Seth MacFarlane
MacFarlane is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where he studied animation. He was recruited as an animator and writer for Hanna-Barbera's television series Johnny Bravo, Cow and Chicken and Dexter's Laboratory. During this time, he created the animated short Larry & Steveโa loose precursor of Family Guyโfor Fred Seibert's What a Cartoon!.
In 2008, he created the online series Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy. MacFarlane has made guest appearances as an actor on live action shows, including Gilmore Girls, Star Trek: Enterprise, The War at Home and FlashForward. MacFarlane has won several awards for his work on Family Guy, including five Primetime Emmy Awards. In 2009, he won the Webby Award for Film & Video Person of the Year.
MacFarlane has performed as a vocalist at the Hollywood Bowl, Carnegie Hall and the Royal Albert Hall. He has released ten studio albums, in the vein of Frank Sinatra, with influences from jazz orchestrations, and Hollywood musicals, beginning with Music Is Better Than Words (2011). MacFarlane has received five Grammy Award nominations.
He has frequently collaborated with artists such as Sara Bareilles, Norah Jones and Elizabeth Gillies on his albums. He hosted the 85th Academy Awards in 2013 and was nominated for Best Original Song for "Everybody Needs a Best Friend" from Ted.
MacFarlane was executive producer of the Neil deGrasse Tyson-hosted Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, an update of the 1980s Cosmos series hosted by Carl Sagan. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2019 and was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 2020.
Early life and education
Seth Woodbury MacFarlane was born on October 26, 1973, in Kent, Connecticut. His parents, Ronald Milton MacFarlane (born 1946) and Ann Perry (nรฉe Sager; 1947โ2010), were born in Newburyport, Massachusetts. His younger sister Rachael is a voice actress. His maternal grandfather, Arthur Sager, competed in the 1928 Summer Olympics in track and field.
His parents met in 1970 when they lived and worked in Boston and married later in 1970. They moved to Kent in 1972, and Ann began working in the admissions office at South Kent School in South Kent, Connecticut. She later worked in the college guidance and admissions offices at the Kent School, a selective college-preparatory school, where Ronald was a teacher.
As a child, Seth MacFarlane developed an interest in illustration, and at the age of two he began drawing cartoon characters, including Fred Flintstone and Woody Woodpecker. By age five, he knew he wanted to pursue a career in animation and began by creating flip books after his parents found a book on the subject for him.
At nine, he began publishing a weekly comic strip, Walter Crouton, for The Kent Good Times Dispatch, the local newspaper; it paid him five dollars per week. MacFarlane said that as a child he was always "weirdly fascinated by the communion ceremony". He created a strip with a character kneeling at the altar taking communion and asking, "Can I have fries with that?" The paper printed it, and he got an "angry letter" from the local priest; it led to "sort of a little mini-controversy" in the town.
MacFarlane received his high school diploma in 1991 from the Kent School. While there, he continued experimenting with animation, and his parents gave him an 8 mm film camera.
After graduating from high school, MacFarlane attended the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where he majored in animation. As a student, he intended to work for Disney but changed his mind after seeing The Simpsons. During his time at RISD, he performed stand-up comedy. He starred in many student films, meeting future Family Guy cast member Mike Henry, whose brother Patrick was MacFarlane's classmate.
In his senior year, he made his thesis film, The Life of Larry, which became the inspiration for Family Guy. A professor submitted his film to the animation studio Hanna-Barbera, where he was later hired. He graduated in 1995 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.
Career
Television career
Hanna-Barbera years
MacFarlane was recruited during the senior film festival by development executive Ellen Cockrill and president Fred Seibert. He went to work at Hanna-Barbera (then Hanna-Barbera Cartoons) based on the writing content of The Life of Larry rather than on his drawing abilities. He was one of only a few people hired by the company solely based on writing talent.
He worked as an animator and writer for Cartoon Network's Cartoon Cartoons series. He created Larry & Steve, a sequel to The Life of Larry, featuring middle-aged Larry and his intellectual dog, Steve. The short was broadcast as one of Cartoon Network's World Premiere Toons. He described the atmosphere at Hanna-Barbera as resembling an "old-fashioned Hollywood structure, where you move from one show to another or you jump from a writing job on one show to a storyboard job on another".
