Family Guy is one of the most popular shows on air to date. The show revolves around the Griffin family, a seemingly normal family that just can not stay away from crazy antics and situations. They are always making fun of one another, but at the end of the day, they always have each other's back and at least try to do the right thing.
Peter is the father and can be a bit ignorant at times, and Lois is his wife as well as a stay at home mother to their three children. Meg is the oldest of the children and always getting picked on at home and in school. Chris is the middle child and is in the awkward phase of his life where he doesn't really know how to act around the opposite gender. Now, Stewie is the youngest, but is a genius baby who is intent on doing whatever he wants, whenever he wants. The Griffin family also has a dog named Brian who is not really like a dog as he walks on two legs and talks non stop.
This show premiered in 1999 and has been on air basically since. Although it has had two cancelations, fans can't seem to get enough of the crazy Griffin family. So, what have fans missed about this show? As it turns out, a lot! Here are some of the behind-the-scenes (and otherwise) things that many don't catch on to. Read on to find out!
30 Meg's Full Name Is Megatron
The show is always revealing little things about the characters that the viewers didn’t know before. Finding out that Meg’s real name was actually Megatron was not a big shock, seeing as she has two of the strangest parents in TV history. It turns out that after her mother named her Megan, her father took it upon himself to have her name changed to Megatron. Despite Megatron being her actual name, she is still commonly called Megan by her family and teachers. Meg always knew that her real name was Megatron, but did her best to hide it as she was a bit embarrassed that her father would name her that.
29 Lois Was Originally Blonde
Lois is the matriarch of the Griffin family although her children show little respect for her and her husband seems to disregard everything that she says. Nonetheless she keeps the family in check and makes sure that everything in the household is running smoothly. Lois was originally meant to be a blonde and was blonde all the way up until the final draft of the show. Right before the show was complete she was given red hair and has remained so. This may explain why Chris has blonde hair in the series as his mother was meant to be a blonde.
28 Meg's A Joke Because The Writers Weren't Sure How To Write Her
Meg has been on the other end of most of her family’s jokes since the beginning of the series. She is always being picked on and made fun of for her looks, personality, and the things that she likes.
However, she takes it pretty well and is basically used to it by now.
Meg being the punching bag for most of the family is not by accident and is actually because the writers of the show are not sure how to write an accurate and funny script for a teenage girl. Seth McFarlane stated in an interview once that this was the result of a bunch of male writers.
27 Chris' Middle Name Is Cross
Chris is the middle child in the Griffin family and during the show, he is at that awkward stage in his childhood where is a teenager but still doesn’t know how to act around girls.
Despite this, he is happy and well-intentioned, possibly the nicest one out of the whole family.
It makes sense that Chris’ middle name is Cross, seeing that his father was raised in a very religious family and it was stated that he was very dedicated to religion in his younger years. It's also a reference to a famous person.
26 Quagmire Is 70
Quagmire is a neighbor and a very close friend of the Griffin family. He has been featured in the series for a while now and is a bachelor who works as a commercial airline pilot. Over the course of the show, he has had two spouses but has since divorced both of them. He is not the greatest person and a bit self-centered. His age is discovered when his license is shown in one of the episodes. Despite being 70 he does not age on the show and it doesn’t look like he is even a day over 40.
25 Bonnie Swanson Was Pregnant For 7 Years
Bonnie Swanson is the neighbor of the Griffin family and married to Joe Swanson. Bonnie and her husband are often featured in the show along with their children. The couple has two children, Kevin and Susie; however, Bonnie was pregnant with Susie for the first 116 episodes of the series.
Peter even acknowledged in one episode that Bonnie was pregnant for over six years and told her that she had to have the baby sooner or later.
This show is different because although it acknowledges the time changes, the characters never really age or change much in appearance or personality.
24 Meg Was Originally Voiced By Gretchen Weiners
Meg is the only daughter in the Griffin family and takes a lot of heat as a result. She has been voiced by a couple of different actresses over the course of the series, but the first actress that ever voiced her was Lacey Chabert. Lacey Chabert is most known for her role in Mean Girls as Gretchen Weiners. Sadly, she only voiced Meg for one season when the show first premiered in 1999 before leaving to continue her acting career in movies. Since her role in Mean Girls in 2004, she has not had too many other well-known roles.
23 It Takes A Full Year To Complete An Episode
Animated shows are a lot of work, and even more goes into them behind the scenes in order to make them appear the way to the reader. Each frame must be right or else the entire flow of the scene will be wrong.
To create just one episode of Family Guy, it takes a year of shooting, filming, and editing to get everything just right.
As a result, they have to work on multiple episodes at a time to ensure that viewers are getting a consistent number of new episodes instead of waiting an entire year for a new one.
22 Nearly Every Episode Has 2 Versions
One thing that many fans do not know is that every episode has two different versions. One of the versions is edited for TV, meaning that it has everything that is allowed to air on TV and nothing that isn’t.
The episodes that are meant for DVD have a lot more humor and other scenes that would get flagged on TV.
Most fans of the show prefer the episodes on DVD because they get the full Family Guy experience with none of the editing for content. All seasons of the show are available on DVD.
