Fox Considering a Return of "Family Guy"

wo1verin3 writes: "USA Today is reporting that all is not lost and due to exceptionally strong DVD sales Family Guy may return with as many as 35 new episodes! A DVD set of the show's first 28 episodes, released in April, has sold nearly 1 million copies, making it this year's top-selling TV show and the No. 4 television title ever, according to Video Store magazine."

Re:Better Than The Simpsons?

[Andorion]

Family guy has more witty comedy packed into a half hour than any other show I've seen... it's offensive at times (Stewie often plots to kill his mom, and unlike Homer who's funny because of his ignorant, Peter is ignorant and often often *mean*). Still, if that sort of humor doesn't bother you there are some real gems in each episode, real "laugh out loud" moments, which is rare nowadays.

~Berj

Re:Can anyone tell me

[The Night Watchman]

what the "banned episode" is about? too lazy to google ;-)

It's called "When You Wish Upon a Weinstein", and it's about Peter getting into financial trouble and making a wish for a Jew to come save him, because he thinks all Jewish people are financial geniuses. I thought it was relatively tame compared to some of the other things they've done, particularly the "Special People's Games" episode. In any case, the episode is available on DVD Volume 2, and it's a joy to watch.

---

Sorry

[Pan T. Hose]

Sorry, I accidentally hit Submit instead of Preview. Here [gotfuturama.com]'s another story on topic. (Please don't troll, it's an unmoderated forum.) The question is, why does Fox consider a return of Family Guy, a show about an average drunk Joe "General Public" Sixpack family, instead of the best science fiction show ever invented? Don't they want the support of intelligent geek/nerd/Slashdot community anymore? I don't understand. Could some "insider" comment on this issue?

Re:Woo Hoo!

[Anonymous Coward]

Barney (Rubble) was the idiot.

Re:Better Than The Simpsons?

[Kentamanos]

The show is very clever. Some of the things they parody are brilliant.

Ever seen the episode where Stewie says "I know what it takes to be cool" and then imagines himself doing an Elton John "Rocket Man" spoken word exactly like the one William Shatner did?

Ever seen the episode with the National Gun Association? They talk about how child gun safety is a top priority. They then show a video with a kid talking to a puppet gun (Petey the Pistol, I believe). Petey says he gets lonely and wants the kid to hold him. He also says "when you squeeze me, I make the bad people go away". Insanely funny...

I know I'm not doing these two scenes in particular justice, but the show really is great. Find a friend who has the DVDs and give them a watch or check out the episodes on Adult Swim.

Re:Bloody Hell

[Anonymous Coward]

Todd McFarlane != Seth McFarlane

Re:Bloody Hell

[Anonymous Coward]

Seth MacFarlane (the creator) said that Stewie was based on Rex Harrison, who was Professor Higgins in My Fair Lady. I can definitely see that.

~Scotty B.

Re:Woo Hoo!

[CrowScape]

But they aren't "new" new episodes, they are episodes that are new to Cartoon Network.

Re:FireFly

[MysticGlyph]

That was the scene that made me want to watch Firefly every friday night. When he kicked him into the engine I stood up laughing and telling my wife this is the best friggin sci-fi show on tv! I have a buddy in the special effects industry who actually worked on effects shots for Firefly. He's not allowed to say anything but from subtle hints I garnered that Firefly probably ain't dead, which leads me to believe that either SciFi channel will be picking it up, or at the verry least a DVD with unreleased episodes (maybe even an entire unseen season)! is in the works ...Keeping my fingers crossed ...jeez I loved that show.

Re:Can anyone tell me

[use_compress]

Even when they played it on Cartoon Network, it wasn't completely uncensored. They changed Peter's line "Even though they killed my lord," to "I don't think they killed my lord."

Re:Bloody Hell

[freeweed]

Heh. Dude, Seth MacFarlane is not the creator of Spawn / co-founder of Image Comics.

That's Todd MacFarlane you're thinking of :)

Re:His chin disturbs me

[NamShubCMX]

There's actually a (very funny) joke about this in an episode (the episode with the "special people olympics")

Re:Why Family Guy?

[canajin56]

Speaking of overly sensitive, my favorite Family Guy quote is
"Why, that's outragous! I've got to do something!"
"There's nothing you CAN do"
"Well, I guess I'll just have to develop a sense of humor, then"

Re:FireFly

[Anonymous Coward]

All the episodes of Firefly, including the unaired ones and a slew of extras will be on the upcoming DVD release, Dec. 12th. And..they're filming a movie. Filming starts in Australia around Easter with a tentative release of fall 2004. I agree it was the best television I've seen in years, and that's from someone who quit watching TV five years ago. I just happened to check out Firefly via download due to a post here.

FIREFLY!

[Grendel Drago]

The sad part is that they kill great shows to promote ones with far less lasting power.

Indeed. *cough* Firefly *cough*...

--grendel drago

Re:Pick a day, any day...

[xalres]

From what I heard from when Seth Green was on Love Line. It was a huge fan success with a fanatical following but there was one guy way way WAY up the ladder at Fox that just didn't get the show and didn't like it. He made the decision to switch the times around and drop airings from the schedule at random (a surefire way to get a ratings drop if you want a show pulled).

How do you like that eh? The best show on television with a huge fanbase pulled because of one ass-hat at the top. That's Hollywood for you. But hey, at least we have gems like American Idol and Joe Millionaire (1 and 2) to fill the quality TV gap left by Family Guy. I hope that exec gets slapped and sterilized.

Re:The ANSWER is...

[adamanthaea]

They also cut out the "although they killed our Lord" from the Wish Upon a Weinstein episode. And the Osama Bin Laden references are cut of adult swim and the dvd. The Osama references were cut at the request of the creator. Apparently, he was almost killed on 9/11 and thus had it pulled. I think it's a shame, because that bit was really freaking funny, but it's harder to get pissed at that cut than at a lot I've seen.

Re:Not Curiosity/Firefly DVD

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I have good news then. Tivo is selling ratings. That means geeks are enjoying an unsually strong instance of influencing TV.

Re:FIREFLY!

[Scrameustache]

I don't get the big deal about firefly it was a patent rip off of Farscape.

Lessee...

Living spacecraft? Nope.
Muppets? Nope.
Aliens? Nope.
Stranded, confused human in a strange alien civilisation? Nope.
Screeching noise passing as intro music? Nope.

Maybe the other way around...

Pilot that plays with toy dinosaurs to pass the time during spaflight? Nope.
Shameless western feel? Nope.
Cute geek girl? Nope.
Outlaw badass captain? Nope.

Yeah...exactly alike.

Re:The ANSWER is...

[Gid1]

Not strictly accurate: http://www.bupipedream.com/091903/release/r1.htm [bupipedream.com]

Despite his close-call experience on 9/11, MacFarlane regrets that "Rhode to Rhode Island" was cut from the DVD because it contains an Osama bin Laden joke - made well before 9/11/01.

Also, http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/429/429628p7.htm l [ign.com]:

IGNFF: What was the issue about the Osama Bin Laden joke, which made it to air originally, was excised from the re-air, and was excised from the disc?

MACFARLANE: Yeah, again, that was one that the more I field this question, the more I think it should have been on. I was kind of neutral. They said, "Listen, we think we might cut this out," and I said, "Well, I don't know." [...] Yeah, my argument was, "Well, look. I missed that flight by 10 minutes and I'm okay with putting it on." I don't know. There were two arguments. There was the argument that, well, you know, it's an interesting piece of entertainment history and it was made two years before this happened, which I tend to agree with. It's just - take it for what it is.