Meet the 'Family'
September 14, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic
The scripts for "Family Guy" are filled with the f-word and adult situations that Fox won't broadcast. For an upcoming episode, writers penned a minutes-long and hilarious abortion joke (yes, yes, it's a gag about abortion and it's funny, get over it), but it will be edited down to a bare snippet for network TV.
That same episode includes yet another joke that will likely be cut altogether, as show creator Seth MacFarlane explains: "Pleasuring a man with a socked foot probably won't make it to Fox. It'll make it to the DVD," MacFarlane says. "It'll probably make it to Adult Swim" on Cartoon Network reruns.
I was happy to hear the abortion and socked-foot jokes when MacFarlane took his cast mates to a TV critic convention this summer and vocalized a "table read" of the episode. I'm a fan, so it was like heaven, with penis and vagina jokes.
Chicagoans get a similar chance to see table reads this weekend when MacFarlane and the cast perform line-by-line readings of a classic script at the Chicago Theatre.
At the table read I saw, TV critics laughed more than I've seen them laugh at anything else at these conventions. But it was nothing compared to when "Family Guy" does reads for fans.
"We just got back from doing a show in Montreal for the comedy festival," MacFarlane said at the time. "You had, like, 2,000 drunk people in their 20s who were just, you know, laughing at the stage directions."
Visually, it looks like a throwback. Cast members talk into microphones. It's sort of like seeing one of those old-timey radio shows in progress.
That's actually a fitting analogy for MacFarlane, 33. He created the sexaholic character Quagmire as a riff on old radio guys.
"As is true of many kids of my generation, I was a big fan of radio dramas from the '30s and '40s," he half-jokes. "And I used to be amused by the commercials. Everybody was always talking so fast: 'Autoline Sparkplug is the best sparkplug you can buy!' Quagmire started as an impression of one of these 1950s radio pitchmen."
The most shocking thing about hearing MacFarlane speak is he sounds exactly like my favorite "Family Guy" character, Brian the dry-witted dog.
In fact, the first time I met MacFarlane, I listened to him speak for a few minutes and said, "It's nice to meet you, Brian." He must get that all the time, but he greeted me with a smile. He's quite approachable for being such a genius icon.
The other "Family Guy" voice actors are like that, too. Alex Borstein basically sounds like Lois and Mila Kunis basically sounds like Meg.
"When we cast 'Family Guy,' we look for people who sound real," MacFarlane says. "I like the show to sound like it could be 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' or 'The Larry Sanders Show.'"
In the table read I saw, there was a funny joke satirizing the Keanu Reeves-Sandra Bullock vehicle "The Lake House." I ask MacFarlane how those kinds of gags come about: Does he view "The Lake House," then go to work and tell writers to rip on the movie? Or does he go to writers with a specific joke?
"It can go both ways," he says. "In that instance, that was done in a gag room. The writing room is working on the body of the scripts. We usually have two gag rooms running, because we have so many cutaways and so many jokes. They're assigned to write the last line of a scene. Obviously, it's called a 'scene blow.' Or a 'cutaway gag.'"
"Spitballing" jokes like that, he says, has to come with a good angle.
"It has to have some point of view. It can't just be saying, 'This movie sucks,' although we did do that with '[Wild] Hogs.'"
delfman@suntimes.com
What not to ask Seth MacFarlane
If you go to one of the "Family Guy" performances at the Chicago Theatre, you'll see Seth MacFarlane (the voice of Peter, Stewie and Brian), Alex Borstein (Lois), Mila Kunis (Meg), Seth Green (Chris) and Mike Henry (Cleveland) re-create a classic episode and several musical numbers from the past.
MacFarlane, creator of "Family Guy," will head a Q&A afterward. Feel free to ask him a few things, but let me spare you three questions people always, always ask, just as critics did again this summer after a similar table read.
Did he see the "South Park" episode that bashed "Family Guy"?
Yes, and he doesn't attack "South Park" in retaliation.
"We dish it out so much, we gotta take it, right?
"I am a fan of 'South Park,' actually. I think that show is very funny," he says. "They busted our [chops] a lot about the cutaways. The cutaways they sort of see as a deviation from the story."
But MacFarlane sees cutaways as animated versions of "one-frame 'Far Side' cartoons."
"They're just kind of laughs for laughs' sake," he says. "It's just pure comedy, we hope."
Does "Family Guy" want to stay contemporary with its jokes, since it parodies long-ago decades?
"Absolutely," MacFarlane says. "We're not just trying to do '80s references.
"We do try and make sure that we are kept up to date, although there are still some Bob Hope references that neither of those generations are going to get."
Does "Family Guy" work better when it offends people? Or when it doesn't offend people?
"I try," he says, "to kind of have this balance between the classic and the edgy. ... We do a lot of poop jokes, but at the same time, we use a 45-piece orchestra every week."
During table reads with network execs in attendance, "no one is shy about gasping in horror if we have crossed the line, and so it's a very good barometer. ... We're never out to shock for the sake of shocking."
By the way, what shocks MacFarlane?
"I don't know," he says, sounding like refined Brian the dog, as usual. "The Bush administration, I guess?"
