Planet Family Guy

There's a new episode of Family Guy tonight at 9pm ET/PT on Fox, Go Stewie Go:-

"Stewie wants to audition for his favorite show, "Jolly Farm," but when he finds out they are only auditioning little girls, he creates and alter ego by dressing up a la "Tootsie." Meanwhile, Meg finds herself a normal guy to date and shocks the entire city of Quahog."

The cast of Family Guy have been talking about the third installment of their Star Wars parody We Have A Bad Feeling About This at Paley Fest. According to Alex Borstein there will definitely by a slave 'Leia' Lois and that Lois' opinion of the geek-hot costume will "probably mirror that of Carrie Fisher's actual real life distain for the uncomfortable and humiliating garb." Alex also confessed to be a total Star Wars nerd.

Everyone was mostly quiet on the details but Seth Green contributed, "there'll be Ewoks in it!" Seth MacFarlane made a little more noise on the subject of the infamous Jedi Ewoks: "You know I was never as down on Ewoks as other people were. I don't see what the difference is. Everyone s***s on the Ewoks and no one s***s on the Jawas. I don't understand why that is. They're both little dwarves in suits. They both make little cutesy noises. What's the difference? The Ewoks are fuzzier."

So, any plans for further parody shows? "It’s all about legal rights," MacFarlane confessed (reported by IGN). "It’s all about who will give us the movie rights. [George] Lucas was incredibly cool about it. His company is very progressive and I don’t know that Paramount would say yes. We haven’t asked them though." MacFarlane did express interest ultimately. "Yeah, that would be a good time. The Wrath of Khan would be a logical one for us to do" So no mention of Indiana Jones then.

A couple of dates for the next Family Guy DVD release in the UK have been announced by a number of UK retailers: Family Guy Season 9 (in real terms season 8) will be out in British stores on May 24th according to some, or November 1st by others. Either way we do now have some details of what to expect. Special features include: The Multiverse Effect, Family Guy Sings-A-Long Karoke, audio commentaries, and deleted scenes. The 15 episodes on the DVDs will be:-

• Fox-y Lady
• Not All Dogs Go To Heaven
• 420
• Stew-Roids
• We Love You Conrad
• Three Kings
• Peter's Progress (Season Finale)
• Road to Multi-verse (Season Premiere)
• Family Goy
• Spies Reminiscent of Us
• Brian's Got A Brand New Bag
• Hannah Banana
• Quagmire's Baby
• Jerome Is The New Black
• Dog Gone

Partial Terms of Endearment, the banned from US television abortion episode, will not feature in this release.

Alex Borstein has been talking to IF Magazine and has revealed some details of Seth MacFarlane's fourth animated show for Fox. Most importantly is that Alex will be very much a part of the new show, voicing the series lead character, who is female.

Alex is developing the show alongside Gary Janetti who has written for Family Guy in the past. Whilst it will look similar in style to Family Guy it will have a different feel; "It’s not a spin off of Family Guy," revealed Alex who also stated that, "it’s a little more my flavor."

Avoiding to give away too much she did confirm that the show would involve a family with pets, so not going too far away from Seth's winning format. However, the fact that the show's main character will be a woman is quite different incomparrison to most other animated sitcoms out there.

We'll report further details of this new show as we learn of it.

According to a report in the Los Angeles Times Family Guy is the show that is keeping the FCC busiest. Apparently an episode that aired back in March last year has alone generated almost 200,000 complaints.

The FCC need to deal with each complaint received fairly, but as the LA Times points out "if a show generates that many complaints odds are it had some help from an advocacy group that got its membership to take part in a mass mailing." Dan Isett, a director of the Parents Television Council who are frequently complaining about Family Guy, is apparently linked to a high volume of the complaints received.

Fox accounts for just under half of the indecency complaints made.

Family Guy cast member Seth Green has according to reports got engaged to his girlfriend Clare Grant. Clare is a model and actress and they have been going out for a couple of years now.  According to E! News: "A loose-lipped pal told E! News the duo got engaged on New Year's Eve (31.12.09) and plan to tie the knot in May."

Congratulations to the happy couple from all of us at Planet Family Guy!

Last Sunday's episode of Family Guy, Extra Large Medium, has caused controversy by insulting the Palin family. In the episode a mentally challenged character tells Chris her mother is the former governor of Alaska (Sarah Palin).

"Regardless of the obvious differences between the Family Guy character and Palin's son, this was clearly a jab at the Palin family, and they've struck back," reports BuddyTV. "Sarah's daughter Bristol took over her mother's Facebook page to respond, saying in part: 'If the writers of a particularly pathetic cartoon show thought they were being clever in mocking my brother and my family yesterday, they failed. All they proved is that they're heartless jerks.'"

However, the 39-year-old actor and public speaker Andrea Fay Friedman who played the controversial character has hit back in defense of the show. In an email to the New York Times she writes:-

I guess former Governor Palin does not have a sense of humor. I thought the line "I am the daughter of the former governor of Alaska" was very funny. I think the word is "sarcasm."

In my family we think laughing is good. My parents raised me to have a sense of humor and to live a normal life.

Andrea has Down syndrome herself.

A date for the diary: May 23rd 2010. That's when the Family Guy and The Cleveland Show season finales are scheduled according to a recent press release from Fox. The season finale of Family Guy season 8 has been put down as a one-hour special and is expected to be the television premiere of Something Something Something Dark Side which was released on DVD and Blu-ray at the end of last year (and brilliantly reviewed by Laurie).

The season premiere of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" is set to air on Friday, February 19, 2010, with guests Seth MacFarlane, Fmr. Gov. Eliot Spitzer, and Norah O'Donnell. 

Friday night’s Partners In Health charity event at The Gibson Amphitheatre featuring the casts of "Family Guy" and "It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” reportedly raised nearly $300,000 for the cause!

The table read of the abortion episode entitled “Partial Terms of Endearment” was performed by Alec Sulkin, Alex Borstein, Danny Smith, John Viener, special guest Julia Sweeney (best known for appearances on “Saturday Night Live” and her autobiographical shows), Seth Green, and Seth MacFarlane.  

Musical numbers were performed between the acts of the table read. Seth Mac performed “Prom Night Dumpster Baby.” Danny Smith and Seth sang “My Drunken Irish Dad”. Alec Sulkin (who is reportedly dating Sarah Silverman) and Seth performed “Me and Jesus”, a song that was cut from the broadcast version, but appears on the DVD version of “I Dream of Jesus.”

For more details of the Family Guy portion of the show, read the article here.