The Family Guy Goes Online

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The Family Guy Goes Online

Loved by fans, loathed by some critics, Seth MacFarlane is rolling out a new series through Google -- and redrawing the rules of animation.

By JOHN JURGENSEN
September 5, 2008; Page W1

A talking dog with a crush on his owner's wife. An American baby with a British accent. These are among the legion of cartoon characters played by Seth MacFarlane, creator of the animated hit "Family Guy." Now, the 34-year-old who could pass for one of his show's fratboy fans has stepped into a new role: multimedia mogul.

WSJ's John Jurgensen takes a tour of the Family Guy and American Dad office in Los Angeles. He gives a behind the scenes look at the production of the two shows, which was created by Seth MacFarlane.

A rapid ascent in television has set Mr. MacFarlane up for what will be a closely watched push onto the Web. On Wednesday, dozens of his short cartoons will start rolling out through Google to a variety of sites, making Mr. MacFarlane the first major producer to get a ride on the Web giant's network. "It's a big experiment," he says.

The project could change the way entertainment is distributed on the Web. It also underscores Mr. MacFarlane's broader rise as a producer, writer, actor and artist with sway over coveted viewers. Among young men, only NFL football and "American Idol" outperformed "Family Guy" in the TV ratings last season, according to Nielsen Media Research. On DVD, the series has generated more than $386 million in total sales, putting it just behind such top sellers as "Seinfeld," according to Adams Media Research.

In May, Mr. MacFarlane signed the largest TV contract in recent history, a renewed deal with his studio, 20th Century Fox Television, that will earn him more than $100 million by its expiration in 2012. The size of his haul will hinge on merchandise sales and other variables, including how a new addition to the "Family Guy" franchise will fare. A spinoff series around a black character named Cleveland Brown is in production, slated for a launch on Fox in 2009. 20th Century Fox Television is owned by News Corp., which also owns Dow Jones & Co., the publisher of The Wall Street Journal.

Cartoonist Matt Groening, creator of "The Simpsons," says, "He's laid the groundwork with this smash hit show and now, with new media opening up and Seth's specific kind of rapid-fire visual humor, how to exploit it just depends on how ambitious he wants to be."

Mr. MacFarlane's work has also drawn criticism in the comedy world, however, where some writers have mocked "Family Guy" as derivative or gratuitously offensive.

In the Google series, "Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy," fans of his TV shows will see some familiar themes, including celebrity takedowns and surreal scenarios. In one "Cavalcade" sketch the actor Matthew McConaughey (voiced by another actor, Seth Green) is adrift in a life raft, nattering on about his easy success and "metal-like abdominal muscles" as a fellow castaway devours him limb by limb.

Steve LaBadessa for The Wall Street Journal

Mr. MacFarlane with cutouts of 'Family Guy' characters.

Fifty "Cavalcade" clips will run, a new one each week, on such sites as Sethcomedy.com and YouTube. In addition, using data submitted by the sites in its pervasive advertising network, Google will deliver "Cavalcade" clips to pages visited primarily by 18- to 34-year-old men. In a new twist in the way entertainment is distributed, visitors to sites including Fandango.com and men's magazine Maxim.com might see a "Cavalcade" cartoon play in a slot where a banner ad or video promo would normally appear.

Google won't say how many sites it will be pushing the clips to, but the series' first sponsor, Burger King, has set a goal of millions of viewers. (Mr. MacFarlane created a new cartoon version of the chain's crowned mascot.) For Google, leveraging its reach is part of an effort to play middleman to Hollywood talent coming online. "We can work with more and more Seths and connect them to advertisers," says Alexandra Levy, director of branded entertainment at Google.

Jumping online allows Mr. MacFarlane to let loose with the raunchiness that he's had to keep in check on public airwaves or reserve for his DVD releases. "We give him full creative control," says Dan Goodman, president of digital media at Media Rights Capital, the independent studio that brokered and financed the "Cavalcade" deal. In the sketches where Mr. MacFarlane has sprinkled F-words, for example, the "nonsense" standards of TV decency don't apply, the cartoonist says, "so there's no limit on how funny it can be." (Bleeped versions of "Cavalcade" clips will go to some sites based on the profile of their visitors.)

