Seth MacFarlane's animated sitcom Family Guy has long traded in shocking humor and crude jokes. Like a fratboy-ready version of The Simpsons, The Family Man came about when many comedians and TV shows were testing the limits of what was considered acceptable on television. Many of the comedians listed ran counter to the still-remembered production sanity of Reagan's 1980s. MacFarlane was born in 1972, so he grew up witnessing the bluesiness of the "classic American sitcom." There was also a general cultural buy-in to the 1990s trend towards "politically correct language", even by those who subscribed to the sentiment.

MacFarlane's "Family Guy" opened with a riff on the title sequence for "All in the Family," then exploded into a dazzling song-and-dance routine about (ironically, of course) getting back to "good old-fashioned values." However, the title was ironic. Peter Griffin (McFarlane) was not a "family man" at all, but a crass, media-blinded, alcoholic with tendencies toward sexism and bigotry. The old-fashioned values ​​that MacFarlane espoused were actually terrible and outdated.

Much of Family Guy's shocking humor is intended to be a send-up of the sexist, bigoted attitudes so often seen in "old-fashioned" TV shows, revealing just how rotten many of America's core conservative values ​​really are. However, with many of the show's jokes, the line is blurred. Sometimes, MacFarlane provides commentary. Sometimes, he's just rude for the sake of it. There will be at least one joke per episode that will offend most people.

"Family Guy" rode that streak for 426 episodes over 23 seasons. The show has been canceled and resurrected, and there's no sign of it ending anytime soon. In 2022 interview with The Hollywood ReporterMacFarlane and producers Alec Sulkin and Rich Appel theorize how they managed to get away with it for so long. MacFarlane claims that few people are truly offended by his show.

MacFarlane found no evidence (at least anecdotally) that anyone was genuinely offended by any of his edgy jokes on "Family Guy." He said he's come across a few thoughtful essays and musings about how someone might be offended by "Family Guy" or how the show is some kind of cultural defender of diminished respect for our fellow humans, but he's never spoken to anyone who was openly confused (except for the occasional celebrity he mocked).

He noted that there was resentment from Twitter users (turned into the social media nightmare that is now X), but MacFarlane was wise enough to admit that Twitter users were not a serious cross-section of his audience. Social networks, he knew, were not reality. McFarlane said:

“The supposed rage, I don't find much of it in the real world. I read a lot about it on Twitter, which is, as far as we give it credence, statistically very marginal. Most people aren't on But in terms of comedy, I don't think I've ever talked to a single person in the real world—outside of social media and outside think pieces—who's really upset about the state of edgy comedy. If anything, I hear the opposite, people want to laugh."

It's also worth noting that Family Guy, because it's animated, has a lot more freedom to say and do gross things. When a live actor says something blatantly anti-Semitic in a comedy show, it's hard to accept because a real person is on tape saying it. With Family Guy, dark jokes are repeated with big-eyed caricatures, talking dogs and other fantastical characters. The absurd visuals take a lot of the edge off.

Producer Alec Sulkin notes that "Family Guy" also has to give a lot of credit to fellow producer Rich Appel, who has a keen eye for what can and can't be done legally. It's fair play to satirize a public figure, but "Family Guy" sometimes verged on the line of legal libel. Appel himself then chimed in, noting that animated shows are capable of pushing the envelope with shocking humor using their medium. After all, The Simpsons and South Park, Family Guy's big brothers, also get away with "offensive" material, so Family Guy just followed suit. Apel said:

"I think if you look at 'South Park' and 'The Simpsons' and our show, it's no coincidence that they're all animated. It's a different world when they're animated characters, to me that's proof that people aren't offended."

MacFarlane pointed out that characters like Peter, Lois and Stevie Griffin can't be tweeted angrily because they are animated characters. One cannot even pretend to live in the real world, and the audience must accept them abstractly.

It's easy to "get away" with being offensive when all the evidence points to people not being offended. There will always be a market for offensive, offensive humor, and "Family Guy" has been ready to provide it for more than two decades. There are certainly legitimate criticisms to be leveled at Family Guy - the creators of "South Park" openly satirized The show favors pop culture references over story — but the show's inappropriate humor, I think we can all agree, is not one of its great weaknesses.