 With Meg giving birth and Lois cheating on Peter, Family Guy has slowly but surely paved a different path over recent years, and that is more than likely directly due to one particular man, creator Seth McFarlane, stepping away from the writing staff and coming in solely to voice his iconic characters. Since then, McFarlane has delved into many other creative ventures, movies, more television, jazz, and most recently the number one peacock series, Ted, based on the movies of the same name. But was all this at the cost of his breakout series? Back when I was a kid, I used to stay up on a Wednesday night to watch The Simpsons followed by Futurama, The Cleveland Show, American Dad and my favourite part of the night, a double app of Family Guy on a weekly TV event they called here in Australia. I'm only realising now how many of these shows came from McFarlane. Out of Seth's cartoons, the short lived Cleveland show had its moments but more so American Dad, which has carved out a loyal following of its own and rightfully so when they have a character like Roger. But Family Guy has been through every stage of popularity you can possibly imagine, from cult classic, to cancelled, to popular, to cancelled again, to pop culture phenomenon, to meme, to hated meme, to regaining a decent popularity on newer seasons on TikTok, and of course Fortnite. But let's rewind from current day season 22 back to season 9 when McFarlane left the writers room on the show and the show saw a polarising change in direction. As mentioned we've seen Meg get pregnant and give birth as a surrogate for Bruce and Jeffrey, Lois is no longer unconditionally loyal to Peter, and we even saw Brian die for half a season, which in itself wasn't a bad idea and was actually quite a beautiful send-off. But it had two glaring flaws, one was Brian's replacement Vinny being more obnoxious than Brian can be at times, and then they backpedaled the whole thing in that year's Christmas special. Brian being brought back to life by Stewie and Seth McFarlane saying, and thus ended our warm fuzzy holiday lesson. Never take those you love for granted for they can be gone in a flash. Since then there have been a bunch of characters who have been recast or shunned all together as they didn't necessarily age well. Peter has had more than three new bosses and there's a new nemesis for Stewie, Doug who adds absolutely nothing to the show. A newer character that I do like though is Joanna, but they later retconned her and named her Elle just to make a World War 2 joke which was odd. The giant chicken even got an episode fleshing out his story. Since the death of the incredible Adam West or in the show Mayor Adam West they've introduced Mayor Wild West who really just feels like a placeholder and the hook for most of his jokes is that it just sounds funny when an old man with a deep voice says modern things. But if The Simpsons is anything to go by, unusual semi-permanent plot choices is what can happen when you are 22 seasons in which is no small feat in itself. All this to say the show isn't without some newer memorable episodes. Some personal favourites that come to mind is season 21 episode 4 The Munchurian Candidate which went viral in the scene where Lois catches Peter accidentally hypnotised into sleeping with her mother. And season 20 episode 17 All About Alana which guest stars McFarlane's personal friend and real life singing partner Liz Gillies even featuring some snippets of their duets. Which leads me to Seth's other projects which began after him leaving the writers room to work on Ted One, A Million Ways to Die in the West and Ted Two. The first Ted movie really being the only one that's stuck in the minds of Family Guy fans which is a shame as I personally love his other two movies, especially A Million Ways to Die in the West, a star-studded western parody where McFarlane just basically plays a modern day man complaining about his life in the Wild West. But anyone who has seen more than a couple of episodes of Family Guy is very aware of McFarlane's love for show tunes and the great American songbook and being able to perform them beautifully. This led to passion projects which include multiple solo jazz records and more recently with Liz Gillies releasing a record during the pandemic entitled Songs from Home. Again this past Christmas with We Wish You the Marriest, continuing performing together right now in Vegas. But since Family Guy and before the Ted Prequel show, Seth had or maybe still has a Fox and Hulu show The Orville, McFarlane's more serious brainchild which is more or less his version of Star Trek, his passion for the show also being obvious in many episodes of Family Guy. The Orville is a great show too, way more wholesome than you've come to expect from a McFarlane show, in a good way though. It covers important real life political concepts and has a great cast of characters including the principal from Ted and more notable the dad from Ted, Scott Grimes, who you may also recognise as Steve from American Dad and you'd never guess it from Ted but he also has the singing voice of an angel. But filming for the third and most recent season of The Orville was interrupted for a significant period due to the pandemic and a fourth season has yet to be officially confirmed, which is a shame but the third season did provide a relatively satisfying wrap up for most of the story arcs. So in the meantime, Seth shifted focus once more as Peacock came knocking wanting to green light a seven episode prequel series showing the high school years of John Bennett and his foul mouthed bear, capitalising on the success of the 2012 film of the same name. Now this series felt like a true return to form for Seth McFarlane style comedy and really is a live action family guy, the witty and ongoing small talk, the offensive yet well written one liners and my personal highlight, the totally unhinged side characters actually played by the side characters of Family Guy by the way such as Mike Henry who previously played Cleveland before being recast but still plays a spattering of others and John Viner one of the funniest and most recognisable voices in Family Guy, I've always loved that Seth sprinkles in his familiar colleagues in almost all of his shows, the fresher face cast fit right in here too, the mum was an absolute scene stealer and I feel the whole family really had amazing comedic chemistry from start to finish. From a full length film to a television episodic format with almost an entirely new cast, Ted managed to transition perfectly, due also in part to being a 20-40 minute time frame you can really watch as much or as little as you'd like and it never overstays its welcome. On a more technical level the CG on Ted is absolutely incredible, the fact the actors performed alongside really nothing and made it seem like Ted was genuinely in the room with each of the characters is an amazing filmmaking feat, a credit to the Australian animation team Framestore in Melbourne for composing the VFX. Composing the musical score was another friend of McPhail and Walter Murphy who Seth worked with not only on the Ted movies but also does the music for Family Guy, specifically the little play-ons you see in the establishing shots which is Signature Family Guy. Since the series became one of the highest streamed series on Peacock in just a weekend, Seth has said himself that if there's an appetite for the character he will do more and I think the ratings speak for themselves at this point. But does this show have enough momentum to become an instant classic? Could this become a syndicated series that will be rerun for years to come? If the quality of writing keeps up then I don't see why not. But what do you think? Let me know, I'll be down there in the comments. You can also see what I'm watching by following me on TikTok, X and Letterbox which are all linked in the description. But if you haven't already be sure to subscribe for videos covering the best and worst of movies, television and pop culture. If you subscribe during this video then welcome aboard and if you had a good time hanging out then SPANK that like button. This is Matt Rogers and that is all.