"The writers of family guy didn't just kill off one of their creations, they killed off the dog who has lived in our homes for the last 15 years," reads the online petition. "They killed the dog we all have come to love. They killed America's dog!" -an online petition with over 35,000 signatures
Brian Griffin. The alcoholic pot-smoking liberal talking-dog character is known for being the voice-of-reason on FOX's animated hit "Family Guy" ever since its premiere in 1999, but on last Sunday's
"Life of Brian" episode he was struck by a car and unable to recover. The show's creator Seth McFarlane, by using his normal speaking-voice, has always voiced his opinions through Brian, but he has yet to publicly state his reasoning for taking such preliminary measures, eliminating any chance for the writers to circumvent the character's death. By having Stewie Griffin destroy his only working time machine, writers shifted the cartoon series out of sitcom-logic and into a permanent continuity. Family Guy is only half-way through their 11th season, and although the characters were never meant to
age dramatically or even acknowledge the passing of time, it can be assumed that
Brian was 14 years old and lived a full life. The Griffin family let an entire month pass by before moving on, they adopted a new dog named Vinnie, voiced by "Sopranos" star Tony Sirico.
The original white-furred, cynical, quick-witted family pet with his neutral American accent gave us his final words on November 24th:
"You've given me a wonderful life. I love you all." which as far as episodic closure goes, that's more than we could ask for from Family Guy, much less The Sopranos. It's clear the writers of Family Guy are approaching this with a careful tact and precision, as they won't be able to mishandle the character anymore, as poorly as some of the recent "Brian's relationships" or "Brian's atheism" episodes have been. McFarlane has yet to comment publicly on Brian's death, although a few creatives involved with the series have spoken out against it. FX's "Wilfred" executive producer David Zuckerman tweeted Monday that he's no longer involved with "Family Guy" but he knows
"the show's in good hands," and still hopes
"Brian isn't really dead."
"Brian will stay dead just like Superman did," -Alan Sepinwall, TV critic
"Everyone will cover Family Guy just as fervently when the 'dead character' comes back in a week or two, right?" -Dave Itzkoff, New York Times
The fans are pleading with Seth McFarlane to resurrect their beloved anthropomorphic dog using some kind of clever loophole, but most would argue that a
"ret-conning" of the episode isn't the best decision for moving forward with the series. Family Guy's been around almost 15 years without ever having to change its comedic formula-for-success, while this
other adult-oriented animated cartoon series has
Kenny McCormick. Kenny would, in the first five seasons of South Park, die violently as a running gag before returning in the next episode with little or no definitive explanation given. At one point Matt Stone & Trey Parker killed off Kenny McCormick permanently, only to bring him back for Season 7, so why can't Family Guy do the same thing with Brian? Other notable deaths in South Park include: Jerome "Chef" McElroy, Pip Pirrup, Mrs. Choksondik, Clyde Donovan's mother, Mrs. Crabtree, and the parents of Scott Tenorman who were consumed as bowls of chili. So who knows? Maybe half-way through Season 18 of the impossible-to-cancel Family Guy, maybe Brian Griffin will be magically resurrected without an explanation?
A website called
BriansAnnouncement.com was spotted by Deadline Hollywood and Variety touting a "special announcement" from the late Family Guy dog with a road sign welcoming visitors to the Griffin family's hometown of Quahog, Rhode Island. There's a countdown clock for a "special announcement from Brian" in 9 days
scheduled to hit zero on Friday, Dec. 6, at noon Eastern time. Fox has immediately called this site is
a hoax, since it was registered just yesterday in the early morning hours, plus the lack of the typical Fox legal language on the page, besides at the right-hand corner of the site in small type it says to:
"Spread the word!" Plus the fact that none of the official Family Guy or FOX social media accounts were promoting the site made it seem suspicious, although the humor seems to be well on-point with a road sign that reads,
"You are now entering QUAHOG, Rhode Island. Come Taste Our Clam." an obvious cunnilingus reference if you didn't catch that.
"Our fans are smart enough and have been loyal to our show for long enough, to know that they can trust us. We always make choices that always work to the greatest benefit of the series." -Steve Callaghan, Family Guy producer
The site claims to be a Fox production, but it appears now that it is not legit. According to Deadline.com, 20th Century Fox Television said Tuesday,
"The producers have confirmed that the ‘special announcement from Brian’ website is a hoax and was not created by anyone connected to the show, studio or network." Producer Steve Callaghan didn't drop any hints about such a site while speaking with E! News after Sunday's episode, although he did explain that the idea to kill off Brian caught on in the writers' room and was seen as
"a fun way to shake things up."
