TVSquad

I have come to an epiphany when it comes to American Dad and Family Guy: a studio audience is needed. I came to this realization after attending both the Comic-Con panels for these respective shows, which showed clips from their respective series. Scenes that I would have generally smirked at or given a chuckle made me laugh out loud along with the rest of the audience. Which brings me to one of two conclusions: either laughter is contagious, or I am just a lemming.

Either way, an enjoyable two hours was spent with casts from both shows as they did some table readings, provided some clues to upcoming episodes,and provided clips from some previously run and new episodes of both shows.

As usual, FOX leaves the best press conference (at least as far as I was concerned) for last. I sat through Karl Rove and Chris Wallace getting contentious with the critics near the end of the FOX News panel (more on that later), Jerry O'Connell and the cast of Do Not Disturb strain to answer questions about a show whose clip reel wasn't all that funny, and the millionaires from Secret Millionaire talk about being poor for a week. All of it was made worth it (and, really, seeing Rove start to get annoyed near the end was fun to watch) so we could see the final panel: all the producers of all FOX's Sunday animated shows.

The first person who spoke up, not surprisingly, was Seth MacFarlane. "Is this where Karl Rove sat? Because I don't want to get AIDS." Wow. Unfortunately, no line that was said after that was as shocking or funny. But it was all still pretty good.

From the "Things that make you go, hmmmm?" department... Just let this one roll around in your noggin for a bit. According to reports, after 2 1/2 years of negotiations, Mr. MacFarlane has a new deal with 20th Century Fox TV that could be worth more than $100 million. The deal will keep him with the studio through 2012. To put it in some perspective, J.J. Abrams signed a five year feature/TV deal with Paramount and Warner Bros that was valued at $60 million.

Now, I don't mean to slight Seth or his accomplishments, but doesn't that strike you as just a bit odd? I mean, I'm a fan of his work. I've never missed an episode of Family Guy or American Dad. Hell, I sat through The War At Home to catch his guest spot. Still, I also follow ratings rather closely, and while Family Guy is certainly a success, I wouldn't have expected it to garner him highest paid status. Maybe The Cleveland Show is just that much better than any of us are giving it credit for.

Allison told you a couple of months ago about the possibility of Family Guy's Cleveland getting his own spinoff show. Well now it looks like that's going to be a reality (not a reality show, but a cartoon ... oh, you know what I mean).

The show, titled Cleveland, is expected to get a 13 episode order when FOX announces its fall schedule at its upfront in a couple of weeks (TV Squad will have complete coverage of all of the upfronts, of course). No word on whether or not the character will stay on Family Guy too. I wonder if the show will be set in the same town as Family Guy? Maybe they'll even have epic two part shows, with each part on a different show.

In other FOX news, the network could also pick up two other animated shows: Sit Down, Shut Up and The Pitts. Wait, wasn't The Pitts a live action show that FOX had a few years ago?

Yes. Yes it was.

This must be the day for TV networks being sued. Earlier today Joel told you about China suing CNN for over a billion dollars, and now comes news that Family Guy creator/producer Seth MacFarlane and 15 of his colleagues on the show are suing 20th Century Fox.

The 16 writers claim that the studio not only didn't give them the right credit onscreen for the work they did on the Family Guy Presents Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story movie, but they also didn't pay the writers for the 12 minutes of extra footage that was made for the DVD. The lawsuit accuses Fox of breach of contract and deceit. It's interesting how this show was canceled and only brought back because of strong DVD sales, and now a DVD is causing tension between the writers and the studio.

No word yet on how much money or damages the group is seeking. I wonder if the lawsuit will make its way into an episode of the show?

Oh, Peter. They're breaking up that old gang of ours! There's a spin-off of Family Guy in the works at Fox. Peter's drinking buddy, Cleveland Brown, might be getting his own show. Oh no, does this mean he may be leaving Quahog? What, no more get-togethers at The Drunken Clam? (Note to self: He's an animated character; he could still be part of Family Guy.)

Cleveland is perhaps the most down to earth of Peter's pals on Family Guy, which could make him the perfect centerpiece of a new cartoon series. Zany new characters could be built around him. If history repeats itself, he could be the George Jefferson to Peter Griffin's Archie Bunker, i.e., The Jeffersons spinning off from All in the Family.

On a night when Seth MacFarlane's mother is willing to come onstage and in exchange for her son paying off one of her credit cards, she'll say, "Suck my dick, Carnegie Hall," you know anything is possible.

