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Death Has a Shadow

"Death Has a Shadow" is the pilot episode of the
American animated television series Family Guy. Written "Death Has a Shadow"
by series creator Seth MacFarlane and directed by Peter Family Guy episode
Shin, a rough-cut version of this episode originally aired on
December 20, 1998, on the Fox network in the United
States; a final version was later aired as a sneak peek of the
show on January 31, 1999, following Super Bowl XXXIII. In
the episode, Peter loses his job after drinking too much at a
stag party, causing him to fall asleep at work. He signs up
for welfare to keep his wife Lois from finding out but gets
much more money than he expected. After spending his
money foolishly, Lois finds out and Peter decides to dump
it from a blimp at the Super Bowl. He is arrested for welfare
fraud and must await his family's rescue, as well as various
performers who would later serve as frequent recurring and
guest voices on the series.

It was the first overall episode to be animated by Film

Roman, Inc. and Sunwoo Digital International, through its
animation division Grimsaem Animation Co.

The basis for "Death Has a Shadow", as well as Family Guy

as a whole, was MacFarlane's thesis film The Life of Larry,
created in 1995 while he was a student at the Rhode Island The Griffin family watches TV together
School of Design. A sequel was conceived in 1996 called in their first appearance. The top image
Larry & Steve, which aired in 1997 as a segment of Cartoon is from MacFarlane's hand-drawn pilot;
Network's World Premiere Toons. Both shorts caught the the bottom image is from the completed
attention of Fox, who contacted MacFarlane in 1998 to episode.
develop a series based on the films. A hand-drawn pilot was
Episode no. Season 1
created by MacFarlane with a budget of $50,000, which led
to the series being accepted for production and the pilot Episode 1
being remade and extended into its broadcast form. Directed by Peter Shin
Seth MacFarlane
Critical responses to the episode were mostly positive. (rough-cut)
According to Nielsen ratings, it was viewed by 22 million
viewers during its original airing in the United States. In Written by Seth MacFarlane
the tenth season episode "Back to the Pilot", which Production code 1ACX01
premiered on November 13, 2011, Brian and Stewie go back
Original air dates December 20, 1998
in time to the events of this episode.[1]
(rough-cut)
January 31, 1999
Plot
Guest appearances
As Lois prepares dinner, Stewie puts the final touches on
his mind-control device, only for it to be taken away from Lori Alan as Diane Simmons
him by Lois, who won't allow 'toys' at the table. Later, Peter Carlos Alazraqui as Mr. Weed
asks Lois for permission to attend an upcoming stag party. Mike Henry as Cleveland Brown
After he promises he won't drink, Lois lets him go.
Phil LaMarr as Judge
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Unfortunately, Peter forgets his promise to Lois and plays Butch Hartman as various
such drinking games as "Drink the beer". He goes to work characters
the next day with a hangover and falls asleep on the job as a
Billy West as Church Father
safety inspector in a toy factory. Peter misses dangerous
objects such as a butcher knife, a surge protector, a gasoline Fred Tatasciore as John Madden
can, razor blades, a porcupine, a toaster with forks inside, Joey Slotnick as Dick
and plug-in water. The company receives bad press after Clark/various characters
releasing unsafe toy products, and Peter is promptly fired
Wally Wingert as Pat Summerall
by Mr. Weed.

At dinner, Peter breaks the news to his children but decides to keep it from Lois. He tries different
jobs, such as cereal mascot and sneeze guard, but fails miserably. Brian pressures him to tell her
the truth, but all he manages to do is to tell Lois how fat she is. Brian insists that Peter must look
out for his family's welfare. With the word "welfare" in his mind, Peter soon applies for
government assistance at a welfare office. But a processing error creates a weekly check for
$150,000, which is based on a remark former President Ronald Reagan made of a woman called
Linda Taylor from Chicago, Illinois, calling her a "welfare queen" by making assumptions of
earning such proportions from government benefits in 1974.[2] Telling Lois he received a big raise,
Peter spends his money on many foolish and extravagant things, such as renting the Statue of
David, treating Meg to cosmetic surgery and even going so far as to surround his house with a
moat to protect them from the Black Knight.

