How Family Guy Uses Sitcoms Like Modern Family To Stay Grounded – Looper

In September 2022, “Family Guy” executive producer Richard Appel pulled back the curtain on how the show’s team keeps it grounded. As it turns out, the secret comes down to looking at other TV sitcoms, such as “Modern Family.” He explained to TV Fanatic, “We have this unwritten assumption or goal for ourselves when we’re breaking a story to think: could this story be told, in its own way, on ‘Modern Family’? Could it be told on: a fill-in-the-blank sitcom?” Appel notes that once the narrative throughline is established and it meets this caveat, then the famous “Family Guy” touches enter the equation.

At the same time, just because “Family Guy” tries to remain grounded in reality doesn’t mean that its storylines always sit right with fans. In a Reddit thread by u/MysticOneIX, they asked fans for their weirdest moments from the series. In no time at all, the thread became a string of some of the most hard-to-watch scenarios ever featured. Peter Griffin (Seth MacFarlane) marrying his son Chris (Seth Green), Brian Griffin’s (MacFarlane) relationships with human women — since he’s a literal dog — and Brian eating the contents of Stewie Griffin’s (MacFarlane) diaper all stood out to fans as difficult to make it through.

On paper, the “Family Guy” team has come up with a smart way to keep the show properly grounded. However, the matter of how successful they’ve been at doing so clearly remains up for debate.