The upcoming episode of Fox’s hit animated series Family Guy will focus on the show adapting to its new ownership after Disney’s recent acquisition of Fox, according to Entertainment Weekly.
- The October 20 episode of Family Guy will be titled “Disney’s The Reboot” and will feature the network overlords demanding the show be taken in a fresh direction.
- That will lead to three new reboots of the show in this one episode and, according to executive producer Rich Appel, “One of them is Family Gal – it’s Lois-centric, very timely and pandering. Another is our version of something like Riverdale or a teen-angst drama, called The Q. And the final one is After Family Guy, which, as we explain, is starring the only actors who didn’t go on to bigger movie careers. The premise is Chris is now married to Tricia Takanawa, and they’re raising Joe.”
- Each of these new Family Guy reboots will be critiqued by a focus group within this fourth-wall-breaking episode.
- Executive producer Alec Sulkin revealed a bit about the episode, saying “Peter storms in angry at the focus group and they say, ‘I don’t get who Family Guy is for, and he says, ‘It’s easy! You just have to be a teenager, but born in the ’80s.’”
- According to Appel, it didn’t take long for the Family Guy writers to decide to use Disney’s acquisition to their advantage: “It just seemed to give new life to an idea of how to make Family Guy fresh, and a new reason to think we’d have the always-helpful focus group to guide us.” He added: “we’re trying not to fall in love with the new versions of Family Guy that would make us feel like, ‘Oh my God, Seth is wrong – we should have done The Q with the teens.’”
- Sulkin went on to explain that the acquisition does not mean we’ll be seeing Disney characters in their future episodes. “Unfortunately that’s not quite the case, although this is not us getting annoyed at Disney because clearly they know what they’re doing,” he said. “Part of their M.O. – and it’s obviously worked very well for them – is to be protective of their different brands and in a way to keep them separate. So if we went to them and said, ‘Hey, we want to do a Marvel–Star Wars crossover episode,’ I think that would probably be the fastest ‘no’ we’ve heard around here in awhile. Which seems at odds with 10 years ago, we’re doing Star Wars episodes with the full endorsement of Lucasfilm. But Disney acquired all these properties, and they have a vision for where they want them to go, and where they want them to go is not making poop jokes on Family Guy.”
- Appel wouldn’t let that go by without poking a little fun at it though, saying “That said, Chris takes Moana to prom next season, and we’re very, very excited.”
- And finally, When Appel was asked how the Disney brass might react to this episode, his response was simple. “They’ll see it as .0004% of the content for Disney++ to be launched in 2031,” he joked. “So I think they’ll be fine.”
- Family Guy airs Sundays at 9/8c on Fox.