Note: This story contains spoilers from “Family Guy” Season 23, Episode 1.
The Season 23 premiere of “Family Guy” saw Peter, Lois and the rest of the Griffin family head to flight school in a parody of the Tom Cruise-led film franchise “Top Gun.” The episode marks a new wave of Hollywood spoofs ahead for the beloved Fox animated comedy.
Sunday’s episode, aptly named “Fat Gun,” chronicled Maverick’s (Peter) relationship with Charlie (Lois) as he copes with the death of Goose (Joe) and a new relationship with his son Rooster (Chris). It also featured a cameo appearance from tiny Tom Cruise, a miniature version of the actor who’s appeared in previous seasons voiced by Sean Kenin.
“We did an episode a couple of seasons ago where Stewie is shopping in the little kids section for all these reasons, and he pulls an article of clothing and you see another hand grab it and it’s tiny Tom Cruise. He’s the same size as Stewie,” executive producer Rich Appel told TheWrap. “We did reach out to Tom Cruise to play himself and we couldn’t tell him what it was. And he said, ‘The only real joke here is, you’re not tall and I’m not tall.’ I always feel self deprecation is both the key to humor and aspirationally being a good, appealing person in the world. So I didn’t think it was insane to think that he might do it. But whether because of scheduling or content he passed, so we didn’t reach out for him for this one.”
Seth MacFarlane’s long-running animated comedy is no stranger to spoofing cultural touchstones, such as classic movies like “Star Wars” or “Lord of the Rings” and TV shows like “Game of Thrones.” But Appel admitted it can sometimes be difficult to find good spoof that they haven’t yet explored that the show’s cast of crazy characters can fit seamlessly into after 23 seasons.
“It’s hard because they’re not that many [titles] that people know well enough that the kind of satire spoof you do would be instantly recognizable,” Appel explained. “‘Top Gun’ was always out there, but then ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ came out. Our writer Pat Megan came up with just a really funny way to do both movies in 22 minutes, which is pretty extraordinary.”
While multiple films and series have crossed the team’s mind, Apple noted that not pursuing an idea can sometimes be limited by the production team’s ability for physical execution, given changing backgrounds, character designs and, in some cases, more action required.
Despite the challenges, Appel revealed there are more Hollywood spoofs to come in Season 23.
“This season, we’re doing three parodies of Hulu shows. We’ve got ‘Only Murders in the Building,’ ‘The Dropout’ and ‘The Bear.’ And in each of those, it’s a big swing for production,” he said. “So we try to space those special episodes out.”
In other cases, MacFarlane’s busy schedule can play a role. One beloved franchise that the team hopes to tackle in the future is “Star Trek,” which has been left on the shelf due to show’s creator lacking the bandwidth to write it.
“Years ago, when we mentioned that, Seth said ‘I want to do that, but I want to be back in the room for that. That was a decade ago,” Appel said. “It’s something that is so near and dear to his heart that he doesn’t really want us to do it without him. And yet, he’s doing other series and movies, so it’s not like he’s got a lot of time.”
In addition to its various spoofs this season, storylines in “Family Guy” Season 23 include Lois becoming a standup comedian, Meg dating a chicken she meets on a reality dating show, and Brian and Stewie meeting and accidentally exposing Mark Twain to pornography while trying to help cure his writer’s block, putting the publishing of several of his classic books in jeopardy.
The season will also take a shot at Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, whom Peter befriends during a brewery tour.
“We take a slight by nobody really noticing that Peter takes Brett Kavanaugh’s place on the Supreme Court. And we have a very funny sequence introducing the Supreme Court justices in our version of The Super Friends with Seth narrating,” he teased. “And we go through each of the justices flying through the air as Wonder Woman, whatever it is. I think it turned out pretty well. It’s nice to think that I work on probably the only show that would take a couple of minutes of prime time television to do our version of the Super Friends opening credits from the 70s with Supreme Court justices.”
Despite the jab at the Supreme Court, Appel said fans shouldn’t expect “Family Guy” to try to keep up with mocking the various wild ideas that come out of President Donald Trump’s mouth, given that the show’s production cycle runs for 12-to-14 months at a time with limited opportunity to make changes during the process.
“A couple of years ago, we did do an episode of Peter getting a slot on local news, and basically it was alternative facts. He just didn’t do any research, and he’s plucked by Trump to come to Washington,” Appel said. “We debated long and hard, knowing that it would be 14 months, knowing that even in the first term, the pace of developments was quick and what would be in the news. And we thought of a way to do it in involving our characters, that I think you could watch tomorrow, and it would be like, All right, that was a pretty fresh take and it wasn’t headline dependent.”
“It would be hard to say, ‘Hey, remember when you worked for the President of the United States. We’re going to do that again,” he continued. “How many encounters can one cartoon father have with the President of the United States? But that was a big discussion, because it’s not our typical bread and butter to involve a political figure while in office, while every single day late night shows and stand-ups are finding whatever there is. Whether it’s Trump or Biden or whomever, you don’t want to be the last to the party. So the key is always trying to get stories that we think are both funny and original.”
“Family Guy” airs Sundays at 9:30 pm ET/PT on Fox and streams the next day on Hulu.