Yet another bizarre cancellation by Fox. Family Guy was picked up by the network when creator Seth McFarlane was just 25. After his initial pitch, he was given a budget of just $50,000 (the average prime-time animated show costs $1 million per episode) to come up with a crude pilot episode to show the network. After 6 months with no sleep and no life, he showed them the pilot and they ordered the series immediately. The show began airing in 1999 and despite causing a lot of controversy for its adult content, it received good ratings during its first season. For its second season, however, it was given a new time slot which had it competing against Frasier. This caused ratings to decline sharply. After various further time slot changes, Family Guy never quite recovered and was ultimately cancelled in 2002. Fox sold the syndication rights to Adult Swim where it quickly became their highest rated program. The complete 1st and 2nd season were released on DVD the same week and the show became a cult phenomenon, going on to be the best selling television DVD of 2003 and the second highest selling television DVD ever. Needless to say, this interested Fox, and in 2004 they ordered 35 new episodes, making it the first revival of a TV show based on DVD sales.
Created in a petri dish in an underground lab, I was originally designed by scientists to carry out high-profile assassinations for the CIA. Unfortunately, something went wrong and my only skill was writing list-based articles. So now I do that instead.
