's voice actor? It's not clear why he didn't get the role, but his iconic voice sure would have created a very different Brian persona than we know today.
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The Family Guy episode and homage to "Star Wars" named, "It's a Trap" features the simultaneous cameos of characters from other shows in the space bar. Look out for Bender from "Futurama," Coach John McGuirk from "Home Movies," and Roger from "American Dad."
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As was revealed in Season 12, Meg is actually short for Megatron, not Megan, after Peter officially changed it on her birth certificate.
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Chris's voice actor, Seth Green, took inspiration for Chris from infamous "Silence of the Lambs" suit-making murderer Buffalo Bill.
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In 2009, pot aficionado magazine High Times named Brian Griffin its "Stoner of the Year" in recognition of his musical "Everything Goes Better With a Bag of Weed."
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If you're looking for the more vulgar or risqué versions of each Family Guy episode, check out the DVD's which include scenes which didn't make the primetime window and scenes deemed too provocative to air.
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If it weren't for Cartoon Network's, "Adult Swim," we may have a lot fewer episodes of Family Guy. It's believed Fox picked up the show for further seasons in 2004 (after dropping it for the second time in 2002) because of increased viewership on the CN.
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Peter's character is based off a security guard MacFarlane knew while in college and represents the stereotype of someone who speaks before thinking.
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Family Guy's first broadcast garnered millions more viewers than "The Simpsons" first episode at a rate of 22.01 million to 13.1 million viewers, respectively. The reason is attributed to Family Guy airing just after Super Bowl XXXIII on January 31st, 1999.
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The character who calls Peter and other Quahog residents a "great, big phony" is named Holden Caulfield. His name and the phrase come from J.D. Salinger's famous novel, "The Catcher in the Rye."
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A common theme throughout the show is the abuse Meg Griffin receives from her father. The show's writers claim the abuse is the product of "a bunch of male writers not knowing how to write for a teenage girl."
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Since 2005, the Parents Television Council, a censorship advocacy group which recommends family-friendly programming, has voted Family Guy as, "Worst Show of the Week" over 40 times. MacFarlane's response? "[It's] like getting hate mail from Hitler."
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Spoiler Alert! The show often hints that Stewie could be gay in cutaway scenes like his dancing in a gay bar and in his one-liners like, "Just do what you would do with women, but with your buddy, you know?" but is he really? Well, show creator Seth MacFarlane settled the debate in a Playboy article, asserting that yes, Stewie is gay.
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