25 Twisted Family Guy Facts That Will Surprise Even Longtime Fans

Family Guy has been on the air for 17 seasons now and is without a doubt one of the best-loved cartoon comedies out there but even though it has been around for so long there are still some facts about the show that might just knock your socks off even if you're a super fan you might think that Chris Griffin is just another teenager trying to make his way through high school alive but actually there's something pretty messed up about him that might just surprise you Seth Green who has voiced Chris since the beginning actually based the character's voice off of none other than Buffalo Bill the super disturbing serial killer from The Silence of the Lambs what's the problem was he had been playing around with the impression with a few friends of his and they actually dared him to do it in the audition if that doesn't make you think differently about Chris the fact that he later recreated a famous scene from the movie on an episode of Family Guy sure well not that the show has been on for so many years and is such a part of television history it's pretty much impossible to imagine anyone else voicing the iconic characters we know so well but Brian Griffin could have sounded very very different because none other than William H Macy auditioned for the role darn tootin the character most closely associated with Seth MacFarlane himself was almost somebody else apparently Macy heard about the show was really interested in the role but the show wasn't given much money to do their pilot and they couldn't afford the already famous actor the role went back to Seth we wonder just how differently the character of Brian would have evolved over the years with someone like Macy behind him we see the Griffin family sit down around the dinner table and eat a lot you'd think that after 17 seasons they'd mix things up a little but in reality the family literally eats the same thing every single time they sit down at the table if they're not out at a restaurant every dinner in the Griffin household is made up of mashed potatoes peas and three pieces of an unnamed meat this is probably because it looks best in the animation style that makes things a little bit easier but seriously you'd think they'd be tired of it by now we've all tried to get on that meal prep bandwagon but by day three of the same chicken and broccoli we can't even stand to look at it anymore imagine the same meal every night for almost two decades of course being cartoon characters and totally probably does help a bit well we all know that the writers behind Family Guy aren't afraid to push every button out there believe it or not there is actually a lot that they aren't allowed to say at least on television that's why they are actually two versions of almost every episode the one that airs on TV and then the one that goes on the DVDs and streaming services one particularly edgy gag that involves a promo for the Simpsons that is interrupted by quagmire running on to the screen and having his way with Marge before killing the whole family never made it to TV we wonder why we know there's a legendary Simpsons family Guy feud going on but come on man what did Marge ever do to anybody like we mentioned before Family Guy has been airing for all of 17 years which is a pretty amazing gig for all the actors and crew who have been along for the ride as an actor it's rare to get a job that lasts two months let alone two decades especially when you consider the fact that in 2013 it was revealed that each cast member rakes in 175,000 to $250,000 per episode and that was six years ago so there is no doubt whatsoever that it has gone up since then while they definitely work hard it's still a pretty amazing salary for a job that you can go to in your pajamas no less much like the food they eat the characters and Family Guy have been rocking their signature looks since the first moment we saw them who would Lois be without her green button up in khakis or quagmire without his Hawaiian shirt or Meg without her famous pink hat but what you might not realize is that Peter has actually been wearing a woman's blouse the entire time well it might seem like a minor detail you'll notice that his shirt actually buttons up on the right side which only women's styles are known to do maybe it was an animation mistake that they had to stick with or maybe Peter just prefers a breezier fabric in a more flattering cut we'll never know whatever the reason Peter seems to have found his signature look and it's still working for him after all these years meg has been the butt of the joke for as long as we can remember and while she may not be the best character out there we never really got why they treated her so badly sure she's no Connie D'Amico but she's nice enough and hasn't done anything so terrible that wasn't spurred on by her family's antagonizing anyway well Seth MacFarlane he answered the question and the answer isn't great he said that the writers of the show had no idea how to write for a teenage girl and so their solution was just to make fun of her all the time huh another solution might have been to you know hire someone who could write for her all of Seth MacFarlane's voices have become iconic at this point not only for their uniqueness and distinction but for how many he can seem to do and how easily so where do all of these voices come from does he just make them all up well the origin of Peter might surprise you his exaggerated rhode island accent was actually inspired by a security guard who worked at the college that MacFarlane went to the Rhode Island School of Design he used to imitate the man's voice for his friends who got such a kick out of it