Last night MacFarlane and Alex Borstein (she voices Lois on Family Guy) played to a sold out room at Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium. While their benefit show for the Writer's Guild of America East and the Actors Fund might have seemed out of place in the house that music from the likes of Beethoven and Bach helped to build, the two comedians wasted no time in making the whole room feel like a filthy dive bar. Obscene. Insulting. Vulgar. Enjoyable.

Right from the start it was no holds barred, as Borstein introduced herself and the theme for the evening: pretend you're on the subway and you just picked up "some retard's iPod."

Family Guy reaches a milestone on November 4th: 100 episodes. To celebrate, the animated series is having a special 'Best Of' episode. I'm hoping it will include moments from the first run of Family Guy, before it was canceled and then resurrected.

The actual 100th episode is about Stewie's quest to actually kill Lois when she and Peter leave him behind to go on a cruise. It airs at its normal time slot, 9 pm. The retrospective special airs at 8:30 pm on FOX on November 4th. That means it's replacing King of the Hill for one night.

Hmmm... best moments of Family Guy? Pretty much anything with Stewie gets my vote. What are your favorite moments?

Now that The Simpsons has made a successful jump from the small screen to the big (a billion bucks worldwide so far!), people are talking about bringing another FOX animated series, Family Guy, to your local theater as well. But does it have enough of an audience for such a project?

Seth MacFarlane isn't sure, but he has a live-action cast picked out. Rosie O'Donnell would be Peter (a very scary Peter), David Hyde Pierce would be Stewie (?), Ann Coulter would be Brian, Phillip Seymour Hoffman would play Chris, Juliette Lewis would be Meg, and Kathy Griffin would portray Lois.

(S06E01) A long time ago, but somehow in the future . . .

Who would've thunk it? When Family Guy premiered back in 1999(!) many people tossed it away as a pale imitation of The Simpsons and kind of ignored it. Who knew that eight years later, at the start of the show's 6th season, Seth MacFarlane and his crew would be able to get the approval of George Lucas himself to air a spoof of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. It shows how far Family Guy has come since it returned to the prime-time airwaves.

Yeah, I'm repeating myself, but the only two words that come to mind about today's Family Guy table read/lunch session are: freakin' sweet!

And I'm not just talking about the FG swag (pens, notebooks, inflatable Brian dolls) either. The cast of FG is doing a live table read of the show's 100th episode titled "Stewie Kills Lois." The title says it all!

A FOX publicist advises anyone of the faint of heart and all non-Quagmire-types to consider making their way to the exit door. I don't see anyone leave.

Well, it's a trailer for a short film called Life is Short starring Samm Levine of Freaks and Geeks along with Family Guy and American Dad creator Seth MacFarlane.

Levine plays a short guy who has a thing for women much taller than himself. MacFarlane plays his life coach who encourages him to leave his girlfriend to pursue giant women ("giant" being a relative term in this case). The trailer was posted by the short's director, Riki Lindhome, who says the full 12-minute version should be on YouTube in six months, and since he left that comment five months ago, I suspect it should pop up sometime next month. That's how amazing my math skills are.

Before action figures became collectibles that should never, ever be removed from their little plastic bubble packaging boys and girls actually played with them. Sometimes, the adventures that these little characters had were not what they were intended for. In fact, I'm sure that some of these action figures did things that would make a grown man blush.

Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane has been given the greenlight from George Lucas to do his own take on Star Wars, using the characters from Family Guy. The Star Wars "spoof" will open next season, but MacFarlane previewed some of the episode for the Star Wars fans at last month's convention.

The clip is a whopping ten minutes long (the episode will be one hour) and the very beginning of it either borrows a joke from or gives a nod to Spaceballs, with a bumper sticker on the back of Darth Vader's ship. Unfortunately, it's a little hard to hear all of the jokes over the audience, but what you can hear is pretty funny. It looks well thought-out, like something MacFarlane has been thinking about doing for a long time.

Video is after the jump:

It hasn't even been a week since Family Guy wrapped for the season, but already there's buzz about next season's premiere. The cartoon has received George Lucas' blessing to spoof Star Wars. The episode will be an hour-long and use the Family Guy characters to recreate Star Wars. So, Peter Griffin will be Han Solo, Lois will be Leia, Stewie will be Darth Vader, Brian will be Chewbacca, Chris will be Luke. Etc, etc.

This is interesting because we're already going to see a Star Wars spoof from Robot Chicken next month, which not only has Lucas' blessing but also his cooperation. Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane often voices characters on Robot Chicken and Seth Green produces Robot Chicken but also voices 'Chris' on Family Guy. Not sure if this all came together by coincidence or what.

MacFarlane will premiere some of the Family Guy/Star Wars spoof at this weekend's Star Wars convention in LA.