(content from wikipedia) 

Family Guy is an animated American television sitcom created by Seth MacFarlane that airs on Fox and regularly on other television networks in syndication. The show centers on a semi-dysfunctional family that lives in the fictional town of Quahog, Rhode Island. The show uses frequent "cutaway gags", jokes in the form of tangential vignettes.

Family Guy was cancelled once in 2000 and again in 2002, but strong DVD sales and the large viewership of reruns on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim convinced Fox to resume the show in 2005. It is the first cancelled show to be resurrected based on DVD sales, and the only one to be resurrected twice on that basis.

History of Family Guy

Family Guy is a show originally created in 1999 after the Larry shorts (its predecessor) caught the attention of the Fox Broadcasting Company during the 1999 Super Bowl commercial. Its cancellation was announced, but then a shift in power at Fox and outcry from the fans led to a reversal of that decision and the making of a third season, after which it was cancelled again. Reruns on Adult Swim drove interest in the show up, and the DVD releases did quite well, selling over 2.2 million copies in one year, which renewed network interest. Family Guy returned to production in 2004, making three more seasons (for a total of six) and a straight-to-DVD movie, Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story. The show celebrated its official 100th episode during its sixth season in autumn of 2007, resulting in the show's syndication. Season 7 began airing Sunday, September 28, 2008. The show is contracted to continue producing episodes until 2012.

Characters

List of characters from Family Guy

The show revolves around the adventures of Peter Griffin, a bumbling but well-intentioned blue-collar worker. Peter is an Irish American Catholic with a thick Rhode Island / Eastern Massachusetts accent. His wife Lois is generally a stay-at-home mother and piano teacher, and has a distinct New York accent from being a member of the Pewterschmidt family of wealthy socialites. Peter and Lois have three children: teenage daughter Meg, who is frequently the butt of jokes due to her homeliness and lack of popularity; teenage son Chris, who is overweight, unintelligent and, in many respects, a younger version of his father; infant son Stewie, a diabolical infant of ambiguous sexual orientation who has adult mannerisms and speaks fluently with an affected upper-class, mid-Atlantic English accent and stereotypical archvillain phrases. Living with the family is Brian, the family dog, who is highly anthropomorphized, walks on two legs, drinks Martinis, smokes cigarettes and engages in human conversation, though he is still considered a pet in many respects.

There are many recurring characters on the show who appear alongside the Griffin family on a regular basis. These include the family's colorful neighbors: sex-crazed airline-pilot bachelor Glenn Quagmire; mild-mannered deli owner Cleveland Brown and his wife (ex-wife as of the fourth-season episode "The Cleveland–Loretta Quagmire") Loretta Brown with their hyperactive son, Cleveland Jr.; paraplegic police officer Joe Swanson, his perpetually pregnant wife Bonnie, and their athletic son Kevin; paranoid Jewish pharmacist Mort Goldman, his wife Muriel Goldman and their geeky and annoying son Neil; and creepy old ephebophile Herbert. TV news anchors Tom Tucker and Diane Simmons also make regular appearances (along with Asian Reporter Tricia Takanawa and Blaccu-Weather meteorologist Ollie Williams), as well as mentally disturbed celebrity Mayor Adam West (voiced by and named after the real Adam West).

For its first three seasons Family Guy did not use an especially large cast of recurring minor characters. Since returning from cancellation many one-shot characters from prior episodes have reappeared in new episodes, although most of the plotlines center on the exploits of the Griffin family.

Setting

The majority of events on the show take place in Quahog, Rhode Island, a fictional suburb of Providence. Seth MacFarlane, the show's creator, resided in Providence when he was a student at Rhode Island School of Design, and leaves unequivocal Rhode Island landmarks from which one may infer intended real-world locations for events. MacFarlane also often borrows the names of Rhode Island locations and icons such as Pawtucket and Buddy Cianci for use in the show. MacFarlane, in an interview with local WNAC Fox 64 News, has stated that the town is modeled after Cranston, Rhode Island.