that it became a regular part of his repertoire and would eventually become one of the most well-known voices in cartoon history if you're a true Family Guy fan you've seen all of the episodes including the very rough first season it's notable for its less sophisticated animation style and slightly different voices for all the characters most notable differences of course meg who wasn't voiced by Mila Kunis until season 2 but what you might not know is that her original voice is actually Lacey Chabert that doesn't ring a bell how about Gretchen wieners that's right Lacey went on to star as the heir to the toaster strudel fortune and the iconic movie Mean Girls after her departure from Family Guy most TV shows strive to make it on to all of the best of lists out there but there's one very different kind of list that Family Guy has been on a record number of times for which they are probably quite proud of that's right an organization called the Parents Television Council has named Family Guy worst show of the week a record-breaking 44 times for all sorts of content that they deem inappropriate while some might be upset to be included on a list like that we'd bet money that Seth MacFarlane and his crew strive to stay on it amidst all of the gags and cutaways in 10 minute long chicken fights Family Guy actually isn't afraid to make a statement every now and again and usually these statements come from Brian who it's known shares the same opinions as his creator Seth MacFarlane one statement in particular had quite the impact back in 2009 in the aptly titled episode 420 prayin advocates for the legalization of marijuana with a very catchy song bag of weed a remix on the chitty-chitty-bang-bang original song me old bamboo the song earned Brian the title of stoner of the year from High Times Magazine and with legalization happening more rapidly all over the world these days it seems like Brian was really onto something just like we can't hear any other voices associated with a much beloved characters of Family Guy changing up their looks is just downright off-putting which makes it really weird that Lois was actually originally a blonde in the pilot episode before the one that would make it to the air Lois has blond hair and a red shirt on which is just wrong if you ask us apparently the color of her hair was hotly debated by the writers room after the series was greenlit by Fox and her iconic red locks won in the end while Lois being a blonde would have definitely explained Chris's hair color a little bit we just can't imagine her any other way than red while the town of Quahog might be fictional Rhode Island is definitely real located in New England and very famous for its seafood so much so that the show references clams any chance it gets especially when it can be used as a not-so-subtle double entendre which is pretty much always dirty jokes aside it might seem weird that the show is so fixated on clams but actually it all makes a ton of sense we know Peter and his buddies drink at a bar called the drunken clam but what you might not know is that Quahog itself is actually a type of clam and is the official seafood of Rhode Island 2009 was a big year for Family Guy and not just for Brian's previously mentioned stoner of the year accolade it also marked the year the show was nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series at the Primetime Emmy Awards they have been nominated for many awards before and won a handful but generally in voice acting animation and of musical categories because let's face it nobody does big splashy musical numbers quite like Family Guy this was actually the first time that an animated show had been nominated in that particular category which is typically reserved for live-action TV series quagmire is a bit of a mysterious character and is definitely polarizing sometimes he's downright hilarious and sometimes he really should go to jail but there was one moment in the show that fans have pretty much for gotten about in season seven they casually reveal a crazy bit of information about quagmire but makes very little sense but that haunts us to this day in the episode foxy lady Peter and the guys asked to see Quagmire's driver's license which reveals that he was born in 1948 which made him 61 years old at the time that it aired and 71 years old today his simple secret carrots apparently though don't ask him to show you what he does with them trust us it's no secret that Seth and the rest of the team behind Family Guy are huge huge Star Wars fans but the reason that they've been able to pay as much homage to the iconic movie series is due to the permission of the man himself George Lucas a few years into the series they had already referenced the movies a ton of times before getting nervous that there would be copyright issues so they reached out to George and his company Lucasfilm as it turned out he was a huge fan of the show and gave them his blessing to do pretty much whatever they wanted and boy did they it's pretty common for comedies to have all kinds of catchphrases and Family Guy is no different but rather than the ones like what the deuce that got phased out after a couple of seasons as the characters became more grounded and human there is one turn of phrase that has really stuck around and no it's not what you're thinking in every single episode of the show one character or another says a version of the words what the hell seriously in every single episode we guess it's because the show is just shocking everyone including its characters at all times it might seem as though Seth MacFarlane was destined to become king of the cartoon world but actually it was a bit of a surprise even for him right s he was