Seth MacFarlane: The Funny Guy Behind Fox’s ‘Family Guy’
By
Emily Christianson
|
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
If you’re a fan of Family Guy you’ve probably wondered why Peter hates the Brits, Cleveland got his own show instead of Quagmire and women find Brian attractive. Lucky for you, we’ve got the answers to these burning questions and more - straight from the creator and lead voice talent behind the hit show, Seth MacFarlane. 
Hollywood.com: Do you hate the English like Peter does?
Seth MacFarlane: No, I love the English.
HW: Oh yeah? Why’s that?
SM: My God, because [they] brought us Benny Hill, Monty Python, The Office, Neville Chamberlain.
HW: Why does Peter hate the English?
SM: Because he’s an idiot. He is a sheltered New England man.
HW: Does it creep you out that women have crushes on Brian?
SM: Yes that is sick and disgusting. They should be ashamed of themselves. We sort of think of Brian as a person and when the network gives us notes about things like, “No, no Brian can’t do this it is too disgusting.” And our sponsors go, “No wait a minute he’s an individual he should have the same rights.” We start to get indignant about it. He’s a dog.
HW: When did you make the decision to take Stewie from homicidal maniac to little song boy?
SM: It wasn’t a conscious decision. Characters evolve in certain ways and we found that doing the “take over the world” thing every week was getting played out and was starting to feel a little dated. It was weirdly feeling a little ‘90s and you can’t – believe me if we were still doing that the show would be on its last legs. I only half jokingly go by the guideline that if it is something that might possibly ruin the show it is a story we should probably do.
HW: You’re launching a new show featuring Cleveland. Would you ever consider a Quagmire spin off?
SM: Probably not because he wouldn’t be able to sustain it in the same way that Cleveland could. Quagmire is – one of the things that is funny about him is he’s so despicable and if you had to do an episode a week where Quagmire had to go through some revelation, some sort of …
HW: It would end up like Joey?
SM: Yeah, but probably not as good.
HW: Do you constantly get asked to record outgoing voicemail messages?
SM: Not a whole bunch of times a day. People have come up to me in airports and asked me to do that.
HW: Would you do the “You’ve Got AIDS” song if they asked you to?
SM: Sure, yeah.
HW: What’s up with the Family Guy movie?
SM: Yes, actually we’ve been talking about it seriously. We have very unconventional ways to approach it but I can’t reveal yet, but we have one extremely unexpected approach to the movie. I think people – there is no way you could do this on TV let’s put it that way.
HW: Any idea when you would start production?
SM: I would hope within the year that it would begin.
HW: Would it flow with the season or be independent of the series?
SM: The movie would have to be something that exists on its own and doesn’t interrupt the flow of the series…what we have in mind for the movies is in some ways the universe of the series and in some ways not. We don’t want to do just a long episode, we want to do something that could only be done in a movie.
HW: What’s funnier a monkey dressed as a cowboy or a dog with shades on?
SM: Ah f*cking Christ, come on. What’s funnier a monkey dressed as a cowboy or a dog with shades on? One of those things has been sitting in the White House for eight years. You tell me? You set me up for that didn’t you?
Family Guy Season 5 premieres Sept. 28 on Fox
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