Several times every episode, the actual Providence skyline can be seen in the distance. The three buildings that are depicted are, from left to right and furthest to closest, One Financial Center, 50 Kennedy Plaza, and the Bank of America Tower. This ordering of buildings and the angle at which they are viewed (see figure at left) indicates that Quahog is primarily west of downtown Providence if it is to have a real-world counterpart. However, in a few episodes Quahog is shown to have a coastline (see "Fifteen Minutes of Shame", "Fore Father" and "The Perfect Castaway"), which only Cranston and Providence possess. This is supported by the fact that the real-world "31 Spooner Street" is located in Providence, immediately west of Roger Williams Park. This could be a coincidence, as MacFarlane has said in a DVD commentary that the street was named after Spooner Hill Road, along which is his boyhood home. In "E. Peterbus Unum", a map of Rhode Island is shown with Quahog shown in red with Quahog appearing to be in the vicinity of Tiverton.

According to Mayor Adam West in "Fifteen Minutes of Shame", the town was founded by a sailor of a New York colony-bound boat who was thrown overboard for his loquaciousness. A magical clam rescued him and brought him to shore. Together the two founded a new town named Quahog, a quahog being a type of clam. On MacFarlane's part, the choice of name is a nod to the state's characteristic staple. Although quahogs are common throughout New England, the small state of Rhode Island produces one quarter of the country's catch.

Cast

The main cast and their main parts are as follows: Seth MacFarlane, who voices Peter Griffin, Stewie Griffin, Brian Griffin, Glenn Quagmire, and Tom Tucker; Alex Borstein as Lois Griffin, Loretta Brown (until the character was retired in season four), and Trisha Takanawa; Seth Green as Chris Griffin; and Mila Kunis as Meg Griffin. The main cast do voices for several recurring characters other than those listed, as well as impersonate celebrities and pop-culture icons.

Recurring cast members include: Patrick Warburton as Joe Swanson; Mike Henry as Cleveland Brown; Adam West as the mayor Adam West; Jennifer Tilly as Bonnie Swanson; John G. Brennan as Mort Goldman; Nicole Sullivan as Muriel Goldman; Carlos Alazraqui as Jonathan Weed (until the character was killed off in season three); Adam Carolla as Death (excluding Death's first appearance, during which the character was voiced by Norm MacDonald); Lori Alan as Diane Simmons.

Lacey Chabert voiced Meg Griffin for the first production season (15 episodes); however, because of a contractual agreement, she was never credited. She was eventually credited at the end of The Family Guy 100th Episode Special, which featured clips of her voice work on the show.

List of Family Guy episodes

For the first half of the first season, the writers tried to work the words "murder" or "death" into the title of every episode to make the titles resemble those of old-fashioned radio mystery shows. On the DVD commentary for "Death Has a Shadow", creator Seth MacFarlane says that the writers stopped doing this when they realized they were beginning to get the titles confused. Beginning with "A Hero Sits Next Door", the episodes feature titles descriptive of their plots.

Some episodes are not aired in full in their initial broadcast because of profanity or cultural references. Scenes are either re-edited or removed entirely from the episode. Some cut material is restored for later broadcast on other venues, such as Adult Swim. DVD releases also contain the uncensored material.

Entire episodes can be streamed online on two VOD websites. The first one is Hulu, a jointly owned site between Fox and NBC. The second site is Adult Swim Video, the broadband video section of AdultSwim.com

Crossovers with American Dad!

The show has periodically featured the inclusion of certain elements from American Dad!, another animated comedy series created and produced by Seth MacFarlane. Appearances include:

"Meet the Quagmires" – Roger, the alien who lives with the Smiths, makes a last-minute cameo in this episode, asking the Griffins, "Who ate all the Pecan Sandies?". His line is a reference to a line he said early in the American Dad! pilot episode, asking Francine if she bought Pecan Sandies while she was out shopping.