graduating the Rhode Island School of Design one of his teachers secretly submitted his final animation project to a contest at hanna-barbera before he knew it MacFarlane had won the contest he didn't even know that he entered and the famed animation company asked him to move to Los Angeles to come and write for them if you've ever wondered why the show feels familiar the backed up MacFarlane cut his teeth on shows like Johnny Bravo Dexter's Laboratory and Cowan chicken we hope he at least sent that unnamed professor a basket of mini muffins once he landed in LA cartoon that got seth macfarlane his spot at hanna-barbera was called the life of larry which featured a character named larry shockingly no who was definitely an early prototype of our now beloved Peter while working at hanna-barbera he continued to develop his own characters and writing skills which led to his next project McFarlane created another short called Larry and Steve in which Larry adopts a dog named Steve who you guessed it closely resembles Bryan Larry and Steve aired in 1997 on Cartoon Network as part of a series of shorts called what a cartoon and the rest it seems was History Family Guy's seems perfect in its 30-minute episodic format because of the ways that it pays homage to the classic family sitcoms that came before it and a show featuring a certain yellow family from a town called Springfield that shall remain nameless but Family Guy was almost a totally different show after his short Larry and Steve was well received he pitched an idea to the people behind the late-night comedy sketch show MADtv Family Guy almost made it to air for the first time as a series of animated sketches on the show just like how the Simpsons got their start on the Tracey Ullman Show apparently MADtv didn't have quite the budget for that kind of animation but we think it all worked out in the end Family Guy has always been a divisive show not just for their edge of your content but amongst the community of animated shows as well while the beef with The Simpsons has been public and famous seeing as how these similarities between the two shows are undeniable it is actually Matt Stone and Trey Parker who have been among the most vocal of their critics the South Park creators have criticized the show's cutaway gags as lazy and been open about how they don't respect that writing style they aren't alone however apparently they even received flowers from the producers of king of the hill and the Simpsons and solidarity while they might not all get along Parker and stones said their shared hatred of Family Guy really bonded these three cartoon families together while the voice of meg has changed since the pilot the brilliant Alex Borstein was always Lois from the very beginning and it would be just too weird to hear anyone else deliver her lines but apparently we almost lost her because of the Fox Network after the pilot aired and the series was greenlit for its first season the network apparently had decided to change the direction they wanted to go with the character of Lois and Borstein actually had to Riyadh with every other voice actress in Hollywood thankfully they came to their senses and recast her in the role and Lois's iconic nasal voice has become legendary ever since while creating any show from the ground up is a ton of work making a weekly animated show is a seriously amazing feat it actually takes an entire year to get an episode on the air from the story development phase through writing each episode to recording all of the voices and finally the animation stage the entire process is huge and spans continents they have to work on multiple episodes all at the same time to make any of this possible so the combined amount of effort is almost unimaginable we all know that fans are passionate about what they love and fans just love Family Guy that's why when the show took a huge risk and actually killed off one of its most beloved characters Bryan it just about killed the show Bryan's death and the introduction of a new dog Vinnie caused such an outcry amongst fans of the show that they demanded he be brought back to light seat they hadn't really been planning to remove Bryan from the show but when they took him out of the opening titles for a couple of episodes it looked like he really was gone for good MacFarlane says that they were actually really touched by the overwhelming response and that they hadn't realized that fans had grown to care about Bryan so much given that the show is one of the most successful in history and that the entire franchise is now reportedly worth around two billion dollars it seems insane that it almost didn't make it to the air but actually Family Guy has king of the hill to thank for ever making it on TV see MacFarlane was pitching Family Guy right as Mike judge had signed a deal for king of the hill but the network was nervous about how judges show would do so they rejected Family Guy a year later king of the hill was so successful that fox changed their minds and gave him it farland $50,000 to make his pilot and the rest is history even when you think and nowa show so well after all these years it can still find ways to surprise you what did you think of these facts are we missing any juicy Family Guy details we just have to know about let us know in the comments and we hope you had fun watching you [Music]

Channel: Screen Rant

Views: 4,696,214

Keywords: family guy, cartoon, fox, peter griffin, quagmire, seth macfarlane, mila kunis, lois griffin, seth green, chris griffin, quahog, brian griffin, stewie griffin, funny, hilarious, Screen Rant, ScreenRant

Id: FRB0kgJi16Q

Length: 15min 21sec (921 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 10 2019