MacFarlane worked on three television series during his tenure at the studio: Dexter's Laboratory, Cow and Chicken and Johnny Bravo. Working as both a writer and storyboard artist, MacFarlane spent the most time on Johnny Bravo. He found it easier to develop his own style at Johnny Bravo through the show's process of scriptwriting, which Dexter's Laboratory and Cow and Chicken did not use.
As a part of the Johnny Bravo crew, he met actors and voiceover artists such as Adam West and Jack Sheldon of Schoolhouse Rock! fame. These meetings became significant to the production and success of his Family Guy series.[how?]
He did freelance work for Walt Disney Television Animation, writing for Jungle Cubs, and for Nelvana, where he wrote for Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. Through strict observation of writing elements such as story progression, character stakes and plot points, MacFarlane found the work for Disney was, from a writing standpoint, very valuable in preparation for his career (particularly on Ace Ventura).
He created and wrote a short titled Zoomates for Frederator Studios' Oh Yeah! Cartoons on Nickelodeon. Executives at the Fox Broadcasting Company saw both Larry shorts and negotiations began for a prime-time animated series.
Family Guy
Although MacFarlane enjoyed working at Hanna-Barbera, he felt his calling was for prime-time animation, which would allow a much edgier style of humor. He first pitched Family Guy to Fox during his tenure at Hanna-Barbera. A development executive there, who was trying to get back into prime-time business, introduced MacFarlane to Leslie Kolins and Mike Darnell, heads of the alternative comedy department at Fox.
After the success of King of the Hill in 1997, MacFarlane called Kolins once more to ask about a possible second pitch for the series. Fox offered MacFarlane a deal, giving him a budget of $50,000 (equivalent to $100,000 in 2025) to produce a pilot that could lead to a series (most episodes of animated prime-time productions cost at least $1 million).
Recalling the experience in an interview with The New York Times, MacFarlane said: "I spent about six months with no sleep and no life, just drawing like crazy in my kitchen and doing this pilot."
After six months, MacFarlane returned to Fox with a "very, very simply, crudely animated filmโwith just enough to get the tone of the show across" to present to the executives, who loved the pilot and immediately ordered the series. In July 1998, they announced the purchase of Family Guy for a January 1999 debut. Family Guy was originally intended to be a series of shorts on MADtv, much in the same way The Simpsons had begun on The Tracey Ullman Show.
Negotiations for the show's MADtv connection fell through early on as a result of budgetary concerns. At age 24, MacFarlane was television's youngest executive producer.
Family Guy first aired January 31, 1999. MacFarlane's work in animating Family Guy was influenced by Jackie Gleason and Hanna-Barbera along with examples from The Simpsons and All in the Family. In addition to writing three episodes, "Death Has a Shadow", "Family Guy Viewer Mail 1", and "North by North Quahog", MacFarlane voices Family Guy's main male characters of Peter Griffin, Stewie Griffin, Brian Griffin, and Glenn Quagmire, as well as Tom Tucker, his son Jake Tucker, and other characters.
Bolstered by high DVD sales and fan loyalty, Family Guy developed into a $1-billion franchise. On May 4, 2008, after approximately two and a half years of negotiations, MacFarlane reached a $100-million agreement with Fox to keep Family Guy and American Dad! until 2012. It made him the world's highest paid television writer.
MacFarlane's success with Family Guy opened doors to other ventures relating to the show. On April 26, 2005, he and composer Walter Murphy created Family Guy: Live in Vegas. The soundtrack features a Broadway show tune theme, and MacFarlane voiced Stewie in the track "Stewie's Sexy Party". A fan of Broadway musicals, MacFarlane comments on using musicals as a component of Family Guy:
I love the lush orchestration and old-fashioned melody writing ... it just gets you excited, that kind of music", he said. "It's very optimistic. And it's fun. The one thing that's missing for me from popular music today is fun. Guys like [Bing] Crosby, or [Frank] Sinatra, or Dean Martin, or Mel Tormรฉ [...] these are guys who sounded like they were having a great time.
