Seth MacFarlane

Seth MacFarlane arrived ten minutes late at Boston's airport on September 11, 2001. His travel agent gave him the wrong time, and a hangover from a night of drinking did the rest. The plane he missed was American Airlines flight 11, the first to strike the Twin Towers.

That twist of fate allowed an animator from Connecticut to end up controlling much of American television comedy. Before that, he drew for Hanna-Barbera. He worked on Johnny Bravo and Dexter's Laboratory while developing his own idea about a dysfunctional family from Rhode Island.

Fox gave him $50,000 in 1998 to create a seven-minute pilot. It was a ridiculously small budget by industry standards, but MacFarlane spent six months hand-drawing every frame to stretch the money.

And the gamble paid off.

In 1999, Family Guy was born. The show was not an immediate hit, and the network canceled it twice before 2002. But massive DVD sales and constant reruns on Adult Swim forced executives to bring the series back in 2005. It became a home-viewing phenomenon that nobody in the boardroom saw coming.

The Dictatorship of the Random Joke

MacFarlane developed a style built on the non-sequitur. These are narrative cutaways in which a character recalls an absurd situation that has nothing to do with the main plot. Many critics hated the device, considering it lazy. The creators of South Park even devoted a two-part episode to parodying his way of writing scripts.

Despite the attacks, his empire grew. In 2005 he launched American Dad!, and in 2009 The Cleveland Show arrived. MacFarlane voiced the lead characters and controlled every line of dialogue. His salary in 2008 reached $100 million after signing a five-year contract with Fox.

But the cartoon had become too small for him.

He hit the big screen in 2012 with Ted. The story of a foul-mouthed, pot-smoking teddy bear grossed $549 million worldwide. It was the highest-grossing R-rated original comedy of all time up to that point. The success allowed him to direct A Million Ways to Die in the West in 2014, although audiences responded much more coolly.

Escaping into space and jazz

His career took a different turn when he decided to fulfill his childhood fantasies. MacFarlane always wanted to be on Star Trek. Since he couldn't travel to the 24th century, he created his own space odyssey in 2017 with the series The Orville.

The production started as a parody but ended up as a serious science fiction drama. Sci-fi fans embraced it for its optimism in contrast to the cynicism of other shows of the era. For MacFarlane, it meant finally moving away from the gross-out jokes that made him famous.

It wasn't all smooth sailing.

Off camera, MacFarlane cultivates a classic baritone side. He has released several albums of jazz and American standards since 2011. His voice fills large auditoriums, while on television he keeps producing content under a massive deal with NBCUniversal signed in 2020.

In 2024, he premiered the Ted prequel series on the Peacock platform. The production required a visual effects team working for months to integrate the digital bear into a traditional sitcom setting. The current contract with the studio expires in 2025 after a total investment of $200 million.