Soon after Mr. MacFarlane's TV contract lapsed, his representatives used that window to sign the multimedia pact with MRC. "In a completely perfect world he wouldn't be able to do that," says Dana Walden, chairman of 20th Century Fox Television. However, because of the exclusivity in the TV contract Mr. McFarlane eventually signed, any TV projects that might spring from "Cavalcade" would go through Fox.

HBO

'Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy'

All this has flowed from "Family Guy," which first aired on Fox in 1999. A show that draws on and satirizes TV shows from "All in the Family" to "The Flintstones," "Family Guy" centers on a tubby simpleton named Peter Griffin and his family, which includes Brian, a dry-witted dog with addictive tendencies, and the gleefully sadistic toddler Stewie. Mr. MacFarlane performs the voices of these characters and many others that pop up in the non sequitur cutaway scenes that are his trademark. In one example, Mr. MacFarlane mimics a strung-out Cookie Monster who is locked away in rehab for his addiction to cookies.

During a recent group reading of a new script in his L.A. office, he sat at the head of a long table, sporting stubble on his cheeks and mussed short black hair. He wore reading glasses and sipped from a tall cup of Throat Coat tea to soothe his vocal chords as he traded lines with actors around the table. Often Mr. MacFarlane exchanged rapid dialogue with himself, thrusting out his chin to do Stewie or squeezing Peter's New England brogue out of the side of his mouth.

In the episode, Brian's novel, "Faster Than the Speed of Love," has been embraced by a society of mentally disabled book lovers. Peter, who turns out to be a member, is shocked to discover his own dog is the star author. "You're THE Brian Griffin!" Mr. MacFarlane squawked as Peter. In reply, he stammered in Brian's back-of-the-throat baritone, which resembles Mr. MacFarlane's real-life speaking voice.

Actor Seth Green, who does the cracked voice of Peter's adolescent son Chris, says, "Seth could go toe-to-toe with any actor." Mr. MacFarlane recently supplied the voice of a supernatural creature with a German accent in the movie "Hellboy II."

Stewie Griffin is Mr. MacFarlane's biggest breakout character. Stewie's ovoid head emblazons T-shirts, posters and merchandise that often match the subversive tone of "Family Guy," such as figurines outfitted in bondage gear. Total merchandise sales have climbed into the "hundreds of millions" of dollars, Fox says. Though it doesn't touch the fortune that "The Simpsons" generates with hundreds of licensees, "Family Guy" currently has 80 licensees. Discussions are underway with a brewery that would make real cans of Pawtucket Patriot Ale, Peter Griffin's brew of choice.

After the table-reading, Mr. MacFarlane headed to the writers' room carrying a dribbling sandwich wrap. Tacked to the walls, reference drawings marked the proportions of recurring characters, such as an Evil Monkey -- always pointing an accusatory finger. About a dozen writers tipped back in their chairs, volleying cutting remarks across the table at each other. They had gauged the laughs from the guests invited to the reading, scribbling checkmarks next to lines that got strong laughs, question marks beside bits that needed work.

FOX

The coming cartoon series 'The Cleveland Show.'

On the same floor is the staff of "American Dad," a series about a paranoid CIA agent and his family. (Launched in 2005, the show has a similar style to "Family Guy" but a smaller following.) Production is also under way on the upcoming "Family Guy" spinoff, "The Cleveland Show." It centers on Peter's languid bar buddy (voiced by the show's co-creator, Mike Henry), who moves to fictional Stoolbend, Va., and takes up with new family members and neighbors, including a clan of talking bears.

Mr. MacFarlane leads a team of about 320 producers, writers, animators and support staffers, but he oversees all aspects of production. Running late for a massage therapy appointment recently, he demonstrated how tension in his neck kept it from swiveling more than a few inches.

