Show the Family Guy Abortion Episode

Creative Minority Report ^ | 8-14-09 | Matt Archbold

[marcbold]

You know the show Family Guy. It's essentially a funny/distasteful half hour animated sitcom made to make you cringe and laugh. Recently Fox refused to air an abortion themed episode of the animated series and that, of course, has given the show sudden attention from the media.

Family Guy creator Seth Macfarlane was incensed enough by the censorship that he held a stage reading of the script, ironically at the Ricardo Montalban Theater. (Montalban was a pro-life Catholic.)

According to the Washington Post: "The episode, in which Griffin matriarch Lois becomes a surrogate mom for a college friend and her husband, really focuses on the "will she/won't she" abortion question only in the third act, after the couple dies in a car accident. What follows is a trip to a family-planning center, where Peter, initially encouraging his wife to end the pregnancy (and thus avoid her crazy-while-pregnant phase), is stopped by a group of antiabortion activists who try to change his mind with a video featuring Ziggy the Zygote, who just wants a hug.

A rousing family debate takes place, including baby Stewie and dog Brian. Lois makes an impassioned speech about the importance of bringing children into the world no matter the circumstances, and Peter abruptly cuts her off with, "We had the abortion." Cue credits."

Here's the thing. I wish Fox would've shown it. Why not? Make a movie about it. Make a spin-off sitcom about three wacky nurses who work at an abortion clinic.

I think for too long we've been told that abortion is too incendiary to discuss. It's too hot a topic. Can you think of any other issue where Hollywood says this is "too hot a topic" to exploit for profit? The reason for the silence is not capitalistic. It's ideology.

[Cheetahcat]

Seth is a leftist Bastard and who cares what that turd thinks.

[SolidWood]

Who else apart from flaming liberals watches regularily Family Guy? Totally unfunny crap produced by an homosexual communist.

I can live on South Park and Spongebob alone.

[subterfuge]

No wonder I never liked that show. I tried.

[snarkytart]

It’s sad, because Family Guy started out making fun of all pop culture including liberals too. Now? They’ve become unfunny and preachy.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Older teenagers and young adults are the main audience for Family Guy.

I’m surprised you like South Park but not Family Guy.

They look like the same show to me.

[Tanniker Smith]

What's he complaining about?
Pre-pre-sales for the DVD are probably through the roof already.

[marcbold]

Phineas and Ferb is kinda funny too.

[SolidWood]

Not preachy... just trying to insult anything not-extreme liberal.

[leilani]

I'm a rabidly pro-life nutjob (& proud of it) who agrees 100% with what the author is saying here. Though I don't watch that show, it was my first reaction to news that it was being censored. I WANT Americans to think about what it is & what it really means. It only serves the pro-abortion forces to sweep it under the rug & into the abstract where people can lazily say they support it without ever even having to confront how truly barbaric the practice is and never being required to contemplate its logical implications.

Thanks for posting this!

[kidd]

Surrogate parents
Deadly car accident
Abortion clinic

Gee, sounds like it would be hilarious. /s

Family Guy has jumped the shark.

[chargers fan]

I always thought the original seasons (before the show was cancelled) were very funny. When the show was brought back in 2004 it seemed very different.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

Older teenagers and young adults are the main audience for Family Guy.

I’m surprised you like South Park but not Family Guy.

They look like the same show to me.

Not to me. And not to Matt Stone and Trey Parker, who devoted two episodes of South Park to explaining how little they think of Family Guy. The show doesn't have much to say, and when it does it's usually a straight rip-off of an old Simpsons episode. It's views on society and politics are predictable and uninteresting - left-wing cliches and stereotypes with some frat-boy swipes at women. And worst of all, it's not very funny anymore.

McFarlane's other show, "American Dad", is even more boring. It's only funny moments come when you realize the show's writers actually believe the CIA is full of right-wingers.

[FreeManWhoCan]

Family Guy is funny.

[JSDude1]

You mean only cares about perverting the minds of the you (and feeble minded).

[rwfromkansas]

I have the seasons of the show before it was cancelled and about the first one after, when it seemed fine. Then it just changed it seemed. I still watch it occassionally, but it doesn’t seem as funny as it originally was.

[rwfromkansas]

By the way, when I do see the new episodes on the local Fox affiliate, there is this weird problem....it is extremely small on my HDTV. I have the TV set to stretch box pictures, but Family Guy won’t. It is a box, but not a normal size box, a tiny box. No setting changes gets rid of it and it seems to be broadcast that way. Is that the case for others here?

[dfwgator]

Simpsons did it!

[Last Dakotan]

Who else apart from flaming liberals watches regularily Family Guy?

From what I've observed, pretty much everybody from the ages of 15-25.

[al_c]

ping