A common misconception among more casual Family Guy fans is that creator Seth MacFarlane is personally responsible for every creative decision. Although he voices many of the characters, his presence in the writers' room is much easier than one might think. It has been mentioned in interviews that he hasn't written for Family Guy since around 2009, and even before that he only officially wrote the scripts for three episodes. That's right: only three episodes in the show's entire 400+ episode run were written by MacFarlane.

Of course, as any long-running sitcom writer will tell you, writing for these shows is very collaborative. There will often be one writer who gets credit for the episode, but the script will usually go through multiple revisions by the rest of the staff. I know from interviews with Rick and Morty and Futurama staff writers that it's often difficult for the staff to keep track of who wrote which joke and who exactly came up with each individual idea. (When it comes to the show worst episodes everthat ambiguity is probably a relief.)

To say that Seth MacFarlane only wrote three episodes is likely an understatement of his creative contribution to the series; however, the fact remains that he only received major writing credit for three episodes: "Death Has a Shadow," "Family Guy Reviewer Mail No. 1” and “North by North Quahog”. So how were they?

Seth MacFarlane wrote the first episode of Family Guy and set the tone for the pre-cancellation era pretty effectively. Sure, there are a lot of annoyances from the early series that will be ironed out later - Meg is a completely different character here, even with a change in voice actor, and most of Peter's friends will be written out - but for the most part, it feels like a regular episode. from the early season.

Perhaps the most interesting part of Death Has a Shadow is the way it casually sets itself apart from The Simpsons. although clearly inspired by it. The pilot introduces an evil baby, a wise-cracking talking dog and a slightly terrifying cutaway format within the first few minutes, and just expects the audience to get on board. There is a type of trust that they share the Futurama pilot from the same yearwhere you can see the writers learn from that awkward first season of The Simpsons and try their hardest to hit the ground running.

Although the pilot is quite a few people's favorite episode of Family Guy, it's probably one of the most remembered episodes of the series, mainly because Family Guy will return for an episode in 2011's Back to the Pilot, giving fans something to think about. about how much the show (and the world) has changed since the first episode aired. "Death Has a Shadow" isn't the best episode McFarlane has written, but it's hardly a bad start to the series.

Although "Family Guy" would never have an annual anthology tradition like "The Simpsons" did with theirs Treehouse of Horror Episodesthis season 3 installment was one of their early attempts to try something similar, and it worked great. The first story is about Peter getting three wishes from the giant and dealing with it with all the wisdom we know he's capable of; the second is about the family getting superpowers and messing around with them; the third is a cute Little Rascals homage where we get to see the grown-up Family Guy characters back when they were chubby-cheeked kids.

Neither segment outstays its welcome, and the show will continue to do the occasional anthology episode for the rest of its run. I don't think anything here matches Season 7's Three Kings, which uses its three-in-one format to give us a parody of Stephen King's Misery, Stand By Me, and Shawshank Redemption segments. But I'm not sure that episode would have even happened if Review Mail #1 hadn't been so well received in the first place.

In addition to including a fun parody of Alfred Hitchcock's best film, the Season 4 premiere also featured perhaps the show's best dig at the Fox network. After the show spent nearly four years off the air, "North of North Quahog" opens with Peter walking into the house and announcing that they are off the air. When Lois asks if there's any hope that Fox will change their minds and bring them back to TV, Peter replies:

"We just have to accept the fact that Fox has to make room for great shows like 'Dark Angel,' 'Titus,' 'Undeclared,' 'Action,' 'That '80s Show,' 'The Incredibles,' 'Fast.' Lane, Andy Richter Controls the Universe, The Skin, Girls Club, Cracking, The Pit, Firefly, Get Real, Freaky Links, Wanda at Large, "Costello", "The Lone Gunmen", "A Minute with Stan Hooper", "Normal Ohio", "Pasadena", "Harsh Realm", "Keen Eddy", "The Street", "American Embassy", "Cedric the Entertainer" , "On Tick, 'Louie' and 'Greg the Bunny.'

The joke is that all those shows were quickly cancelled; the early 2000s was a time when Fox executives made a series of terrible decisions, and apparently Seth MacFarlane really wanted to make sure everyone knew how incompetent they were. Much like Futurama years later"Family Guy" had the last laugh.

Beyond that opening, the episode takes a cue from "Death Has a Shadow" and proceeds as usual; Peter gets into some weird shenanigans in the A-plot while Brian and Stevie try to babysit Chris and Meg's kids in the B-plot. It's interesting how much the definition of a "normal episode" has changed since 1999; by Season 4, Family Guy realized how well Brian and Stevie worked together as a comedic duo. (In the first season, they were more likely to team up Brian with Peter, while Stevie would be busy trying to kill Lois again.) McFarlane basically had to write two different pilots for "Family Guy," and both did a lot to established the series' new norms.