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It's rare that any writer openly campaigns for an Emmy. But Family Guy's Patrick Meighan sent around this amusing email that raised a few eyebrows to the many people who received it. "I've certainly known plenty of people nominated for Emmys (hell, who hasn't been nominated?)," one of the recipients told me, "and I've never seen such a naked trolling for votes." Appropriate or inappropriate? You decide:
Hey, friend-of-Pat. Hope you're doing well.
Prolly you've heard that Family Guy got nominated for an Emmy for Best Comedy today. It's the first time that an animated show has been nominated in that category since 1961 (when The Flintstones lost to The Jack Benny Show). 1961! Alaska had just become a state. Internet porn about pregnant chicks was still a crazy, futuristic dream. And the leading cause of death in our nation among males age 18 to 40 was whistling at white women.
We at Family Guy are simultaneously thrilled and confused by today's development. Mostly thrilled, though. And since I, in particular, am new to this whole Emmy scene, I'm gonna violate longstanding rules of Emmy decorum and beg you -- if you happen to be a member of the TV Academy -- to please consider wasting your Best Comedy vote on our cartoon picture!
Note that Academy members who wish to vote in this category NEED TO SIGN UP TO VOTE (see instructions and link below).
And if you, yourself, aren't an Academy member but happen to know someone who is (and who is amenable to voting for homosexual cartoon babies and poop and rape jokes and whatever else), please forward this information to 'em.
**THE DEADLINE FOR THEM TO SIGN-UP IS FRIDAY JULY 24.**
After that date, no one else will be able to join the voting pool. So, probably the pool of actual voters will be relatively small -- all the more reason to get this to as many people as possible as soon as possible. Your vote (or your friend's vote) could make the difference between Family Guy losing to 30 Rock by lots and lots of votes and Family Guy losing to 30 Rock by just lots of votes. That second thing
is what we're shooting for, right there.Please let me know if you have any questions.
Thanks,
Pat Meighan
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Whatever it is, it’s precisely what one would expect from anyone at Family Guy. The show is funny, offbeat, and for those with a slightly perturbed sense of humor. It makes perfect sense that they would do the inappropriate thing and campaign for votes … because that’s what the show does. It breaks those boundaries. If there’s a line for humor and it just about reaches it, then Family Guy is sure to cross it.
It’s what makes the writing original and why it should win but probably won’t. 30 Rock’s gotten both bizarre but ironically safer. FG’s stayed bizarre and still crazy.
Oh, what the Hell. Give that manatee an Emmy! (And by running Pat’s smart ass email, you’ve all but doomed our precious “30 Rock.”)
What a strange thing to take umbrage to. I can’t see anything wrong with a friendly, cajoling email asking people to vote for your show. It’s not like he’s forcing anyone. What’s funnier is the person that forwarded this email to DHD faking some shock, worthy outrage at Patrick’s thrill and enthusiasm for an Emmy Nod. Don’t listen to them Patrick, get some T-shirts printed up to really rattle ‘em.
Juvenile and classless; like the show.
Dont you mean shallow and pedantic?
Well im going to be seeing Mark Hentemann at USC Wednesday at a panel so should be interesting…. hehe
Yes how utterly awful and terrible this is. How dare he try to sway voters with a cheap email. What’s wrong with this man? Doesn’t he realize the appropriate method is to spend a fortune on full page ads in the trades the way studios and networks do? Who does this fellow think he is? I would only vote for a show that wastes money on full page trade ads. I’d certainly never vote for Family Guy unless FOX starts pissing money away on expensive ads. That’s the only way to convince me and all of my fellow voters.
“…and I’ve never seen such a naked trolling for votes.” Shows how out of touch the source is… Kathy Griffin nakedly trolls and wins.
I think the email was cute and appropriate. Good for the Family Guy team for sending it.
Family Guy is so unfunny, it’s not funny. Think about it.
@crazyproduceguy – Agreed. And don’t most nominees lobby behind the scenes?
Don’t really have a problem with this. In fact, Hollywood is so dependent and used to ‘third party’ affiliates promoting and speaking for the main entity, that it’s almost refreshing to see the writer do it himself. Let him have his moment and show pride in his work.
Pat doesn’t think he will win and he’s right. And what crazyproduceguy said. Wait til The Hangover is nominated for best picture. I wanna see that naked trolling.
It’s obviously a joke. The last line of the email makes the intent clear.
I wonder if Matt Stone or Trey Parker did this if there would be the same reaction. Probably not. Same with the Simpsons. Lots of jealousy out there I guess.
100% cool with that. What’s the big deal?
I think it’s hilarious and how is it different from the hundreds of thousands of dollars that studios and networks spend on full page ads in the trades? Those just take up space… this one made me laugh.
Wait, what is this? A family guy writer doing something extremely ham handedly? Well. I. Never.
