Production
"Blue Harvest" originally aired on September 23, 2007, as the premiere for the sixth season of Family Guy. The episode was written by Alec Sulkin, who has been with the show since the fourth season. It was directed by series veteran Dominic Polcino, who has been directing for the series since its first season. Series regulars Peter Shin and James Purdum served as supervising directors. The episode's music was composed by Walter Murphy.
Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane explained that the reason they made a parody of Star Wars in particular was because the show's staff members were huge fans of the films. Another reason they chose Star Wars was because Lucasfilm allowed it. MacFarlane stated that creating parodies based off Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark or Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was originally considered, but they assumed they would be unable to gain permission from the owners of those properties (in this case Paramount Pictures). Lucasfilm only gave the show's staff one condition, which was that the characters had to look exactly like they do in the movies.
Clips of the episode were shown to audience members at Star Wars Celebration IV, where a panel was hosted by MacFarlane, Sulkin and Polcino, and executive producer David A. Goodman. The episode was also previewed at the 2007 Comic-Con International.
In addition to the regular cast, actors Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo, musician Mick Hucknall and political commentator Rush Limbaugh made guest appearances. Recurring guest voice actors Phil LaMarr, Johnny Brennan, John Benjamin, Lori Alan, Adam West, Ralph Garman, writer Danny Smith, writer John Viener, executive producer Steve Callaghan, Kirker Butler, executive producer Mark Hentemann writer Wally Wingert and Alec Sulkin also made minor appearances in the episode.
Read more about this topic: Blue Harvest (Family Guy)
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“Constant revolutionizing of production ... distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“The problem of culture is seldom grasped correctly. The goal of a culture is not the greatest possible happiness of a people, nor is it the unhindered development of all their talents; instead, culture shows itself in the correct proportion of these developments. Its aim points beyond earthly happiness: the production of great works is the aim of culture.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“An art whose limits depend on a moving image, mass audience, and industrial production is bound to differ from an art whose limits depend on language, a limited audience, and individual creation. In short, the filmed novel, in spite of certain resemblances, will inevitably become a different artistic entity from the novel on which it is based.”
—George Bluestone, U.S. educator, critic. “The Limits of the Novel and the Limits of the Film,” Novels Into Film, Johns Hopkins Press (1957)