21 The Reaper Was Meant To Be In Every Episode
If you have ever watched Family Guy, then you probably know exactly who we are talking about when we say "The Reaper." In the show, he is a full-blown character who even develops as the series progresses. In the first four episodes of the show, he is a main focus as this was the original idea for the show. However, the idea to have him in every episode was dropped. Even though he is not seen in every episode, morbidity is a major theme of the show as a whole and often featured in episodes of the show.
20 The Opening Credits Are Based On All In The Family
All In The Family was a very popular sitcom in the 1970s that told the story of a typical American family. The show featured Archie Bunker and his wife Edith. Much of Family Guy mirrors this other show, even though they are very different in theme and deliverance. The beginning of the Family Guy theme song is identical to the theme song of the other show, and the rest pays homage to the beloved sitcom. Since the show's dynamic is the same, the creator Seth McFarlane decided to give a little nudge in that direction with the opening theme song.
19 Mila Kunis Was Only 16 When She Started On The Show
When Mila Kunis first started voicing Meg, after Lacey, she was brand new to the acting scene and eager to get her name in the door in Hollywood. Nowadays, she is one of the biggest names in Hollywood and always popping up with leading roles in new movies.
This is the main reason that Meg’s role in the show has seemed to diminish a little bit, since Mila has become a lot busier.
She has now been voicing Meg for almost twenty years, so there is no way that she can quit now, no matter how big she gets!
18 The Chicken's Name Is Ernie
Ernie is a giant chicken on the show that Peter has a long-standing feud with. Ernie is known for showing up in the middle of a scene and messing with Peter before a physical altercation takes place.
The whole feud between this chicken and Peter began with Ernie giving Peter an expired coupon.
As a result, Peter no longer accepts any coupons from chickens. The chicken usually has the upper hand in their fights that always result in casualties and destruction of the environment around them. This chicken, Ernie, is the most commonly recurring antagonist in the entire series.
17 The Show Has Been Canceled Twice
This show has actually been canceled not once but twice. The show was canceled because the show just did not have the right amount of viewers. However, once the network announced that the show would be ending, fans became outraged. They bought the DVDs, watched reruns on Cartoon Network, and created a petition that was signed by thousands of fans around the world. Once the network executives saw all that they were doing, they decided that even though the show didn’t have a ton of viewers it did have dedicated viewers.
16 George Lucas Loves The Show
There are a ton of celebs who love the show and have talked about their love for the show. George Lucas is one of these celebs. George Lucas is a filmmaker who is best known as the creator of the Star Wars franchise, as well as the Indiana Jones franchise. Family Guy often includes skits about Star Wars in their episodes, so it is a good thing that George Lucas is a fan of theirs. George’s company, Lucasfilm, gave the network the okay to use Star Wars references in the show so they didn’t have to worry about the wrath of the company.
15 Seth's Favorite Moment Is Peter Feeding Tom Selleck
Seth MacFarlane is the creator of the show as well as the voice of the main character, Peter Griffin. The show is basically his baby as he had to fight to get it and keep it on the air. With that being said, he genuinely likes the show and enjoys watching it.
His all-time favorite moment, however, is when Peter was trying to feed Tom Selleck through the television screen.
During this episode, Peter is up to his old antics and attempts to feed Selleck beans through the television screen. Of course, this does not prove to be successful!
14 Family Guy Was Supposed To Be A Series Of Shorts
Family Guy was a tough show to get on the air, as not many people were willing to take the risk of putting such a show on television. When Seth MacFarlane first got someone to agree to his show, it was supposed to be a series of shorts that would not be on air for very long. Obviously, this show was a pretty big hit and just what the network was missing. Nowadays the show has been on the air for almost two decades. The characters have become household names and everyone can't seem to get enough of their crazy antics.
13 South Park's Creators Don't Like Family Guy
South Park is another show on TV that is mainly about poking fun at its characters, history, and everything pop culture. Even though the two shows are similar, the creators of South Park are not fans of the show and actually have stated in multiple interviews that they don’t like the creators of Family Guy. As a result of this feud, the shows enjoy poking fun at one another. Luckily, everyone is able to take a joke and nothing has escalated among the creators of the show.
12 Brian Perished, But Returned 2 Episodes Later
Brian is the Griffin family’s dog, but he is not like everyone else’s family dog. He is actually a writer who is struggling to find his voice and tries different forms of writing to do so. He is primarily treated as a human.
When Brian perished, everyone was shocked and upset that they decided to take away an important member of the family.
Fans were so upset that they rallied behind Brian and worked hard to get him back. Their work did not go unrewarded, as he was brought back just two episodes later. He has remained on the show since then.
11 Peter Griffin Was Inspired By A Real Person
Peter Griffin is the main character on the show, as he is the father of the family and always getting into some crazy antics. What many fans do not know is that he is actually inspired by a real person that MacFarlane knew in real life. Peter is inspired by a security guard at the college that MacFarlane attended in Boston. The creator of the show said that he loved his thick and heavy accent as well as his deep voice. As soon as MacFarlane thought up the idea for Family Guy, he knew that this is what the patriarch of the Griffin family should sound like.