Unfortunately, Lois is given the welfare check by the mail lady and storms at Peter for lying to her.
Peter decides to return the money to the taxpayers by dumping it from a blimp during Super Bowl
XXXIII while Brian accompanies him. After the commotion they cause, they are immediately shot
down.

Eventually, Lois receives the bad news and goes to court, still angry at Peter for lying to her in the
first place. After Peter apologizes for lying to Lois and accepting the money instead of reporting the
welfare error, the judge sentences him to 24 months in prison for welfare fraud. Lois, Brian, Chris,
and Meg exclaim, "Oh no!" but the Kool-Aid Man bursts through the courthouse wall and
exclaims, "Oh yeah!" Lois tries to explain he's not that bad and she loves him and insists that, no
matter what, she will always stand by her husband. The judge agrees and sends her to jail with
him. Stewie, being a baby, must have his parents by his side, regardless of his burning hatred for
them, especially Lois. He then whips out his mind control device and forces the judge into letting
his father go free and get his job back.

Peter states that he has learned his lesson and will never do it again. Instead, he is going to try for
such things as a minority scholarship, a sexual harassment suit, and a disability claim.[3]

Background
MacFarlane initially conceived Family Guy in 1995 while studying animation under the Rhode
Island School of Design (RISD).[4] During college, he created his thesis film entitled The Life of
Larry,[4] which was later submitted by his professor at RISD to Hanna-Barbera, which led to
MacFarlane being hired by the company.[5] In 1996, MacFarlane created a sequel to The Life of
Larry entitled Larry and Steve, which featured a middle-aged character named Larry and an
intellectual dog, Steve. The short was broadcast in 1997 as one of Cartoon Network's World
Premiere Toons.[4]

In 1997, while writing for Carol, MacFarlane planned to develop the Larry shorts into a short film
series for Mad TV; however, the project was abandoned because the show did not possess a large
enough budget to make any kind of animation.[6] As development continued, the genre gradually
shifted to a prime-time series,[6] while the characters of Larry and Steve formed the basis for Peter
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and Brian, respectively.[7][8] During the year, a Hanna-Barbera development executive introduced
MacFarlane to alternative comedians Mike Darnell and Leslie Collins in an attempt to get Hanna-
Barbera back into the prime-time business.[6] The executives were unimpressed; a year later,
MacFarlane contacted Collins at Fox; she arranged a meeting with him and the company
executives to create a series based on the characters entitled Family Guy.[6][7]

Fox proposed MacFarlane complete a 15-minute short, and gave him a budget of $50,000.[6][9]
After the pilot aired, the series was greenlighted. Premises were drawn from several 1980s
Saturday-morning cartoons MacFarlane had watched as a child, such as The Fonz and the Happy
Days Gang and Rubik, the Amazing Cube.[10]

Production
Production of the pilot for Family Guy began in 1998,[7] and
took six months.[5] Recalling the experience in an interview
with The New York Times, MacFarlane stated,

I spent about six months with no sleep and no life,

just drawing like crazy in my kitchen and doing this
pilot.

— Seth MacFarlane, interview with The New

York Times[11]

Upon completion of the pilot, the series went on the air.[11]

"Death Has a Shadow" was the first episode of Family Guy to Family Guy creator Seth
be aired.[12] It was written by creator MacFarlane and was the MacFarlane wrote the episode.
first episode to be directed by Peter Shin.[12] The episode
guest-starred Lori Alan as Diane Simmons,[13] Carlos Alazraqui
as Mr. Weed,[14] Mike Henry as Cleveland Brown,[12] Billy West, Fred Tatasciore, Joey Slotnick,
Phil LaMarr,[15] Wally Wingert, and fellow cartoonist Butch Hartman[16] as various characters.
The episode aired after Super Bowl XXXIII on January 31, 1999.