With a surplus of jokes about race, religion and sexual orientation, Mr. MacFarlane's work draws a line back to insult comics like Don Rickles. But the key to Mr. MacFarlane's relevance with young viewers is the way his team mixes sophomoric shtick (poop jokes) with scattershot cultural references, from the popular (parodies of celebrities, classic TV shows and movies) to the obscure (Peter, in the nude, remarks on the symbolism in Robert Frost's "Birches"). The seventh season of "Family Guy," starting Sept. 28, will include a send-up of "The Empire Strikes Back"; it's the second "Star Wars" homage the show has done with the blessing of George Lucas.

"We do try to walk a balance between high brow and low brow because both are indubitably funny. Woody Allen and Albert Brooks make me laugh and so does 'Jackass.' Those are legitimate laughs," Mr. MacFarlane says.

When it comes to pop culture, Mr. MacFarlane is a crank. He says the only TV series he watches regularly is comic Bill Maher's political talk show. Musically, he's partial to Frank Sinatra and vocal groups like the Hi-Los. His iPhone rings with the overture from "South Pacific."

"Family Guy" received an Emmy award for its music, and Mr. MacFarlane has won for his voice acting (his Stewie character). But neither of his shows has won in the bigger category of animation. This year, for the first time, he submitted "Family Guy" for contention as a comedy series, but it didn't get a nomination. (No animated series ever has.) "Our goal was to rattle people and say what we're doing is the same as what [sitcoms] do, and if you look at the ratings you've got to take us seriously," he says.

Awards aside, Mr. MacFarlane's work has been more popular with viewers than critics or some of his industry peers. "South Park," the bawdy Comedy Central cartoon, once depicted "Family Guy" writers as manatees that poke at random "idea balls" to compile plots. "The Simpsons" has also taken shots at the show -- and "Family Guy" has returned fire.

In a recent cutaway scene, a depraved "Family Guy" character shoots the Simpsons family off camera. (The scene didn't run on Fox, but did air on cable and will be included on a DVD release.) "I think they pushed it too far," Mr. Groening says. "If our characters are going to be killed, we'll do it ourselves."

Mr. MacFarlane, who often talks about his friendly relationship with Mr. Groening, responds, "It has to be something really bad for him to react that way. I may have to give that a second look."

The cartoonist grew up in Kent, Conn., in a household where his father (a teacher), his mother (a school staffer) and younger sister shared a naughty sense of humor. When he wasn't practicing piano, playing trombone in the school band or singing in the church choir, he drew. He pored over books about animation and shot crude cartoons with an eight-millimeter camera, always with an aim toward going pro, he says.

Find television listings for "Family Guy" and Seth MacFarlane at LocateTV.

In college, at the Rhode Island School of Design, he developed a "Family Guy" prototype called "Life of Larry." It teamed a talking dog with his boorish owner, and took abrupt tangents to riff on "Star Trek" and "West Side Story."

After graduating, he took a job in the L.A. animation studio of Hanna-Barbera. Within a year he met Fox executives who took quick interest in his concept. They gave him about $50,000 and he came back with a seven-minute pilot. "Family Guy" got a huge push, airing after the 1999 Super Bowl on Fox. But that brilliant debut faded quickly as the show was shifted around the schedule and ratings dropped. Fox canceled "Family Guy" after three seasons.

But during late-night reruns on the Adult Swim block on cable, "Family Guy" found its fans. The cult following fueled huge sales of the first seasons on DVD, prompting Fox to put the show back on the air in 2005, three years after it'd been dropped.

As part of the terms of his renewed TV contract, he hopes to develop a live-action sitcom for Fox. Also on deck is a long talked-about "Family Guy" movie, plus a feature-length buddy comedy that he's planning with Mr. Green.

With the accompanying influx of money, Mr. MacFarlane says, "I bought a house and I don't fly commercial anymore. Those are the only two things that changed." For perspective, he invokes one of his heroes, a producer of TV shows such as "All in the Family." Mr. MacFarlane says, "I'm sure Norman Lear was doing a lot better in his day."