Pre-Merger FOX Censored “Family Guy” On A Word That Was Invented By “Family Guy”

Long time Family Guy producer Chris Sheridan is out promoting an upcoming new series called Resident Alien. Cinemablend caught up with Chris and asked about Family Guy’s longevity. Here’s what he had to say:

[Family Guy] has been on long enough that we did a bit once where we had the word ‘vagina’ in an episode. They said, ‘You can’t say vagina on the air.’ So we changed the word and we just came up with our own word and called it ‘cleman.’ We just swapped out ‘vagina’ with ‘cleeman,’ and it was like, ‘Oh, we’ll just say that. No problem.’ And then several years later, we did a joke, and we use the word ‘cleeman,’ and they’re like, ‘Well you can’t say that.’ And we’re like, ‘What do you mean we can’t say it?’ ‘Well no, it means vagina.’ I was like, ‘I know! We made it up.’ But it made its way into the Urban Dictionary, and then we couldn’t say it. I was like, ‘I think that’s completely unfair.’ So when a show is on that long, it’s just insane.

Pretty hilarious actually. And to think..this is PRE-Disney’s buy of 20th Century FOX. With Disney now the owners of the Family Guy franchise, don’t be surprised to see more changes of this ilk down the road. In fact, this probably explains Seth MacFarlane bolting to NBC Universal.

Family Guy returns with new episodes on February 16th, only on FOX.