Production
Production for the fifth season began in 2005, during the airing of the fourth season. The season was executive produced by series regulars David A. Goodman, Seth MacFarlane, Chris Sheridan, and Danny Smith. In addition, Goodman served as showrunner throughout the season.
As production began, Tom Devanney, Kirker Butler, Cherry Chevapravatdumrong, Alec Sulkin, Wellesley Wild, Patrick Meighan, Danny Smith and future showrunners Mark Hentemann and Steve Callaghan, all stayed on from the previous season. No new writers were hired after the conclusion of the fourth season. Alex Borstein, who serves as the voice of Lois, wrote her last episode, "It Takes a Village Idiot, and I Married One", and regular writers Ken Goin and Gary Janetti, who returned during season eight, left the series before the beginning of the fifth season.
Julius Wu and Brian Iles received their first directing credits this season. Mike Kim, James Purdum, Cyndi Tang, Greg Colton, Pete Michels, Zac Moncrief, John Holmquist and future Blue Harvest director Dominic Polcino all also stayed with the show from the previous season. This season, however, was director Dan Povenmire's last season before leaving the show to create his own series, entitled Phineas and Ferb, which has since been nominated for three Emmy Awards.
The main cast consisted of Seth MacFarlane (Peter Griffin, Stewie Griffin, Brian Griffin, Quagmire, Tom Tucker), Alex Borstein (Lois Griffin, Loretta Brown, Tricia Takanawa, Barbara Pewterschmidt), Mila Kunis (Meg Griffin), Seth Green (Chris Griffin, Neil Goldman) and Mike Henry (Cleveland Brown, Herbert).
New recurring characters were also introduced in season five. The character of Jillian Fisher, Brian's new dimwitted girlfriend, was introduced in the episode "Whistle While Your Wife Works". She provided an ironic counterpoint to Brian's intellectualism. Her final character personality was designed to be a stereotypical blonde, "a bulimic cheerleader," and "not the brightest bauble on the tree." Her voice would later play upon the bulimic cheerleader element, with actress Drew Barrymore providing the voice of Jillian in eight episodes, five of which would be in season five. Other guest stars who made multiple appearances as recurring characters from previous seasons were Carrie Fisher as Peter's boss, Angela, and Phyllis Diller as Peter's mother. Seth MacFarlane's sister, Rachael MacFarlane, also made her last appearance as Olivia, the child actress, when her character was killed by Stewie in the episode "Chick Cancer".
The season ends just short of the series' 100th episode, which presents the funniest clips of the previous 99 episodes. The decision to end the fifth season before the 100th episode was made due to Fox executives' desire to show the Family Guy special "Blue Harvest" as the sixth season premiere, which was still unfinished, at the end of the fifth season in May 2007.
Read more about this topic: Family Guy (season 5)
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“In the production of the necessaries of life Nature is ready enough to assist man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is part of the educator’s responsibility to see equally to two things: First, that the problem grows out of the conditions of the experience being had in the present, and that it is within the range of the capacity of students; and, secondly, that it is such that it arouses in the learner an active quest for information and for production of new ideas. The new facts and new ideas thus obtained become the ground for further experiences in which new problems are presented.”
—John Dewey (1859–1952)
“The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)