HEY it’s networking…they need to be pro-active
How is this any different from a presidential candidate, or any political candidate for that matter, asking the people to vote for him? It’s fair and the American way. Besides, does anyone doubt that producers, writers, directors, actors and members of other guilds wouldn’t ask friends and colleagues to vote for them when they get Emmy or Oscar nominations? Seems like a very smart, very human thing to do.
Sorry pat and Seth,
No awards for you.
Seth will just have to settle with having lots of money.
Other than it being funny, who cares if The Family Guy guy campaigns for an Emmy? Colbert essentially does the same thing with his Tony Bennett/Barry Manilow jokes. Maybe there can be a new Emmy category for Best Emmy Campaign? Besides, as said recipient points out, “I’ve certainly know plenty of people nominated for Emmys (hell, who hasn’t been nominated?).” Um, exactly.
“Breaking boundaries”? This isn’t Rosa Parks. The only boundaries it breaks are the ones that suggest the best comedy is within an actual narrative structure. Family Guy had some quality to it in the first season or two, but it’s quickly devolved into nothing more than sarcasm and pregnant pauses.
There’s a difference between original and simply different. Family Guy is an example of the latter, and not in a good way.
Wait: Family Guy has writers?
Why do you need a writing staff if every show consists of ripping off The Simpsons, literally re-staging scenes from movies and TV shows (under the guise of spoofing them) and jamming in pop culture references if there’s any room left?
people ask their friends to sign up and vote all the time. membership in the tv academy isn’t automatic. this time, it got to you, Nikki, so the e-mail came out for general comment. but there’s nothing particularly weird about it or even wrong — he isn’t stuffing ballot boxes, nobody has to vote for him, he just wants people who qualify for emmy voting to sign up and hopes they’ll vote for family guy.
I agree with the first poster, he mentions he’s breaking decorum and is self aware enough to enjoy the novelty of the nomination, yet acknowledging it’s a real longshot. Their submissions were very clever with the packaging making fun of emmy voters and sending an episode where they go to germany during world war II. I don’t remember the exact line but something like you voters like to vote for nazi’s etc. It worked. But this is email is consistent with the campaign they ran to get nominated.
Has anyone ever seen the pressure put on employees at a Network or a Studio to not only become members of the Academy (see Fox in particular who actually pays for you to join) but to “be sure” to vote for their own nominated shows. This is such a benign note from a writer who loves working on his show and as he points out, knows it would be historic if for some reason Family Guy were to win (never going to happen). This is a much ado about nothing posting. Let the guy be happy and let him do anything he can to drum up votes for his show. What the heck, the Studio is doing this and much more to do the same.
Anyone out there who doesn’t already know that Family Guy is WAY FUNNIER that 30 Rock obviously has never watched Family Guy. Treat yourself.
Family Guy is endemic of ADD style sitcom animation.
It has none of the true satire, warmth, dimension or lasting humor of even mid-quality Simpsons, or hell, The Honeymooners. Arguing that that was never the intention of Family Guy is not an argument. There’s something dead about it as a show, and it was a relief to see South Park tear it to pieces.
It’s not offensive or groundbreaking, it’s just lowest common denominator entertainment, herd-fun like Dane Cook, Harold/Kumar, Bruno, etc. – maybe shocking to the boojy masses but not the least bit confrontational to the status quo (despite marketing efforts to suggest otherwise).
How seriously embarrassing for a writer to be caught chasing something as cheesy and industry establishment as an Emmy. Way to be ‘edgy’.
Family Guy doesn’t cross lines, it is a ‘youth lifestyle product’ from the Fox corporation, and looks like it.
The design of the characters is generic, a lame combination of Simpsons and Flintstones – this show is boring to look at and boring to experience.
In other words, relax, you’ll get your Emmy.
Unfunny infantile nerds. Sign of the times. Pathetic.
The always annoying Patrick Meighan, Culver City has finally found a way to be more annoying than his show. So this is just a win all the way around.
This definitely isn’t the first time I’ve encountered this. I once received a phone call from a writer whose show had been nominated in the Daytime Emmys for best children’s show. He somehow got the name of every academy member and personally called every one of them to ask for votes. (I can’t remember if he won.) In any case, how is this really any different from all the self-serving ads media companies place in the soon-to-be-extinct paper publications, promoting their movies, shows, actors, etc. to voters who may be reading those papers? Meighan’s letter is actually more clever and entertaining than those ads. That said, 30 Rock rocks! (Also love Flight of the Conchords) I agree with Meighan’s assessment that his letter will likely help him lose to 30 Rock by a smaller margin.
Meh. South Park was breaking boundries and crossing the line for humor far before Family Guy came along. And it’s still a much better, smarter and funnier animated comedy than FG will ever be.
