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Writer's pictureDave Giatras

Comic-Con@Home: Family Guy Panel


Image: Comic-Con International

Day 3 here at Comic-Con@Home has brought me to a panel of a show I can long remember watching: Family Guy. One of the funniest shows I have ever seen, consistently over twenty years! The panel includes creator Seth MacFarlane, executive producers Rich Appel, Alec Sulkin and Kara Vallow, as well as cast members Alex Borstein, Mila Kunis, and Seth Green.


Image: Comic-Con@Home

The panel started off with a virtual table read of the first act of a season four episode “Model Misbehavior”. It was extremely entertaining to watch, especially with MacFarlane jumping between the voices of Peter, Brian and Stewie. It gives viewers something they normally wouldn’t be able to see on television as all the recording is done in studio. You can tell that the cast really enjoys the table reads and is laughing the whole time at the jokes, just like viewers when they see the episodes on television!


The cast dove into some interesting tidbits about working on Family Guy, such as the cast agreeing that recording voiceover can give them the freedom to “step on the gas” a little more in their performances since they are not on camera. Seth Green talked about how he based his character Chris’ voice off of Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs, something that caught MacFarlane’s eye during auditions for the show back in 1999. Mila Kunis recounted how she loves Stewie’s famous “Mom, mom, mom…” line in season five, and how she will just let her own kids discover the show themselves rather than preventing them from watching it. Seth MacFarlane answered a fan question about the character of Quagmire and if he was based off of someone he knows. Interestingly, he based Quagmire off of the voice from the commercials of old 1940’s radio dramas that he grew up watching!


Image: Fox

Something interesting that was noted during the panel was that during the pandemic, animated shows are still up and running. This is due to actors being able to record their lines remotely, as well as writers writing episodes remotely. The producers talked about how the show’s “sound genius” Patrick Clark set the main cast up remotely with at home recording studios, apart from Seth MacFarlane who has his own state of the art recording studio at his home (of course!). This led to interesting places for the actors to record: Alex Borstein records her lines in a “grow tent” typically for marijuana, Mila does hers in her kid’s closet, and Seth Green records his in a book closet that he decked out with products from Amazon! Producer Kara Vallow noted that a challenge in recording right now is setting up for actors who are not in the main cast, as some only have a few lines or less. Regardless, its good to see that the producers helped the main cast out and they are all finding ways to stay creative during this time!

Family Guy will air its 350th episode this September when it returns for its 19th season and it was brought up during the panel of how the show has changed in over twenty years. The cast noted that a change of writers from time to time brings some fresh perspective to the show and how the writers have the tough task of keeping things fresh since the show has been on the air for over twenty years.

Family Guy returns on Fox September 27th, and until then you can check out the panel here on Comic-Con International’s YouTube page and a reel of season 19 on Family Guy’s Facebook page! Stay tuned for my next post tomorrow on the final day of Comic-Con@Home!

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