“Family Guy” wraps its 20-year anniversary season Sunday by paying homage to its famous mayor, Adam West, while simultaneously giving James Woods the shinola.
In the episode that airs tonight, Brian suggests changing the name of the town’s James Woods Regional High School to Adam West High, not only to honor Quahog’s mayor but also because, Brian says, Woods has become “a political troll and a maniac on Twitter.”
The idea is met with enthusiasm, with Peter making a special video “dedication reminding people of how great Mayor West was,” set to Richard Marx’s singing “Right Here Waiting.”
West, who was best known before “Family Guy” as Batman in the ’60s TV series, played an exaggerated form of himself on the Fox animated series for more than 100 episodes.
“Mayor West makes an appearance at the end of the episode, so the whole episode is bookended by our tribute to him, and there’s a sense certainly in the episode that he’s not replaceable,” executive producer Richard Appel told Entertainment Weekly.
This isn’t the first time the show has paid tribute to West, who died in 2017 at the age of 88 from leukemia. After his death, a tribute card shown before the rebroadcast of a West-centric episode and ran a nine-minute highlight reel of his work the following month.
Woods has sworn off Twitter since earlier this month when he said the platform removed a tweet that he refused to take down. “Until free speech is allowed on Twitter, I will not be permitted to participate in our democracy with my voice,” the actor said in a statement to The Daily Wire.
You can watch the tribute clip above.
“Family Guy” season finale airs Sunday, May 12 at 9 p.m. on Fox.