Family Guy Executive Producers Discuss How Working With Seth MacFarlane Has Changed Over The Years

Seth MacFarlane certainly still has a hand in ensuring “Family Guy” maintains the level of quality its known for, but, he can only be at so many places at once, and seeing how he’s spearheading other projects, including “The Orville,” he just can’t be involved with “Family Guy” as much as he may like. Alec Sulkin stated as much. When he first came on the show, MacFarlane was incredibly hands-on. 

As the years went on, his time became all the more precious, and as Sulkin puts it, “We have a great relationship with him, but he comes in and does the voices, and then he will also let us know the things that he likes and doesn’t like about the show. Then he will occasionally pitch us a story idea, which instantly goes in the pipeline. Our relationship has evolved with him.”

Rich Appel went on to mention how MacFarlane’s more or less required to know what’s going on with the show, seeing how he does so many voices. He’s practically in every scene, so he’s forced to read the scripts and give his notes on them accordingly. Appel further explains, “When [MacFarlane] is recording, he can say, ‘Make sure we’re not playing Brian too much like this.’ It’s a quality control, which is hugely helpful — unless he doesn’t like something, [in] which case it’s a burden.”

There may only be 24 hours in a day, but MacFarlane somehow finds the time to do it all. It likely goes without saying he’s probably one of the hardest working guys in Hollywood. 

New episodes of “Family Guy” Season 21 air on Fox at 9:30 p.m. ET/PT.