For "Death Has a Shadow", several changes were made from the original pilot pitch. For the series,
Lois was a redhead, as opposed to the original pilot, where she was a blonde.[17][18][19] In the
original pilot, Lois discovered that Peter lost his job, and by the end of the episode, he fails to get a
new one nor does he apply for welfare.[18] The idea for Peter to apply for welfare and
unintentionally become wealthy was suggested by executive producer David Zuckerman, who
suggested the idea in order to add a larger amount of plot to the episode.[17][18] Several sequences
and gags were integrated into the episode from creator MacFarlane's 1995 thesis film The Life of
Larry, including the sequence where the Griffin family sees Philadelphia, and a brief cutaway
where Peter farts for the first time at the age of 30.[17]

MacFarlane was cast as four of the show's main characters: Peter Griffin, Brian Griffin, Stewie
Griffin, and Glenn Quagmire.[20] MacFarlane chose to voice these characters himself, believing it
would be easier to portray the voices he already envisioned than for someone else to attempt it.[10]
MacFarlane drew inspiration for the voice of Peter from a security guard he overheard talking
while attending the Rhode Island School of Design.[21] Stewie's voice was based on the voice of
English actor Rex Harrison,[22] especially his performance in the 1964 musical My Fair Lady.[23]
MacFarlane uses his regular speaking voice when playing Brian.[10] The voice of Quagmire was

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inspired by fast-speaking radio advertising spokesmen from the 1950s.[24] MacFarlane also
provides voices for various other recurring and one-time characters, including news anchor Tom
Tucker and Lois' father Carter Pewterschmidt.[25]

Alex Borstein was cast as Lois Griffin, Tricia Takanawa, Loretta Brown, and Lois' mother Barbara
Pewterschmidt.[26] Borstein was asked to provide a voice for the original pilot while she was
working on MADtv. She had not met MacFarlane or seen any of his artwork and said it was "really
sight unseen".[27] At the time, Borstein performed in a stage show in Los Angeles, in which she
played a redheaded mother whose voice she had based on one of her cousins.[26][27] The voice was
originally slower, but when MacFarlane heard it, he replied "Make it a little less [...]
annoying...and speed it up, or every episode will last four hours".[26] Seth Green was chosen to
play Chris Griffin and Neil Goldman.[25][28] Green stated that he did an impression of the "Buffalo
Bill" character from the thriller film The Silence of the Lambs during his audition.[29] His main
inspiration for Chris' voice came from envisioning how "Buffalo Bill" would sound if he were
speaking through a public address system at a McDonald's.[30] Lacey Chabert was cast as Meg
Griffin.[25] Chabert voiced Meg Griffin for the first production season (15 episodes), but due to a
contractual agreement was never credited.[31] Chabert left the series because of time conflicts with
schoolwork and her role on Party of Five,[32] and was replaced by Mila Kunis.[33]

Cultural references
In the final scenes of the episode, the Griffin family is seen watching a television program called
TV's Bloopers, a reference to the 1984 ABC and NBC television series TV's Bloopers and Practical
Jokes.

Towards the end of the courtroom scene, the Kool-Aid Man is seen breaking through a wall, which
later became a running gag in the series involving a certain character or breaking through a wall
and Peter's job as a Mascot is a parody of the Cocoa Puffs commercial.[17]

During Peter's recount of his job search to Brian, the talent show flashback mirrors the setting
from The Sound of Music and refers to the characters of the film, the von Trapp family.

