Death Has A Shadow - Background

Background

MacFarlane initially conceived Family Guy in 1995 while studying animation under the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). During college, he created his thesis film entitled The Life of Larry, which was later submitted by his professor at RISD to Hanna-Barbera, which led to MacFarlane being hired by the company. In 1996, MacFarlane created a sequel to The Life of Larry entitled Larry and Steve, which featured a middle-aged character named Larry and an intellectual dog, Steve. The short was broadcast in 1997 as one of Cartoon Network's World Premiere Toons.

In 1997, while writing for carol, MacFarlane planned to develop the Larry shorts into a short film series for MADtv; however, the project was abandoned because the show did not possess a large enough budget to make any kind of animation. As development continued, the genre gradually shifted to a prime-time series, while the characters of Larry and Steve formed the basis for Peter and Brian, respectively. During the year, a Hanna-Barbera development executive introduced MacFarlane to alternative comedians Mike Darnell and Leslie Collins in an attempt to get Hanna-Barbera back into the prime-time business. The executives were unimpressed; a year later, MacFarlane contacted Collins at Fox; she arranged a meeting with him and the company executives to create a series based on the characters entitled Family Guy.

Fox proposed MacFarlane complete a 15-minute short, and gave him a budget of $50,000. After the pilot aired, the series was greenlighted. Premises were drawn from several 1980s Saturday morning cartoons MacFarlane watched as a child, such as The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang and Rubik, the Amazing Cube.