Development MacFarlane conceived
Family Guy in 1995 while studying animation at the
Rhode Island School of Design. During college, he created his thesis film titled
The Life of Larry, In 1996, MacFarlane created a sequel to
The Life of Larry titled
Larry and Steve, which featured a middle-aged character named Larry and an intellectual dog, Steve; the short was broadcast in 1997 as one of
Cartoon Network's
World Premiere Toons. MacFarlane pitched the completed demo short to Fox on May 15, 1998, which featured the first appearance of the Griffin family. The first seven minutes of the pitch pilot, which had a storyline parallel to the pilot that aired on television in January 1999, would be included in
Family Guy DVD sets. The full fifteen-minute pitch demo remained lost until it was uploaded to the internet by Robert Paulson on his personal website in 2022. Despite this, the pitch demo was not publicly seen until March 2025. Several aspects of
Family Guy were inspired by the
Larry shorts. While MacFarlane worked on the series, the characters of Larry and his dog Steve slowly evolved into Peter and Brian Griffin. MacFarlane stated that the difference between
The Life of Larry and
Family Guy was that "
Life of Larry was shown primarily in my dorm room and
Family Guy was shown after the
Super Bowl." Premises were drawn from several 1980s
Saturday-morning cartoons he watched as a child, such as
The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang and
Rubik, the Amazing Cube.
Renewals On January 26, 2023, Fox announced that the series had been renewed for seasons 22 and 23, taking the show through the 2024–25 television season. Season 22 premiered on October 1, 2023. Season 23 premiered on February 16, 2025. On April 2, 2025, it was announced that
Family Guy would be renewed for four more seasons in what is considered a "mega deal" with parent company
Disney. This renewal will take the show through the 2028–2029 television season, which coincides with the 30th anniversary of the shows' launch in January 1999. Additionally, each season will consist of 15 episodes.
Executive producers MacFarlane has served as an
executive producer throughout the show's entire history. The first executive producers were
David Zuckerman,
Lolee Aries, David Pritchard, and Mike Wolf.
Family Guy has had many executive producers in its history, including
Daniel Palladino,
Kara Vallow, and
Danny Smith.
David A. Goodman joined the show as a co-executive producer in season three and eventually became an executive producer.
Writing The first team of writers assembled for the show consisted of
Chris Sheridan, Danny Smith,
Gary Janetti,
Ricky Blitt, Neil Goldman, Garrett Donovan,
Matt Weitzman, and
Mike Barker. (left) is a former staff writer, and
Mike Barker is a former producer and writer of the show. Both left the series to create the ongoing adult animated sitcom
American Dad! with Seth MacFarlane. Barker later left
American Dad! as well following production of the show's 10th season. These scripts generally include
cutaway gags. Various gags are pitched to MacFarlane and the rest of the staff, and those deemed the funniest are included in the episode. MacFarlane has explained that it normally takes 10 months to produce an episode because the show uses hand-drawn animation. The show rarely comments on current events for this reason. The show's initial writers had never written for an animated show, and most came from live-action sitcoms. For the first few months of production, the writers shared one office, lent to them by the
King of the Hill production crew.
Mike Barker and
Matt Weitzman left the show and went on to create the long-running and still ongoing adult animated series
American Dad!. (MacFarlane is also a co-creator of
American Dad!) On November 4, 2013, it was announced that Barker had departed
American Dad! during its run as well, after 10 seasons of serving as producer and co-showrunner over the series. During the
2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike, official production of the show halted for most of December 2007 and for various periods afterward. Fox continued producing episodes without MacFarlane's final approval, which he termed "a colossal dick move" in an interview with
Variety. Though MacFarlane refused to work on the show, his contract under Fox required him to contribute to any episodes it would subsequently produce. Production officially resumed after the end of the strike, with regularly airing episodes recommencing on February 17, 2008. According to MacFarlane, in 2009, it cost about $2 million to make an episode of
Family Guy. During his September 2017
AMA on
Reddit, MacFarlane revealed that he had not written for the show since 2010, choosing instead to focus on production and voice acting. On May 12, 2023, it was announced that the showrunners of
Family Guy, including Seth MacFarlane, would temporarily leave the show as a result of the