However, TVLine believes
Brian will nonetheless be resurrected around the time the countdown is set to expire, suggesting he will most likely make his return during
the upcoming "Christmas Guy" episode which revolves around Stewie plotting to get
"the one and only thing he wants for Christmas." That official plot-line is not only hard evidence for Brian's continued presence in Season 11, but also it's a heart-warming sentiment for fans of Stewie Griffin and his odd mix of evil-genius/gay-baby characteristics. It seems that Stewart Gilligan plans to re-build the time machine he destroyed in "Life of Brian" or if it's possible that Santa Claus will grant Stewie's wish, because
all he wants for Christmas is to spend it with his dog, Brian.
So where does the idea of Brian hosting a late night heaven talk-show stem from?
They didn’t anticipate this much negative outcry over the death of Brian. And they didn’t initially have thoughts of doing a spin-off show, but now, those discussions have started ever so slightly. It’s nowhere [near] a lock, but a discussion has [happened.]
Let's look at a few "special" episodes of Family Guy that could be foreshadowing an eventual spin-off and a new direction for McFarlane's abrasive writing talent.
Up Late With Stewie and Brian
This one-off mock-up of a late night talk show filmed live from Quahog Community Center, "Up Late" was an animated late night talk show that aired on FOX in February of 2007. Stewie played the part of a
Johnny Carson-type late night host and Brian was his
Ed McMahon-esque comedic sidekick. After the monologue Stewie has a segment called "Stewie Calls His Mother" where he calls Lois and says "I'm gonna fukin' kill you!" and then hangs up on her. After a break they do another segment called Funny Obits in which Stewie reads "funny" obituaries from the newspaper. After that they introduce
Rob Corddry star of "The Winner" Stewie asks Rob a couple of questions and pisses him off. Corddry curses them both and leaves the show. They then show a clip from "The Winner" and go off the air.
Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story
Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story was a 2005 direct-to-DVD animated comedy film set in the Family Guy fictional universe. Released on September 27, 2005, the film's main plot point concerns Stewie Griffin trying to find who he thinks is his real father after seeing the man on TV. He travels to San Francisco, only to find that the man is him from the future.
Out of the three shortened and separated versions of these episodes – "Stewie B. Goode" and "Bango Was His Name, Oh!" in the final episode "Stu and Stewie's Excellent Adventure" it is revealed that in the alternate future where Stewie is an adult virgin with male-pattern baldness, that
Brian will die from eating a chocolate bar out of the garbage. Next it shows a cutaway-gag with Brian in heaven sitting next to
Ernest Hemingway, Vincent van Gogh, and
Kurt Cobain, who all committed suicide by shooting themselves. Hemingway did it because he was overwhelmed by his own genius, van Gogh because he couldn't reconcile his feelings with society's feelings, and Cobain because he didn't want to live to see his music be bastardized by corporate greed.
Brian's interactions with historically significant people whom he idolizes is where this whole "heaven talk-show" idea originated, because for some reason a snarky liberal dog that interviews dead celebrities is
really memorable and funny, even if its just one cutaway gag within an entire unrelated story. His uneventful death made him feel unimportant sharing the afterlife with more talented writers than him and that was
the punchline, but what if one were to take the concept further? Family Guy is known for doing impressions, drawing the perfectly stylized cartoon version of a celebrity and picking the right voice out of a talented team of voice-actors. It almost seems like an effortless endeavor to them, even in spin-offs like
The Cleveland Show and
Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy the impressions are usually dead-on and hilarious
because of their accuracy.
But The Cleveland Show was cancelled on May 13, 2013, so does that mean there's an opening for another McFarlane spin-off/derivation on FOX's Sunday line-up of
Animation Domination? If it is true that
"a spin-off show discussion has happened" then maybe its a tongue-in-cheek combination of previously-seen elements from "Up Late" and "The Untold Story" that would give Fox a fresh change of pace from the usual sitcom episodes, and will likely premiere late at night after American Dad! of course. As far as I know, a raunchy animated talk-show that impersonates deceased celebrity as guests is unprecedented and it could still have the attitude of classic Family Guy. Brian Griffin has the perfect "passive swagger" to play a tonight show host, he's more liberal than David Letterman and could play the "straight man" to a whole cavalcade of zany historical character that are no longer with us. What is more sure to stir up some controversy than a blasphemous satire of the cloudy kingdom of heaven? What if
Jesus Christ was Brian's Andy Richter-esque comedic sidekick, and
God was his angry producer? The possibilities to offend and entertain are endless.
"My fellow Americans: I have not been entirely truthful with you. I did ga-googity that girl. I ga-shmoygadeed her ga-flavity with my googis, and I am sorry." -Quagmire as Bill Clinton