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No topic is taboo for Fox’s Family Guy, and Seth MacFarlane & Co. proved it again tonight by taking on the worst terrorist attack ever on American soil, the events of September 11, 2001. In the episode, Brian and Stewie use Stewie’s time machine to go back and prevent the 9/11 hijackings. TVLine has details on the storyline but, in short, Brian’s efforts backfire and lead to a Civil War, so he and Stewie keep sending clones of themselves back in time to try to fix the mistake until all they get together to vote whether to stop 9/11 or let it happen. The latter wins, leading to a round of high-fives. Unlike Family Guy‘s infamous abortion episode that didn’t make it to air but was performed live and released on DVD, the 9/11 one squeaked past the Fox standards and practices department but is sure to raise as many eyebrows as it airs two months after the 10th anniversary of 9/11.
TV Editor Nellie Andreeva - tip her here.
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Yes, yes…they’ve proven many times that the show can be shocking. Still waiting for them to prove that it can be funny.
Bravo…well put!
Agreed! I wish the show was even just half as funny as its smug creator thinks it is.
are you kidding they are fantastic
Don’t understand why Family Guy can dance on graves yet The Simpsons are no longer allowed to show Homer’s butt.
Actually, they went back to find out where Brian buried his bone in the yard… and then Brian decided to tell his past-self about the 9/11 attacks so he could prevent them.
What’s so shocking about George W. Bush/Confederacy jokes? Jesus–the show is so tired.
MacFarlane himself was supposed to be on one of the planes out of Boston that was hijacked on 9/11, but overslept and missed it.
Let’s go back in time and fix his alarm clock.
Real Funny. My friend’s dad died when the 1st plane hit the Trade Center. NO ONE Should of had to die at all…..
yeah, no one should have died huh? without the unity and patriotism these attacks sparked we would have fallen apart, death is part of life, good or bad, deal with it.
Nellie, did you watch the entire episode? Immediately after the high-fives, Stewie said something like, “This probably wouldn’t look so good taken out of context,” since they were really “high-fiving” because their actions supposedly reverted the world back to its normal timeline. So you’ve basically proven your ignorance by doing exactly what the show suggested some people would do.
That just means it was intended to be satire. Satire can still go too far.
The point here is that by removing a key part of the Brian-Stewie exchange (the “out of context” comment), Nellie and Deadline are presenting a biased story to its readers, which isn’t something I would have expected from this website. In fact, note that this story includes just about every 9/11-related detail from the episode EXCEPT the “out of context” comment that followed the high-five. That’s incomplete, biased journalism.
Agreed
Didn’t really thing the episode was the show’s best work. But the pausing for cut-aways was a kind of funny meta.
wasn’t seth mcfarlane supposed to be on the boston plane on 9/11? iirc, he missed his flight due to traffic.
actually his travel agent gave him the wrong time, an hour late, plus he was suffering from a hangover
It has been a long time since ‘Family Guy’ was funny. The only way they’ve been able to stay relevant is by trying to shock and offend people. I wish they’d mix it up and try to be funny instead.
JTR – I’m with you. You’d never know this show was a comedy by watching it.
so whats funny? People saying a show thats getting high rating is not funny thats whats funny lol
Macfarlane seems to be becoming a bigger and bigger douche by the week. Self-indulgent, ego-maniacal and, recently, less and less funny too. I’m all for irreverent comedy the way South Park does it, but Family Guy can be so mean-spirited (Michael J. Fox jokes = not comedy gold IMO) that if it doesn’t off-set the bitter taste it leaves with actual laughs, it’s not worth watching…which is what the show has been becoming more and more of in the last couple of seasons.
South Park isn’t mean spirited?
That’s funnier than anything on South Park.
Just like the Simpsons last night, Family Guy had one of its best episodes in years. They’re at their best when they tackle touchy material like this and they made it work.
South Park did it first and better when it came to going there with 9/11. Anyone remember the Jersey Shore episode?
I like the episode. If you don’t get the humor, your a bit too hard up. Family Guy has been funny since the beginning. To the haters… you’ll never been satisfied. Possibly because your jealous of his success.
It’s you’re, not your. Are those extra two keys that difficult for you?
It’s the Internet not an grammar class
Wow, so grammar doesn’t matter on the internet. What an intellectual powerhouse you must be. Please–share your views with us. The deep thoughts of a person who thinks that understanding apostrophe usage is too hard to bother with online must be fascinating.
As for Family Guy, I get an occasional laugh out of the show, but it’s never been on the same level as South Park (or the Simpsons in its heyday) as social commentary…and it’s been lowering its sights for several years now.
Did you know that McFarlane was supposed to be on one of the 9/11 planes but a mysterious gypsy told him not to fly that day?
Makes you think.
So apparently McFarlane was prevented from getting on a doomed flight by a gypsy, traffic AND oversleeping? Wow.
As for Family Guy, I haven’t watched it much lately and it can certainly be hit and miss, but I don’t understand those that HATE it.
maybe as he overslept, he had a dream that he was in a limo in heavy traffic and his driver (dressed as a gypsy) turned around and told him not to get on the plane…then he woke up late, said “huh…” and wrote more shitty TV
Wow, did anybody actually watch the episode? It was genius. By far their smartest/funniest episode in years.
Cue all the complaints from people who don’t watch Family Guy and didn’t see the episode.
Amurikwa should grow a pair and stop being candle carrying mourning sissies. It’s just a cartoon for Jebus sake.
Wow, either you didn’t watch the episode or you didn’t understand it. But either way, you probably shouldn’t write an article like that then.
The show isn’t written well or insightful at all. It’s just a knockoff. Third rate behind South Park & Simpsons.
Some people will laugh at anything.
Leaving aside the main issue here (that Deadline and TV Line have beat this up into a piece of pointless clickbait), the whole “haters are jealous” argument makes no sense whatsoever. Why would Joe Schmo be “jealous” of a multimillionaire writer-producer? It doesn’t have any psychological validity at all. The “hater” argument suggests you can’t have any reasonable cause to dislike someone’s work, which is pure baloney. Anyway, I do like MacFarlane’s work, The Cleveland Show notwithstanding, but I understand many don’t. I ain’t calling them “haters”.
Americans are so ridiculously over-sensitive when it comes to 9/11.
Dude, I’m american, but thank you, people have to accept death as a part of life, and to people who are going to hate on me for this, I lost my older sister in the towers, don’t think I haven’t been throught something like that.
Brilliant episode. Best Family Guy since last years XMass special or the one where Brian & Stewie are trapped in a bank vault. It’s pretty obvious which episodes MacFarlane & Co. actually spend time on and which ones they half-ass. It’s like night and day, imo. This one went above and beyond. I could have used a few more Back to the Future jokes, but Im really not going to complain.
The fact that Deadline felt this episode warranted its own post means that MacFarlane & Co. did a great job. It’s a badge of honor. Ahhh, controversy.