There's no time to lose, National Gorilla Suit Day is almost over!
But today we celebrate another milestone!
Twenty-five years today, Family Guy premiered after the Super Bowl!
Since it was 1999, I was only 12, and not old enough to stay up that late to see it or the Simpsons episode that followed it. I did see that first episode eventually, and I was immediately hooked with the show. It was the Simpson's edgier Gen X cousin, actually airing on network tv unlike South Park and Beavis & Butt-Head.
It was one of many prime time animated shows that popped up in the late nineties after the success of King of The Hill, like Futurama, Mission Hill, the Dilbert cartoon, and the rest. It was swiftly cancelled after three seasons, after a season of changing timeslots because while it had high ratings when it premiered, Fox tried to see it it would be successful outside of Sunday night.
It wasn't.
But as we all know, the story didn't end there. DVD sales and constant reruns on Adult Swim gave it a new life with a new audience and made its triumphant return in 2005 and hasn't left the airwaves since.
And once again, Fox is testing the waters to see if it'll succeed outside of Sunday night, moving it to Wednesdays starting March 6th. Blame Fox actually having more than four animated shows going on at once (Simpsons and Bob's Burgers are staying where they are, with The Great North, Krapopolis, and Grimsburg all playing musical chairs in programming slots this year) and one of the shows had to go somewhere.
Will it be the new anchor show to fill the hole The Masked Singer or one of its copycats are gonna leave? Only time will tell!
Unlike a lot of shows that get meme'd to death, Family Guy's impact on pop culture doesn't rely on screenshots (the most notable one being Peter surprised to see someone at the door), but more in short clips taken out of context. When I'm rewatching it, I have to constantly say, "Oh, it's from THIS episode" since most of their cutaway gags have nothing to do with the episode they're from and could've been slotted in anywhere.
Probably my all time favorite was the one where Peter turned the house into a giant puppet.
If not in short, random gags, Family Guy is probably best known for keeping random bits of 70s and 80s culture preserved for all time.
From Surfin' Bird
To Conway Twitty
To KISS
Even to The Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show.
Unlike a lot of clips that get run into the ground because the gag is because of how long they are, you NEED to see the whole thing of this one. It just gets crazier every moment, and that was just the theme song to an actual show back in the seventies! One of the Hudson Brothers is Kate Hudson's dad. I forget which one.
Not to mention I have this brag:
I knew Peter Griffin since college. Cool guy.