"Blue Harvest" – Roger can be spotted conversing with one of the alien bar patrons while holding a glass of wine during the cantina scene.

"Lois Kills Stewie" – CIA agent Stan Smith, the main character of American Dad!, as well as his supervisor Avery Bullock and the CIA Headquarters, are featured in this episode. Though the story is non-canon, these elements play a more prominent role in this episode, making this the first episode to have an actual crossover. Stan and Bullock were voiced by their usual American Dad! voice actors, Seth MacFarlane (in addition to his regular Family Guy characters) and Patrick Stewart, respectively.

Currently, there has never been an official crossover between the two. However, Seth MacFarlane said there might be one during the upcoming seventh season of Family Guy.

Family Guy DVDs

Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story

Originally released as a direct-to-DVD movie, Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story comprises three episode length segments with a wraparound story. Different edits, both adding and deleting material, were eventually televised as the three-part season four finale ("Stewie B. Goode", "Bango Was His Name, Oh!" and "Stu and Stewie's Excellent Adventure")

In an interview with TV Week on July 18, 2008, Seth MacFarlane announced plans to produce a theatrically released Family Guy movie sometime "within the next year". He recently came up with an idea for the story, "something that you could not do on the show, which [to him] is the only reason to do a movie." He later went to confirm that he is currently contracted to produce the film, which he imagines to be "an old-style musical with dialogue" similar to The Sound of Music, saying that he would "really be trying to capture, musically, that feel."

Music and music video

The show often incorporates musical numbers in Broadway style as part of its episode technique, either as tangential vignettes or to advance the plotline. On April 26, 2005 Family Guy: Live in Vegas was released and was a collaboration between composer Walter Murphy and Seth MacFarlane. It features a show tune theme. Only one song, the theme song, is related to the show. Also included was the music video "Sexy Party".

Writers' strike

During the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, official production of the show was halted for most of December 2007 and various periods afterwards. Fox continued producing episodes without creator Seth 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.[15] Production officially resumed after the end of the strike, with episodes airing regularly from February 17, 2008, onward.

Podcast

28 episode podcasts were released on iTunes, and are also made available on the official site. These are audio-only promos where cast members talk about upcoming episodes and joke amongst themselves. As of October 2008, these podcasts were no longer available on the US iTunes market.

Unique title sequences

Seth MacFarlane, Alex Borstein, and Mila Kunis at Family Guy Live in Los Angeles

Some title sequences are unique to select episodes. They are as follows:

The four "Road Trip" episodes ("Road to Rhode Island", "Road to Europe", "Road to Rupert" and "Road to Germany") have instead a sequence of still drawings representing that episode's road trip over an introductory musical fanfare taken from Road to Morocco.

"Fast Times at Buddy Cianci, Jr. High" – title sequence replaced with a parody of the series Law & Order.

"PTV" – title sequence replaced with Osama Bin Laden going through various bloopers while trying to record a terrorist video before being beaten up by Stewie, as part of a Naked Gun parody going through familiar movie scenes, and finishing with a parody of The Simpsons title ending.

"Stu and Stewie's Excellent Adventure" – title sequence replaced with a parody of the series 24 recapping events from the previous two episodes along with an unrelated clip from The Chevy Chase Show. This opening is only featured in the edited-for-television version of the episode.

"Whistle While Your Wife Works" – same as the normal title sequence until the "musical stage" sequence, where Peter trips and falls down the stairs, rolling over Lois and Meg and crushing one of the dancers. Peter, oblivious to the suffocating dancer, complains he will have a swollen foot. Stewie then pops up in front of the camera, awkwardly suggesting to the operator that he should turn it off.

"Blue Harvest" – title sequence replaced with a parody of the opening crawl of Star Wars IV: A New Hope, utilizing the same fonts and music as that of the original film.