TV Tattler: Celebrity Interviews
'American Dad' and 'Family Guy' Creator Seth MacFarlane Is Animated About Work and Play
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At some point. David Goodman, my producing partner on 'Family Guy' -- the two of us have a show that weve been sitting on for a while. There is no time to really do anything with it because of where 'Family Guy' is, but at some point, when we're all done with this, we may take it out.
You do a lot of voice acting on your show. What draws you to that?
It's the ability to have as much control as possible for how a sequence plays out. When I go in and do multiple characters, I know in my head how I'm going to cut them all together. Often times when multiple characters are talking over one another, and you want it to have an improvised feel, it has to be carefully planned out. In the very beginning, it was more about money. There just wasnt money to hire a cast.
So you're cheap?
(Laughs). Yes, well not anymore, but it became sort of a way to get exactly what you want. Obviously, the best way to get the read that you want is to read it yourself. At this point, we have so many actors, that we bring in people who get the show and who know what we want the second they walk in. When you go in and it's on paper, it's maybe not hysterically funny. But if you read it in a certain way, you can get the laugh.
What about a show like 'Robot Chicken,' you're a voice for hire?
Yes. With Seth Green, it's a very relaxed environment. He'll tell me how he wants it and I'll give it back to him. There are times where the scenario will have to be explained and I'll try to familiarize myself in a brief period of time with what these guys came up with in the writer's room.
Pick a favorite moment from 'American Dad.'
From 'American Dad,' there's a great one where Stan has disguised himself as a gynecologist. You see a POV shot and you see him peel open an almond shaped opening. Its shot from below so youre looking up at him. You see him reaching around inside and he goes, "My God, you keep this thing so incredibly clean." And then you cut wide and you see hes looking through her purse. Its just a great mislead. We have, among other things a great staff of artists on 'American Dad.'
And a favorite moment from 'Family Guy?'
If I had to pick one moment that makes me laugh every time I see it, it is an episode called 'The Father, the Son and the Holy Fonz.' Its a cutaway gag. It's like, 'Jaws Five: Fire Island.' One of our writers, Mike Henry, who also does many voices on the show, he does Cleveland and Herbert and he does this performance artist character. And for some reason we put that characters voice into the mouth of Jaws, and you just see these two guys swimming in the ocean and one of them says, "You know, Mark, are you sure we should be out this far?" And he says, "Stop worrying, well be fine." And you pull out, and you see that sort of classic poster image of 'Jaws,' looking up at them, but its just kind of hovering there and Jaws goes, "Oh hey, I see yall there, Im going to eat y'all. I can see right up them shorts. Im going to eat that hairy leg." Its just so bizarre. What does any of that mean? I have no idea. For some reason, when Mike does that voice it just kills me.
If you could travel back in time and give yourself advice, how far would you go back and what the advice be?
Good question. I would probably go back and tell myself to try pot before I got out of college. (Laughs). But, thats a question that would take a lot of thinking. Id probably go back to like, 1981, and say, "Hey, theres going to be this big movie 'Back to the Future' thats going to come out. Ill give you the plot line and you can write the screenplay before they get to it."
'American Dad' has 9/11 overtones. Was that intentional?
I don't think you can do a show like 'American Dad' without those overtones. The show was designed to be very obviously a post 9-11 show.
I heard that you had a close call with 9/11.
Yes, I was booked on Flight 11, which was the first one to hit. I missed it by 10 minutes or so because the combination of two things. I was drinking, so I was hung over and running late, and my travel agent had mislabeled the flight times. She had said 8:15 instead of 7:45. So that added to my tardiness.
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