Reception
The episode has received mostly
"Another surreal and imaginative running gag involves
positive reviews from television
Peter's attack of conscience. The devil on his shoulder
critics. In a 2008 review, Ahsan
instructs him to keep lying but when he turns to hear the
Haque of IGN rated the episode an
angel's perspective no one appears. We cut to the small
8.9/10, praising the integration of
angel stuck in traffic on the conscience's highway. Later
humor into the episode's storyline.
in the show the conscience arrives and Peter seeks his
Haque noted that the episode was
advice. So the small angel gets advice from the small
"a very strong start to this long
devil on his shoulder and then turns to his other
running classic series, and
shoulder and again no angel appears. Cut to an even
revisiting it serves as a reminder
smaller angel stuck in traffic. Pretty memorable".
that unlike many other television
shows, there are very few awkward
moments, and much of the show's Robin Pierson, TV Critic describing his favorite joke of
brilliance is immediately the episode [34]
apparent." [35] In 2009, the site
singled out "Death Has a Shadow"
as a "strong start [to Family
Guy]".[36]

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Robin Pierson of The TV Critic gave the episode a mixed review, rating the episode a 67/100,
calling it one of the most densely packed pilots on television. He mentioned that it was
entertaining but said that there were many jokes that followed the quality-does-not-win-out-over-
quantity saying.[34] He compared Peter to Homer Simpson and he compared the show to The
Simpsons and King of the Hill. He criticized the amount of unfunny jokes while he praised the
surreal moments.[34] At the end of his review he stated that Family Guy was a different kind of
animated comedy which set out to do jokes that other cartoons couldn't do, also mentioning that
the show had promised to become really funny.[34]

A more negative review came from Entertainment Weekly's Ken Tucker, who called the animation
clunky, which he said made Hanna-Barbera's animation look state-of-the-art. Tucker also said in
his review that he hoped that smart people would use the Family Guy half-hour to turn off the
television set and start a debate over the air strikes in Kosovo. He also called the show "The
Simpsons as conceived by a singularly sophomoric mind that lacks any reference point beyond
other TV shows".[37] Even before it aired the pilot had received some criticism from the Parents
Television Council, a watchdog; the creator of this website L. Brent Bozell III wrote that he initially
speculated that Family Guy would be "pushing the envelope".[38] The episode was watched by
22.01 million people after the Super Bowl.