2023 Writers Guild of America Strike.
Voice cast File:Seth MacFarlane SDCC 2017 (36524516106).jpg|alt=Seth MacFarlane|
Seth MacFarlane File:Alex Borstein by Gage Skidmore 4 (retouched).jpg|alt=Alex Borstein|
Alex Borstein File:Seth Green at MultiCon 2025.jpg|alt=Seth Green|
Seth Green File:Mila Kunis TIFF 2025 (cropped).jpg|alt=Mila Kunis|
Mila Kunis File:Mike Henry by Gage Skidmore 3.jpg|alt=Mike Henry|
Mike Henry File:Patrick Warburton Photo Op GalaxyCon Richmond 2024.jpg|alt=Patrick Warburton|
Patrick Warburton Seth MacFarlane voices three of the show's main characters:
Peter Griffin,
Brian Griffin, and
Stewie Griffin. Since MacFarlane had a strong vision for these characters, he chose to voice them himself, believing it would be easier than for someone else to attempt it. Stewie's voice was based on the voice of English actor
Rex Harrison, especially his performance in the 1964 musical drama film
My Fair Lady. MacFarlane uses his regular speaking voice when playing Brian.
Alex Borstein voices Peter's wife
Lois Griffin,
Asian correspondent Tricia Takanawa,
Loretta Brown, and Lois' mother,
Babs Pewterschmidt. Borstein was asked to provide a voice for the pilot while she was working on
MADtv. She had not met MacFarlane or seen any of his artwork and said it was "really sight unseen". At the time, Borstein was performing in a stage show in Los Angeles. She played a redheaded mother whose voice she had based on one of her cousins. Green stated that he did an impression of the character
Buffalo Bill from the thriller film
The Silence of the Lambs during his audition.
Mila Kunis and
Lacey Chabert have both voiced
Meg Griffin.
Mike Henry voices
Herbert,
Bruce the Performance Artist,
Consuela, the
Greased-up Deaf Guy, and until 2021,
Cleveland Brown. Henry met MacFarlane at the Rhode Island School of Design and kept in touch with him after they graduated. On June 26, 2020, after twenty years of voicing the character, Mike Henry announced on Twitter that he was stepping down from voicing Cleveland, stating "persons of color should play characters of color." On September 25, 2020, it was announced that
Arif Zahir would take over as the voice of Cleveland. Other recurring cast members include
Patrick Warburton as
Joe Swanson,
Jennifer Tilly as
Bonnie Swanson,
John G. Brennan as
Mort Goldman and
Horace the bartender,
Carlos Alazraqui as
Jonathan Weed,
Adam Carolla and
Norm Macdonald as
Death,
Lori Alan as
Diane Simmons,
Phil LaMarr as
Ollie Williams and Judge Dignified Q. Blackman, and
Kevin Michael Richardson as Jerome. Fellow cartoonist
Butch Hartman has made guest voice appearances in episodes as various characters. Also, writer
Danny Smith voices various recurring characters, such as
Ernie the Giant Chicken.
Alexandra Breckenridge also appears as many various characters.
Adam West appeared as the
eponymous Mayor Adam West, until his death in 2017. Episodes often feature guest voices from a wide range of professions, including actors, athletes, authors, bands, musicians, and scientists. Many guest voices star as themselves.
Leslie Uggams was the first to appear as herself, in the fourth episode of the first season, "
Mind Over Murder". The episode "
Not All Dogs Go to Heaven" guest starred the entire cast of
Star Trek: The Next Generation, including
Patrick Stewart,
Jonathan Frakes,
Brent Spiner,
LeVar Burton,
Gates McFadden,
Michael Dorn,
Wil Wheaton,
Marina Sirtis, and even
Denise Crosby (season 1 as
Tasha Yar), playing themselves; this is the episode with the most guest stars of the seventh season.
Early history and cancellation Family Guy officially premiered after Fox's broadcast of
Super Bowl XXXIII on January 31, 1999, with "
Death Has a Shadow". The show debuted to 22 million viewers and immediately generated controversy regarding its adult content. The show returned on April 11, 1999, with "
I Never Met the Dead Man".
