Op-Ed: Why Seth MacFarlane Should NOT Take “Family Guy” Off Of FOX Because Of Tucker Carlson…He Should Stay On Because Of Tucker Carlson
Earlier this week, Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane had this to say after a Tucker Carlson opinion piece:
Tucker Carlson’s latest opinion piece once again makes me wish Family Guy was on any other network. Look, Fox, we both know this marriage isn’t working anymore. The sex is only once a year, I don’t get along with your mother, and well… I’ve been having an affair with NBC.
— Seth MacFarlane (@SethMacFarlane) August 1, 2021
Seth is of course referring to his overall deal with NBC which, is going swimmingly thus far. That said, Seth wanting to put Family Guy on any other network aside from FOX is the wrong way to think about this. Here’s why…
Just this week, the Joe Rogan Experience featured an episode with Yeonmi Park. Yeonmi details a treacherous escape from the hell that is North Korea into China where she gets into a sex trafficking that ultimately reunites her with her mother before heading through a desert to seek freedom in South Korea where the escapee is taken in and given an education and social skills to adapt to real life. When she comes to America and studies at Columbia, she’s struck by the amount of censorship that is being bestowed upon college kids, noting it’s actually scarier in the public higher education system here in America right now versus her time in North Korea where she was lucky to have a rat for breakfast. FOX News is the only network that has given Yeonmi any airtime to tell her story. MSNBC, ABCNews, CNN, and the like do not want her on their respective networks because parent companies for both make billions of dollars in China, and China sees North Korea as one of their most important allies. Censorship is dangerous, and if Tucker Carlson spews BS out of his mouth every time he talks, that’s the American way. If you don’t like him, then don’t watch. I personally have never sat through an episode of Tucker Carlson, nor do I watch FOX News.When viewers watch FOX News, FOX News gets ratings, ratings gets advertisers. You have all the control in the world to change the channel.
My point to Seth MacFarlane is this, every news network has skeletons in their closet. FOX News has just as many as anybody else, so regardless of wherever Family Guy were to go, if you’re looking for a squeaky clean newscast, you’re going to be hard-pressed to find it.In any event, let me offer a different reason altogether as to why Family Guy shouldn’t leave FOX network. For one, FOX loves the ratings from the series so it’s worth paying the millions of dollars per episode to keep producing it. This is great because it keeps overseas studios like Digital eMation busy and Family Guy is a series that can continue to support an Animation Domination lineup that is, as of now, looking for and needing to support new IP. Doing so creates more jobs and right now we need all the jobs we can get. For us viewers, more content the better.
If anything, Seth should take his anger out on FOX News in a much more creative way…like rejoining the Family Guy staff and helping write some episodes. Recall in the early 2000’s when Family Guy had the most savage writing crew in the business like Seth, Wellesley Wild, Alec Sulkin, Alex Borstein, Cherry Chevapravatdumrong, Gary Janetti (who is right now enjoying new-found fame due to all of the controversy surrounding HIS new series), and others. From a pure episodic standpoint, we got some of the best and funniest episodes of television of all-time. These guys did NOT give a fuck who they offended and if they got in trouble. Hell, they even released a finished episode about abortions on DVD because FOX said it was too controversial to air. Nowadays, Family Guy limps through 22-episodes and cast members like Mike Henry became part of the “woke” mob instead of challenging paradigms and doing what all of the great cartoons of the past have done.
Imagine if Seth MacFarlane and co. would get back in the writer’s room and just declare fucking war on both Tucker Carlson AND FOX News, like REALLY go at ’em like there is no tomorrow. What’s the worst that would happen? FOX getting mad and then canceling the series thereby making Seth’s wish come true that Family Guy was no longer on FOX? That would turn Family Guy back into one of the most terrifying animated properties this side of South Park, and we would all be better for it. Extreme conservatism should absolutely be killed off, as should extreme “woke” culture, the job of an animated comedy is to remind people not to take themselves too seriously. Seth MacFarlane doing gags against the betterment of FOX News on a weekly basis would be a lot of fun, Family Guy would get a re-boost in viewership, and the show would be of far better quality than the dribble we have now. Until then, American Dad still kicks ass every Monday night on TBS.
Family Guy returns September 26th only on FOX.
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