Classless but funny. Kind of like everything Seth MacFarlane does. Well except for the funny part…
What’s sad for Patrick is, odds are he is NOT an emmy nominee. Writer/Producers have to go through a vetting process to be considered actual producer-nominees. The Academy is cracking down and unless you are actually an Executive Producer (or MAYBE a co-ep) there’s probably not a nomination coming your way.
Love Family Guy! It’s one of the rare shows that actually makes me laugh at loud.
Wait…. which one of the manatees who write “The Family Guy” is Patrick Meighan? Is he the chunky one, or the one with the cute little mustache?
Family Guy should win an Emmy. But not because it’s funny or good. It’s the best example of the shit that passes for TV these days. It’s derivative, hackery from “writers” who never met a pop culture reference that didn’t steal.
So give it to them. Not the vastly superior and edgy SouthPark or The Venture Brothers or even that other little show called The Simpsons. Lets give it to these jerkoffs because they asked for it.
Oh and by the way:
PALIN FOR PRESIDENT
10 OSCAR NOMINATIONS IS GREAT
AMERICA’S GOT TALENT
AMERICAN IDOL ROCKS
TYLER PERRY WINS AN IMAGE AWARD
AND JEFF ZUCKER IS A VISIONARY
While I find the email very tasteless and tacky, he’s just doing out in the open what so many people in this town are doing at bars, restaurants, and other back alleys…
We’ve never seen such naked trolling? Every single award nomination in Hollywood, from the Oscars to the Black List, is the result of campaigning. And why the hell not, considering that everyone’s careers is riding on them.
I just love the smug elitism of all the South Park fanatics.
You ever notice the mantra of these insufferable blowhards regarding this show: “It’s great social satire. It’s great social satire. It’s great social satire.”
Hey, look! Cartman just made an Obama reference! Wow, Parker and Stone are such insightful sociopolitical commentators! Boy, I can’t wait until the end of the show when Kyle (or is it Stan) muses about a common sense approach to everything in life and politics. Gee, if only our politicians weren’t muddle-headed narcissists.
And yeah, South Park doters! You tell everyone who has the audacity find amusement in the antics of the Family Griffin that they’re a bunch of idiotic troglodytes who should be forcefully sterilized. It’s really too bad there are too many viewers not as intellectually gifted and refined as you. The ratings bear this out. Family Guy trounces South Park regularly in the ratings. I’m talking reruns on Adult Swim at 11 PM routing first-run South Parks. Not only that, but Family Guy has built and maintained an audience in addition to getting resurrected by Fox whereas South Park peaked with 6 million viewers in the late 90s, but millions soon discovered Parker and Stone “wore no clothes” and they now barely pull in 2 million, which again, is lower than what Family Guy pulls.
Alas, South Park fellators, you always have your supremely-evolved cerebral cortices to fall back on.
His plea for votes is both funny, smart and charming. I have no problem with it. It’s actually kind of refreshing to see someone doing it for themselves rather than relying on some PR flack, studio or network to do it for them while they pretend it’s not all that important to them.
Hell, nothing wrong with this. He’s funny. His show is funny. Everyone votes for their friends anyway.
I say, go for it!
The real crime is that this show was nominated in this category at all. Ever since the show has come back it’s been empty, lifeless, and pretty awful.
Should have just stayed dead.
“O.K. Crackerby” deserves the comedy Emmy. It has been overlooked long enough. Burl Ives’ performance in the lead is a non pareil — funny, yet touching.
Whatever one’s opinion of the merits of Family Guy versus 30 Rock, the fact is that MacFarlane’s other series American Dad has been a stronger show than Family Guy for at least a year.
Nothing wrong with this at all, and like Family Guy itself, it’s completely self-aware. It’s not spitting any venom and in turn neither will I.
The only strange thing is that the nomination comes on the heels of some of the worst Family Guy episodes being produced. And that’s why it doesn’t deserve to win. Except for the early episode Cherry wrote about Joe’s wife finally giving birth, that one was great.
FG needs to overhaul it’s writing staff. Although look what happened to Weeds when it did that. That show is shit now.
Matt and Trey would never plead for awards because they’re too busy actually writing original and funny stuff. This writer Patric Megan seems to embody his show; a cloying, derivative, shock-value-first belch for attention that lives to hear its own voice.
Who EXACTLY is this guy’s agent and did that numbskull sign off on this? Surprised Nikki isn’t ready to out the rep who no doubt giggled all the way through his client’s piece of pathetic junk mail!
So apparently Oscar campaigns consist of spending millions of dollars on ads, investigating the other movies for dirt (c.f. Harvey Weinstein) and smearing them, and generally doing anything desperate to get votes.
Emmy campaigns, if you send out an email, you cross a line? One email? Seriously? John Scalzi did something like this before the Hugo noms were announced. That’s right: a tactic so tame fiction writers use it.