Notes
1. SO NOVEMBER, SO FOX (http://www.foxflash.com/div.php/main/page?aID=1z2z1z25z1z8&I
D=8122) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20111106153715/http://www.foxflash.com/div.p
hp/main/page?aID=1z2z1z25z1z8) 2011-11-06 at the Wayback Machine
2. " 'Welfare Queen' Becomes Issue in Reagan Campaign" (https://www.nytimes.com/1976/02/15/
archives/welfare-queen-becomes-issue-in-reagan-campaign-hitting-a-nerve-now.html). The
New York Times. 1976-02-15. Retrieved 2020-05-17.
3. Plot synopsis information for the episode "Death Has a Shadow". Family Guy: Volume 1
(DVD). 20th Century Fox. 2003.
4. Lenburg, Jeff (2006). Who's Who in Animated Cartoons: An International Guide to Film &
Television's Award-Winning and Legendary Animators (https://archive.org/details/whoswhoinan
imate0000lenb/page/221) (Illustrated ed.). New York: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books.
p. 221 (https://archive.org/details/whoswhoinanimate0000lenb/page/221). ISBN 978-1-55783-
671-7.
5. " 'Family Guy' Seth MacFarlane to Speak at Class Day" (https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/stor
y/2006/05/family-guy-seth-macfarlane-to-speak-at-class-day/). Harvard Gazette. May 11, 2006.
Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20120418134025/http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/
2006/05.11/03-classday.html) from the original on 2012-04-18. Retrieved January 16, 2022.
6. P., Ken (July 21, 2003). "An Interview with Seth MacFarlane" (http://www.ign.com/articles/200
3/07/21/an-interview-with-seth-macfarlane). IGN. Retrieved January 16, 2022.
7. Barlett, James (March 12, 2007). "Seth MacFarlane – He's the "Family Guy" " (https://greatrep
orter.com/content/seth-macfarlane-he-s-family-guy). The Great Reporter. Presswire Limited.
Retrieved January 16, 2022.
8. Strike, Joe (February 13, 2007). "Cartoon Network Pilots Screened by ASIFA East at NYC's
School of Visual Arts" (https://www.awn.com/news/cartoon-network-pilots-screened-asifa-east-
nycs-school-visual-arts). Animation World Network. Retrieved January 16, 2022.
9. Andreeva, Nellie (May 5, 2008). " "Family Guy" Creator Seals Megadeal" (https://www.reuters.
com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSN0435504220080505). The Hollywood Reporter.
Retrieved May 31, 2008.
10. Cruz, Gilbert (September 26, 2008). "Family Guy's Seth MacFarlane" (https://web.archive.org/
web/20080926152756/http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1844711,00.html). Time.
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11. Weinraub, Bernard (2007-07-07). "The Young Guy Of 'Family Guy'; A 30-Year-Old's Cartoon
Hit Makes An Unexpected Comeback" (https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D02
E4D6173BF934A35754C0A9629C8B63&sec=&spon=). The New York Times. p. 2. Retrieved
January 6, 2008.
12. "Family Guy: Death Has a Shadow" (https://web.archive.org/web/20110615061932/https://tv.ya
hoo.com/family-guy/show/death-has-a-shadow/episode/1543). Yahoo!. Archived from the
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_Hj74nB87AtKAjqCy9v9EF) on 2011-06-15. Retrieved 2011-06-19.
13. "Lori Alan: Credits" (https://www.tvguide.com/celebrities/lori-alan/credits/216395). TV Guide.
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2). TV Guide. Retrieved October 8, 2009.
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17. MacFarlane, Seth (2003). Commentary for the episode "Death Has a Shadow". Family Guy:
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18. Zuckerman, David (2003). Commentary for the episode "Death Has a Shadow". Family Guy:
Volume 1 (DVD). 20th Century Fox.
19. Borstein, Alex (2003). Commentary for the episode "Death Has a Shadow". Family Guy:
Volume 1 (DVD). 20th Century Fox.
20. Graham, Jefferson (January 29, 1999). "Cartoonist MacFarlane funny guy of Fox's 'Family'
Subversive voice of series is his". USA Today. p. E7.
21. Smith, Andy (2005-04-30). "A Real Family Reunion" (https://web.archive.org/web/2010092218
0650/http://www.projo.com/tv/content/projo_20050430_macfarlan.1d6c9b8.html). Providence
Journal TV. Archived from the original (http://www.projo.com/tv/content/projo_20050430_macf
arlan.1d6c9b8.html) on 2010-09-22. Retrieved 2009-08-28.
22. Dean, Josh (2008-11-01). "Seth MacFarlane's $2 Billion Family Guy Empire" (http://www.fastco
mpany.com/magazine/130/family-values.html). Fast Company. Retrieved 2012-06-19.
23. Franklin, Nancy (2006-01-16). "American Idiots". The New Yorker.
24. "Episode 9" (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b045cgtw). The Graham Norton Show. Season
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25. "Family Guy Cast and Details" (https://www.tvguide.com/tvshows/family-guy/cast/100148). TV
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26. Miller, Kirk (2008-11-19). "Q&A: Alex Borstein" (https://web.archive.org/web/20120218150554/
http://newyork.metromix.com/events/article/q-and-a-alex/782347/content). Metromix. Archived
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28. Graham, Jefferson (1999-04-09). "Seth Green fits right in with new Family". USA Today.
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30. Green, Seth (2005-09-27). Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story: Audio Commentary (DVD).
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33. De Leon, Kris (2007-09-25). "Mila Kunis Talks About Working on Family Guy and Her
Upcoming Movie" (https://web.archive.org/web/20110728143037/http://www.buddytv.com/articl
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35. Haque, Ashan (May 21, 2008). "Family Guy Flashback: "Death Has a Shadow" Review" (http
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External links
Television portal

Animation portal

"Death Has a Shadow" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0576927/) at IMDb

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