Family Guy’s most controversial character was created by accident

If you want to compare how dark “Family Guy” is. Her previous cartoon “The Simpsons”, All you have to do is look at each show’s resident ancient character. Grandpa Abe on The Simpsons is funny because he is eccentric, out of touch, easily confused, and prone to wandering off. Herbert on “Family Guy” is funny because he is a pedophile. The joke is that Herbert truly He wants to molest children; Not only has he been molested before, but he plans to molest 14-year-old Chris in particular.

There’s definitely an added layer to the character’s appeal, which is his boldness. He often says predatory things right in front of adults He should He picked it up and informed the authorities, but everything seemed to go by quickly. Just as the adults don’t seem to understand Stewie but still react to his mood and general behavior, the adults on this show don’t seem to hear Herbert’s comments.

If you’re in a charitable mood, you could say that Herbert’s goal is to criticize society for turning a blind eye to the sexual predators who walk among us, or perhaps it’s about how society rewards people who make them laugh. Lots of leeway. As Stewie says in Season 8 of Spies Reminiscent of Us, when asked if there are any “weird” people in his neighborhood, “Well, there’s a faggot on the street and no one seems to do anything about it, but the main thing is It’s that he’s so funny.”

Another part of Herbert’s appeal is his southern whistle, which for his voice actor Mike Henry is where the character began. “Herbert, the old man who loves Chris, was just a character that started out because I was imitating those old men in Virginia all the time,” Henry said He explained in a 2012 interview. “I made them dirty old men, not necessarily pedophiles. But I made one joke in the writer’s room about how much he liked Chris, and that caught my attention! And now this character is a pedophile.”

It’s a great revelation from Henry, mainly because it shows how much of the early writing process for the series was just throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks. If you rewatch the pilot, you’ll see several elements that the show would quickly get rid of, e.g She is treated kindly by Lacey Chabert, voiced by MegOr Peter’s group of friends full of unfamiliar faces. Much of what makes “Family Guy” so memorable wasn’t planned from the beginning; It happened organically while the writers were fooling around with each other.

If Henry hadn’t brought back that pedophile joke in season one, would Herbert still be on the series? Or would it have been phased out of relevance, blended in with the other kinks of the early show? It’s hard to say for sure – perhaps if he hadn’t made the joke at the time, he would have made the joke a few weeks later, and the emergence of Herbert’s child abuse would have only been delayed. For better or worse, Herbert was probably inevitable.

Mike Henry noted in the same 2012 interview that although the show was scripted, he was still often improvising in those early seasons, and creator Seth MacFarlane often allowed those improvisations to remain in the final product. “Basically, I should get the domain name SethsClown.com, because I’m basically there to make Seth laugh, and I’m a bitch,” Henry explained. “So, if we’re in the booth and I’m making him laugh, I’ll start talking about something, and sometimes that will come into play.”