Family Guy has been on the air for over 25 years and 24 seasons, and series creator Seth MacFarlane detailed how long it actually takes to make each episode of the long running animated series. Family Guy is an incredibly popular part of Fox’s Animation Domination line up, and although it had been cancelled before, it’s hard to imagine what Fox would look like now without it. But even for as long as it has been running, it appears that situations behind the scenes have not changed too much since production began years ago.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Family Guy comes from the older era of television where animated works took several months to be completed as they are still hand drawn (even digitally) and must be sent across multiple production houses. Speaking to Pardon My Take, Seth MacFarlane confirmed this to be the case by revealing it takes “about ten months to a year” to produce a single episode of the series rather than being something that can be quickly put together.
Why Does Family Guy Take So Long to Make New Episodes?
When asked about why it takes such a long time to put an episode of Family Guy together, MacFarlane explained that there are much smaller details that make it so complicated compared to just capturing a live-action actor’s performance (as fans would see in the now streaming Ted series), “If you’re an animator, it’s, ‘What’s the tone of the scene?’” he said. “Is it, ‘I’m pleading with you’? Or, ‘I’m dismissive’? Those are two different things.” Then both of those versions need their own timing and detailing.
“And each of those versions have to be timed out on what’s called an exposure sheet,” MacFarlane continued. “That tells the animators how many frames from here to here. Is this 48 frames? Or is this 12 frames?” Although the creator only went into one small aspect of the series’ production to explain how long it takes, this does line up with what long time fans of the series have been in its past before. This is kind of the standard schedule for the way primetime broadcast animation used to be made as it heads overseas to complete work on the episode with constant communication in between.
What’s Next for Family Guy?
Family Guy is now in the midst of Season 24 of the animated series now airing Sunday evenings with Fox, and it’s another season in a massive four season renewal with the network. The animated series is showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon as series creator Seth MacFarlane was recently recognized by Nielsen for the hundred thousands of hours that fans have streamed his multiple projects across the world. So it’s likely going to still continue.
It might seem wild to see it takes so long to make each episode considering how many are seen each season, but it’s all produced in a stacked way that allows the team to work on multiple episodes at a time at various points in their process. It’s been working for the series for the past couple of decades, and clearly continues to work if the process hasn’t changed too much in all that time.
What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
HT – Pardon My Take
Most Viewed
-
Courtesy of Lionhead Studios -
Courtesy of Eight-Bit -
Image via Prime Video -
Courtesy of Toei Animation -
Photo by Jesse Grant/Variety via Getty Images