Doug Elfman
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic
The scripts for "Family Guy" are filled with the f-word and adult situations that Fox won't broadcast. For an upcoming episode, writers penned a minutes-long and hilarious abortion joke (yes, yes, it's a gag about abortion and it's funny, get over it), but it will be edited down to a bare snippet for network TV.
That same episode includes yet another joke that will likely be cut altogether, as show creator Seth MacFarlane explains: "Pleasuring a man with a socked foot probably won't make it to Fox. It'll make it to the DVD," MacFarlane says. "It'll probably make it to Adult Swim" on Cartoon Network reruns.
I was happy to hear the abortion and socked-foot jokes when MacFarlane took his cast mates to a TV critic convention this summer and vocalized a "table read" of the episode. I'm a fan, so it was like heaven, with penis and vagina jokes.
Chicagoans get a similar chance to see table reads this weekend when MacFarlane and the cast perform line-by-line readings of a classic script at the Chicago Theatre.
At the table read I saw, TV critics laughed more than I've seen them laugh at anything else at these conventions. But it was nothing compared to when "Family Guy" does reads for fans.
"We just got back from doing a show in Montreal for the comedy festival," MacFarlane said at the time. "You had, like, 2,000 drunk people in their 20s who were just, you know, laughing at the stage directions."
Visually, it looks like a throwback. Cast members talk into microphones. It's sort of like seeing one of those old-timey radio shows in progress.
That's actually a fitting analogy for MacFarlane, 33. He created the sexaholic character Quagmire as a riff on old radio guys.
"As is true of many kids of my generation, I was a big fan of radio dramas from the '30s and '40s," he half-jokes. "And I used to be amused by the commercials. Everybody was always talking so fast: 'Autoline Sparkplug is the best sparkplug you can buy!' Quagmire started as an impression of one of these 1950s radio pitchmen."
The most shocking thing about hearing MacFarlane speak is he sounds exactly like my favorite "Family Guy" character, Brian the dry-witted dog.
In fact, the first time I met MacFarlane, I listened to him speak for a few minutes and said, "It's nice to meet you, Brian." He must get that all the time, but he greeted me with a smile. He's quite approachable for being such a genius icon.
The other "Family Guy" voice actors are like that, too. Alex Borstein basically sounds like Lois and Mila Kunis basically sounds like Meg.
"When we cast 'Family Guy,' we look for people who sound real," MacFarlane says. "I like the show to sound like it could be 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' or 'The Larry Sanders Show.'"
In the table read I saw, there was a funny joke satirizing the Keanu Reeves-Sandra Bullock vehicle "The Lake House." I ask MacFarlane how those kinds of gags come about: Does he view "The Lake House," then go to work and tell writers to rip on the movie? Or does he go to writers with a specific joke?
"It can go both ways," he says. "In that instance, that was done in a gag room. The writing room is working on the body of the scripts. We usually have two gag rooms running, because we have so many cutaways and so many jokes. They're assigned to write the last line of a scene. Obviously, it's called a 'scene blow.' Or a 'cutaway gag.'"
"Spitballing" jokes like that, he says, has to come with a good angle.
"It has to have some point of view. It can't just be saying, 'This movie sucks,' although we did do that with '[Wild] Hogs.'"
delfman@suntimes.com
What not to ask Seth MacFarlane
If you go to one of the "Family Guy" performances at the Chicago Theatre, you'll see Seth MacFarlane (the voice of Peter, Stewie and Brian), Alex Borstein (Lois), Mila Kunis (Meg), Seth Green (Chris) and Mike Henry (Cleveland) re-create a classic episode and several musical numbers from the past.
MacFarlane, creator of "Family Guy," will head a Q&A afterward. Feel free to ask him a few things, but let me spare you three questions people always, always ask, just as critics did again this summer after a similar table read.
Did he see the "South Park" episode that bashed "Family Guy"?
Yes, and he doesn't attack "South Park" in retaliation.
"We dish it out so much, we gotta take it, right?
"I am a fan of 'South Park,' actually. I think that show is very funny," he says. "They busted our [chops] a lot about the cutaways. The cutaways they sort of see as a deviation from the story."
But MacFarlane sees cutaways as animated versions of "one-frame 'Far Side' cartoons."
"They're just kind of laughs for laughs' sake," he says. "It's just pure comedy, we hope."
Does "Family Guy" want to stay contemporary with its jokes, since it parodies long-ago decades?
"Absolutely," MacFarlane says. "We're not just trying to do '80s references.
"We do try and make sure that we are kept up to date, although there are still some Bob Hope references that neither of those generations are going to get."
Does "Family Guy" work better when it offends people? Or when it doesn't offend people?
"I try," he says, "to kind of have this balance between the classic and the edgy. ... We do a lot of poop jokes, but at the same time, we use a 45-piece orchestra every week."
During table reads with network execs in attendance, "no one is shy about gasping in horror if we have crossed the line, and so it's a very good barometer. ... We're never out to shock for the sake of shocking."
By the way, what shocks MacFarlane?
"I don't know," he says, sounding like refined Brian the dog, as usual. "The Bush administration, I guess?"
Doug Elfman
Comments