Family Guy garnered decent ratings in Fox's 8:30 pm slot on Sunday, scheduled between
The Simpsons and
The X-Files. At the end of its first season, the show ranked No. 33 in the
Nielsen ratings, with 12.8 million households tuning in. The show launched its second season in a new time slot, Thursday at 9 pm, on September 23, 1999.
Family Guy was pitted against NBC's
Frasier, and the series' ratings declined sharply. However, following a last-minute reprieve, on July 24, 2000, Fox ordered 13 additional episodes to form a third season. During its second and third seasons, Fox frequently moved the show around to different days and time slots with little or no notice and, consequently, the show's ratings suffered. Upon Fox's annual unveiling of its 2002 fall line-up on May 15, 2002,
Family Guy was absent.
Cult success and revival Fox attempted to sell the rights for reruns of the show, but finding networks that were interested was difficult;
Cartoon Network eventually bought the rights "basically for free", according to the president of
20th Century Fox Television.
Family Guy premiered in reruns on Adult Swim on April 20, 2003, and immediately became the block's top-rated program, dominating late-night viewing in its time period versus cable and broadcast competition and boosting viewership by 239%. The complete first and second seasons were released on DVD the same week the show premiered on Adult Swim, and the show became a cult phenomenon, selling 400,000 copies within one month. becoming the best-selling television DVD of 2003 and the second-highest-selling television DVD ever, behind the first season of
Comedy Central's ''
Chappelle's Show. The third-season DVD release also sold more than a million copies. and, on May 20, 2004, Fox ordered 35 new episodes of Family Guy'', marking the first revival of a television show based on DVD sales. MacFarlane believed the show's three-year hiatus was beneficial, because animated shows do not normally have hiatuses, and towards the end of their seasons, "... you see a lot more sex jokes and
bodily function jokes and signs of a fatigued staff that their brains are just fried". The episode was watched by 11.85 million viewers, the show's highest ratings since the airing of the
first season episode "
Brian: Portrait of a Dog".
Lawsuits In March 2007, comedian
Carol Burnett filed a $6 million lawsuit against 20th Century Fox, claiming that her
charwoman cartoon character had been portrayed on the show without her permission. She stated it was a trademark infringement and that Fox violated her publicity rights. On June 4, 2007, United States District Judge
Dean D. Pregerson rejected the lawsuit, stating that the parody was protected under the
First Amendment, citing
Hustler Magazine v. Falwell as a precedent. On October 3, 2007,
Bourne Co. Music Publishers filed a lawsuit accusing the show of
infringing its copyright on the song "
When You Wish Upon a Star", through a parody song titled "I Need a Jew" appearing in the episode "
When You Wish Upon a Weinstein". Bourne Co., the sole United States copyright owner of the song, alleged the parody pairs a "thinly veiled" copy of its music with
antisemitic lyrics. Named in the suit were
20th Century Fox Film Corp.,
Fox Broadcasting Co.,
Cartoon Network,
MacFarlane, and
Murphy; the suit sought to stop the program's distribution and asked for unspecified damages. Bourne argued that "I Need a Jew" uses the copyrighted melody of "When You Wish Upon a Star" without commenting on that song, and that it was therefore not a First Amendment-protected parody per the ruling in
Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. On March 16, 2009, United States District Judge
Deborah Batts held that
Family Guy did not infringe on Bourne's copyright when it transformed the song for comical use in an episode. In December 2007,
Family Guy was again accused of copyright infringement when actor
Art Metrano filed a lawsuit regarding a scene in
Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story, in which Jesus performs Metrano's signature "magic" act involving absurd "faux" magical hand gestures while humming the distinctive tune "
Fine and Dandy". 20th Century Fox, MacFarlane, Callaghan and Borstein were all named in the suit. In July 2009, a federal district court judge rejected Fox's motion to dismiss, saying that the first three fair use factors involved – "purpose and character of the use", "nature of the infringed work" and "amount and substantiality of the taking" – counted in Metrano's favor, while the fourth – "economic impact" – had to await more fact-finding. In denying the dismissal, the court held that the reference in the scene made light of Jesus and his followers – not Metrano or his act. The case was settled out of court in 2010 with undisclosed terms. ==Hallmarks==