The email’s funny, and I am kinda shocked anyone, in this era of self-promotion, has a problem with it. And yeah, “Family Guy” is still funny.
What truly SUCKS about Family Guy getting this nomination is that the Simpsons and South Park have been so much more deserving over the years.
Both FAMILY GUY and AMERICAN DAD depress me before Monday comes.
Fox had it right when they canceled this show the first and second times around.
Ever seen a Family Guy fan? Overweight mouth-breathers, all of them. They belly-laugh at every stupid mockery of a joke that is on that show, even the exact recreations of scenes from other movies. I’m guessing most of them aren’t above a fourth grade reading level.
Take crazyproduceguy’s first post and the opposite of it is true. Cancel this show once and for all and save me from ever having to hear Peter Griffin’s stupid voice ever again.
@ P.J. LemonSky
Amen, brother.
And I, like many people I would suspect, actually like South Park AND Family Guy. They are very different shows, but no one forces me to watch only one or the other.
I can’t agree more – the Matt and Trey meme that anything/anyone trying to make the world a better place is dumb and stupid, and everything should be simplified the way Stan sees it, is annoying. It always reminds me of the term South Park Republicans. Sorry, but I don’t need those two guys telling me how I should feel about things.
And I think Matt and Trey and Seth McF are all a little overrated
But they’re very funny. It’s pointless to try and deny it.
Okay I’m sorry. South Park is better than Family Guy and yes, I am gay.
I-think-Family-Guy-is-the-second-best-animated-program. Everyone-knows-The-Daily-Show-is-number-one.
All I have to say is that anyone who wants to vote for “Family Guy” should be aware that you need to register with the Emmy Academy by THIS Friday, July 24th. Just go to the Emmy website and ask to judge Outstanding Comedy series. Okay, now, was this a shameless promotion or an informative public service announcement?
I love the show. I have never seen a show where I laugh outloud at ALMOST every episode until I started following thshow AFTER it came back on after being cancelled. and I say almost because even I, a 44 yr old housewife, has some boundaries,… they may be made of sandbags with the seam splitting open by kitten claws but hey! boundaries are boundaries. but I digress…. I love the show , the characters, the actors that voice the characters. and they deserve to be recognized.
Give the little baby his award, and then it’s time for his nap.
When I make jokes they are inherent to a story! Deep situational and emotional jokes based on what is relevant and has a point, not just one random interchangeable joke after another!
Hell, I’m tempted to join the Academy just so I CAN vote for this show!
I find the show largely puerile. I expect to see an Oscar nomination for Transformers next.
Nikki’s brilliant for posting this piece. Chew on the hand that feeds you, but not enough to bite it off. Her site regularly takes advertising for awards campaigns. And I don’t mean this as a slam. If the trades got hip (fat chance I know) they could give her a run.
BTW I’m guessing from the comments here that FG submitted the Nazi ep. Funny stuff, but I’d have put up the 420 show myself. What the haters here have universally failed to acknowledge is the fun FG has with its musical numbers.
As for the ADD accusations leveled against both FG and South Park, I hasten to point out both shows know their audiences are smart pop culture polyglots who don’t need to be spoon-fed setups because they know the references and can fill in the rest for themselves just fine, thank you.
South Park got it wrong…they’re not manatees they’re sperm whales – Seth said so.
Can’t we all just get along?
Is there any chance the Emmy show itself may someday be animated? I don’t mean exciting, that’s out of the question. I mean the hosts, Matt Weiner, even the list of the recently departed all be done with cells instead of live action. That way, through pen strokes, the animated characters winning the writing and directing awards could be limited to two or three words or funny sounds in their acceptance remarks. It’s slows everything down when people who aren’t great looking and who we don’t know or recognize show their gratitude.
I don’t get it. FG should’ve been nominated for an Emmy in its heyday when it was fresh, relevant and actually funny. Now after its resurrection it just piles on the unfunny random flashbacks and lost its touch, basically.
Hey, look! Cartman just made an Obama reference! Wow, Parker and Stone are such insightful sociopolitical commentators! Boy, I can’t wait until the end of the show when Kyle (or is it Stan) muses about a common sense approach to everything in life and politics. Gee, if only our politicians weren’t muddle-headed narcissists.
Er, no. Stan’s little wrapup isn’t what makes it good satire, and Cartman doesn’t just make random references — that’s the whole freaking point. FG is the one that makes random references.
South Park’s satire comes from the fact that you usually don’t know until halfway through each episode what it’s really “about.” There’s always a parallel, and it’s not always obvious.
FG was funny once upon a time, but it gets old incredibly fast. South Park ages well. We’ll see which one people are talking about a decare or two from now. Something tells me it won’t be the one that thinks cutting to a shot of Margot Kidder screaming constitutes a joke.