Comic-Con: Secrets spill at 'Family Guy' presentation
Jul 25, 2008, 10:58 PM | by Alynda Wheat
Categories: Comic-Con 2008
If you liked Family Guy's extended Star Wars homage "Blue
Harvest," you'll be thrilled to hear what they're doing with The Empire
Strikes Back — it's called "Something, Something, Something Dark Side,"
executive producer Chris Sheridan jokingly revealed in the show's packed Friday
afternoon panel at Comic-Con.
Flanked by Guy creator and star Seth MacFarlane, along with Seth Green (voice of Chris), Mike Henry (who spins off his own series, The Cleveland Show, next year), director Greg Colten, and producers Kara Vallow and Mike Henry, Sheridan was more forthcoming with Fox's take on the new Empire episode, than on the episode, itself. He read from a list of "notes" Fox executives gave the producers, offering guidance like, "Page 68: Han's comment at Lando that he is 'this close to going Michael Richards on your ass,' is in poor taste...." So what did the panel reveal? (Stop reading if you don't want to know!)
An episode teased in EW last fall will have Stewie and Brian time-traveling back to 1939 Poland, and bringing poor Mort Goldman along with them. The pair will also do an homage to the TV series Sliders (said MacFarlane: "Great premise, s---tty f---ing show"), jumping through a series of parallel universes. And for you James Woods fans, worry not, he will be back to torture Peter once again.
Leaving the series, however, is Henry's Cleveland, who moves to his hometown of Stoolbend, Va., to reconnect with his high-school sweetheart to, as Henry put it, "form a Black Brady Bunch." MacFarlane noted that he'll also have a voice role in that series, as the father in a bear family that lives on Cleveland's street. What does the bear sound like? Polish (we think).
The highlight of the session, however, was an extended clip from the new season, in which Peter and family go out to eat at a 1950s-theme diner, where Peter becomes obsessed with the Trashmen's "Surfin' Bird." The gag goes down in Family Guy history as their longest extended joke ever — longer than Stewie going after Matthew McConaughey, longer than "Shipoopie," and yes, FG fans, even longer than the epic duels of Peter vs. Chicken. We're here to tell you the audience loved every second.
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