A video game, Family Guy Video Game!, was released in 2006. In August 2007, MacFarlane closed a digital content production deal with AdSense. He takes cast members on the road to voice characters in front of live audiences. Family Guy Live provides fans with the opportunity to hear future scripts. In mid-2007, Chicago fans had the opportunity to hear the then-upcoming sixth-season premiere "Blue Harvest". Shows have played in Montreal, New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
On July 22, 2007, MacFarlane announced that he might start work on a feature film, although "nothing's official". In September 2007, Ricky Blitt gave TV.com an interview confirming that he had already started working on the script. Then in TV Week on July 18, 2008, MacFarlane confirmed plans to produce a theatrically released Family Guy feature film sometime "within the next year".
He came up with an idea for the story, "something that you could not do on the show, which [to him] is the only reason to do a movie". He said he imagines the film to be "an old-style musical with dialogue" similar to The Sound of Music, saying that he would "really be trying to capture, musically, that feel". On October 13, 2011, MacFarlane confirmed that a deal for a Family Guy film had been made, and that he would write it with series co-producer Ricky Blitt.
On November 30, 2012, he confirmed plans for the project. The project was put on hold while MacFarlane worked on Ted 2. In 2018, Fox announced that a live-action/animated film based on the series is in development. MacFarlane stepped away from the series in 2011 to work on Ted and other projects, and has only worked with the show as a voice actor since.
Family Guy has often been criticized. The Parents Television Council has been a frequent critic. It organized a letter-writing campaign to remove it from Fox's lineup, and filed complaints with the Federal Communications Commission alleging that some of its episodes contained indecent content. MacFarlane has responded to the PTC's criticism by saying, among other things: "That's like getting hate mail from Hitler. They're literally terrible human beings."
Family Guy has been canceled twice, although strong fan support and DVD sales have caused Fox to reconsider. MacFarlane mentioned how these cancellations affected the lineup of writers: "One of the positive aspects of Family Guy constantly being pulled off [the air] is that we were always having to restaff writers."
During its sixth season, episodes of Family Guy and American Dad! were delayed from regular broadcast due to the 2007โ2008 Writers Guild of America strike. MacFarlane participated in the strike to support the writers, and Fox aired three Family Guy episodes without his permission.[how?] The strike ended on February 12, 2008.
American Dad!
MacFarlane has a second long-running adult animated series in American Dad!, which has been in production since early 2005. It is his only animated series that has not been canceled, though it has undergone two network relocations: from Fox to TBS following its 11th season, and from TBS back to Fox following its 21st.
MacFarlane provides the voices of protagonist Stan Smith and prominent secondary character Roger. His sister Rachael provides the voice of Hayley, Stan's daughter. Additionally, he co-wrote the show's first episode. Aside from his voice acting work, MacFarlane has left much of American Dad!'s creative direction to the show's other co-creators, Matt Weitzman and Mike Barker (the latter departed after ten seasons), feeling it helps give the series its own voice and identity.
MacFarlane has stated that his inspiration to create American Dad! derived from his and Weitzman's exasperation with the George W. Bush administration. MacFarlane has described the initial seasons of American Dad! as being similar to All in the Family, likening Stan's originally bigoted persona to Archie Bunker.
After the early couple of seasons however, the series discontinued using these elements of political satire and changed to its own humor. MacFarlane was described as having difficulty understanding the series in its early going; however, he warmed up to the series after its early seasons once he felt the show truly came into its own.
His fellow co-creators have sensed this through MacFarlane's greatly increased attention to the series after its early seasons. MacFarlane has revealed he is an American Dad! fan himself. He has taken note of the positive reaction to the Roger character by fans via his Twitter.
The Cleveland Show
MacFarlane developed a Family Guy spin-off called The Cleveland Show, which focuses on the character of Cleveland Brown and his family. The idea for the show originated from a suggestion by Family Guy writer and voice of Cleveland, Mike Henry. Fox ordered 22 episodes and the series first aired on September 27, 2009.
The show, which was picked up to air a first season consisting of 22 episodes, was picked up by Fox for a second season, consisting of 13 episodes, bringing the total number to 35 episodes. The announcement was made on May 3, 2009, before the first season premiered. Due to strong ratings, Fox picked up the back nine episodes of season 2, making a 22-episode season and bringing the total episode count of the show to 44.
The series ended on May 19, 2013, with a total of 4 seasons and 88 episodes. The character of Cleveland and his family returned to Family Guy in the episode "He's Bla-ack!".
Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy
In 2008, MacFarlane released a series of webisodes known as Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy with its animated shorts sponsored by Burger King and released weekly.
The Orville
In 2016, MacFarlane began producing the science fiction comedy-drama series The Orville, in which he stars as Captain Edward "Ed" Mercer. MacFarlane originally wrote The Orville as a spec script, which was given a 13-episode order by Fox in May 2016, making it the first live-action television series created by MacFarlane.
The series premiered on September 10, 2017. Despite the first season receiving negative reviews, it was renewed for a second season. The second season premiered on December 30, 2018, and received better reviews.
The series was renewed for a third season by Fox. The series moved over to Hulu. The season is the show's first on Hulu, after airing its previous two seasons on Fox, as well as the first to premiere since The Walt Disney Company's March 2019 acquisition of 20th Century Fox. The season was originally scheduled to premiere in 2020 but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The third season titled as The Orville: New Horizons premiered on June 2, 2022. Due to the pandemic, an episode of third season was scrapped, which MacFarlane subsequently turned into a novel, titled The Orville: Sympathy for the Devil.
Television producing
MacFarlane was the executive producer of a live-action sitcom starring Rob Corddry called The Winner. The show ran on Fox for six episodes in Spring 2007.
In August 2011, Fox ordered a 13-part updated series of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. MacFarlane co-produced the series with Ann Druyan and Steven Soter. The series is hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson and began airing on the channel in March 2014, with repeats airing on the National Geographic Channel on the next night.
In addition to serving as one of the executive producers, MacFarlane provided voices for characters during the animated portions of the series. MacFarlane returned to executive produce and provide voices to its sequel series, Cosmos: Possible Worlds, which aired in 2020.
In 2013 and 2014, MacFarlane produced one season of a live-action sitcom called Dads. The series, revolves around Eli, played by Seth Green, and Warner, played by Giovanni Ribisi, two successful guys in their 30s whose world is turned upside down when their dads move in with them. MacFarlane, Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild executive-produced the series, with Sulkin and Wild writing.
In 2014, MacFarlane executive produced a two-season, 20-episode series called Blunt Talk for Starz.
In 2009, MacFarlane began work on the animated series Bordertown. The series is set in Texas and follows a border patrol agent and a Mexican immigrant, satirizing America's changing cultural landscape. It ran for 13 episodes in the first half of 2016, on Fox.
Television hosting
MacFarlane has participated in the Comedy Central Roasts. MacFarlane is the only person to serve as roastmaster for more than one roast. In 2010, he filled this role for the roast of David Hasselhoff. The following year he was roastmaster at the roasts of Donald Trump and Charlie Sheen.
On October 1, 2012, it was announced that MacFarlane would host the 85th Academy Awards on February 24, 2013. He presented the nominees with actress Emma Stone, on January 10, 2013. In addition to hosting, MacFarlane was nominated in the Academy Award for Best Original Song category for co-writing the theme song "Everybody Needs a Best Friend" for his film Ted with Walter Murphy.
Critical response to MacFarlane's performance was mixed. Columnist Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly commented "By calling constant attention to the naughty factor," MacFarlane created "an echo chamber of outrage, working a little too hard to top himself with faux-scandalous gags about race, Jews in Hollywood, and the killing of Abraham Lincoln." Tim Goodman of The Hollywood Reporter praised MacFarlane's performance saying that he did "impressively better than one would have wagered".
He noted that he added "plenty of niceties with a little bit of the Ricky Gervais bite-the-hand-that-feeds-you thing and worked the juxtaposition rather nicely". He stirred up controversy in the form of a musical number titled "We Saw Your Boobs".
On October 29, 2014, it was announced that MacFarlane would host the Breakthrough Prize ceremony. The event was held in Silicon Valley and televised on November 15, 2014, on Discovery Channel and Science, and globally on November 22, 2014, on BBC World News. He returned to host the following year.
Film career
Ted
MacFarlane made his directorial live-action film debut with the release of Ted in 2012. He announced that he was directing it on an episode of Conan that aired on February 10, 2011. Along with directing the film, he wrote the screenplay, served as producer, and starred as the title character.
๐ Source: Wikipedia
