This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Doggone Family Guy!

Sure, he was a dog -- an unlikely rescue dog, to be exact. But he was also so much more than just another family pet.

He was Brian Griffin on “Family Guy,” one of the cartoon sitcoms in Fox-TV’s Sunday night line-up of “ animation domination.” So he was a cartoon dog with both human and canine characteristics. That gave him the odd distinction of not being real and yet being more real than most humans in real life. He was animated, but because we could see him every week on television, we readily accepted his acting like a person and not a dog. In fact, we grew so accustomed to this anthropomorphism from Seth McFarlane's Fuzzy Door Productions that we never gave his personhood a second thought.

Brian seemed so real, so human, we suspended disbelief for this charming dog-guy, week after week. Maybe that’s why his death came as such a shock to us viewers.

Last Sunday, on November 24th, they killed him. They killed this walking, talking, singing, dancing, philosophical intellectual of a dog. He’s gone. For good?

Well, that’s hard to say. After all, this isn’t a reality TV sitcom we’re talking about. “Family Guy” is, has been, and always will be a cartoon. It’s just that “Family Guy” isn’t your typical cartoon. It’s one of those rare cartoons that hovers on the boundary of animated fantasy and everyday recognizable situations. That’s why Brian, along with the other characters in this animated family, easily alternated -- and fluctuated -- between usual, expected cartoon behaviors to suprisingly human ones.

As a dog, Brian could run on all fours. But he preferred to walk on his two back legs while he swigged his martini, sang ballads from Frank Sinatra’s repertoire, and tried to pick up girls. He had numerous sexual relationships with humans, in fact, from dizzy coeds to an older Phyllis Diller(?). Sure, he was a dog. Over the years, though, he also challenged discriminatory leash laws, acted as his own attorney in court, and accompanied Baby Stewie in his time machine like a reluctant but street-smart Mr. Peabody. Animation transformed him into the kind of dog who would argue philosophy and ethics with a squirrel before he broke its neck.

And because of the way “Family Guy” was written and creatively executed, we viewers got it. More importantly, we both understood it and laughed at it.

Probably the best example of anthropomorphic surrealism came when Brian and little Stewie found themselves locked in a bank vault. It was a silly, contrived situation, to be sure. But then, the real question of survival with no food or water came up. Because he was a dog, Brian was able to eat the contents of Stewie's dirty diaper. But then, because he could actually talk, Brian was able to answer Stewie when he later asked how his poo was. “Not bad,” Brian replied.

And we viewers accepted that; we went along with it. We realized Brian was a dog who was more than a dog. In every episode, Brian acted as both catalyst and supporting player. He provided the voice of reason as well as the inevitable reply of Greek Chorus to the Griffin’s jaw-dropping dysfunctional antics. He also kept his atypical family from Quahog, Rhode Island, in line.

I could list a few of their weekly high jinks but the plot lines of this show never sound funny when you simply write about them. You have to actually watch the show in order to get it.  The animated characters keep shifting between our expected, contrived reality and their own unclearly defined cartoon land that keeps repeatedly breaking its own rules. So, the fantasy always seems more realistic than expected, and the realism always seems more surreal than possible.

Serious issues we can relate to AND unexpected absurdities have been surprising -- then cracking up -- faithful viewers for over a decade. That has always been this show’s greatest strength: the surprise. So one minute dad Peter Griffin worries about the relationship with his estranged father. The next minute, he’s beating the crap out of a giant chicken. So one minute mom Lois Griffin acts like a good wife and mother in the classical sitcom sense of the word. The next minute, she’s  reminiscing about how she did the band KISS (the whole band.) And, like Peter, she also gets naked sometimes and does recreational drugs.

Meanwhile, their own kids -- daughter Meg and son Chris -- have to deal with issues of bullying, dating, and trying to find after-school jobs. Just like real people. But because they’re also in this surreal cartoon land, their situations become more absurd than humanly possible. Chris gets captivated, then dumped, by a girl at his high school with Down’s Syndrome. Meg, the quintessential scapegoat, falls in love with Quahog’s Mayor Adam West (yeah, THAT Adam West). And precocious baby Stewie? He goes beyond hating his vegetables. He inexplicably speaks in a British accent and has tried to make his dreams of matricide a reality.

These things might sound strange and silly and not at all funny on this blog. But when you watch “Family Guy,” these provocative moments become funny -- even hilarious -- ones. “Family Guy” is one of the few canceled TV shows that has  been brought back to life because of viewer interest -- largely from DVD rentals and purchases of its previously aired programs. Fans of the show liked ALL the members of the Griffin family, though. And that meant they wanted Brian to stay around for a few more years.

Too bad the writers didn’t get it.

Last Sunday, the writers decided to demote Brian to status of typical dog. Oh, he still walked and talked. But he also ran out into the street and got hit by a car. They killed him -- like a dog. What a classic! What a traditionally unimaginative way for any pet to go. A dog runs out into the street, gets run over by a car, then dies. Wow. Somebody must have stayed up all night to come up with that one.

Needless to say, I was hoping for something a little more creative. A little more imaginative than the usual, inevitable end for a dog without a leash. Talk about irony: if Brian had actually been on a leash, he’d still be alive today. But in one of the more interesting “Family Guy” episodes, Brian openly protested Quahog’s leash law and equated it with racial discrimination.

Remember when Brian himself got in the car and ran over and killed a dog? And how everyone laughed when he reported it as a crime, then turned himself in? The message he got was pretty clear. Dogs aren’t people. So it’s not against the law if a dog got killed -- even if it’s by another dog.

Because Brian continued to act like a person, however, we didn’t see his end coming. Brian’s last episode began with Stewie’s time machine screwing up our national holiday. After going back in time to the first Thanksgiving and ruining it for everyone in the present, Brian and Stewie went back again and got things straightened out.

After getting things back to “normal,” they destroyed the possibility of time travel forever by crushing Stewie's machine at the dump. That’s when they came across old hockey equipment that led to Brian’s doom.

Later on, Stewie did have an epiphany about repairing his junked time machine. That way, he could go back in time and prevent Brian’s accident. Unfortunately, the part he needed to make it work wasn’t made anymore.

Even Vinnie the new family dog told him the repairs were impossible.

Note: Vinnie the dog is now voiced by “Sopranos” veteran Tony Sirrico. For those readers still unfamiliar with this mob drama, Tony Sirrico played Pauly, one of Tony Soprano’s longtime “associates.”

Let’s pray that this actor who voices Vinnie will be around long after “Family Guy’s” writers see fit to whack his character. According to biographical reports, Tony Sirrico is 68 years old now. That’s still less that Brian’s age in dog years, but Hey! Watch your back, Tony. Something tells me this gig isn’t going to work out the way you’d expected.

My biggest pet peeve about Brian’s demise, however, isn’t about the way it was done. Or how it was handled. No, my gripe is about how the show’s writers totally wimped out.

Yeah, I blame the writers.

Of course, I wasn’t present at all their meetings, so I don’t know everything that went on. Maybe they got into a kerfuffle with Fox’s censors and figured it’d be easier for all involved to simply do away with Brian. Maybe their ratings were sliding, and they wanted to shake things up. You know, draw more attention to the show by doing something shocking and outrageous. As early as last summer, rumors were floating around about how a character on one of Fox’s Sunday cartoon sitcoms was going to die. Seemed like just another rumor...

But as a writer myself, I know firsthand what writers like to do when they run creatively dry: THEY KILL THEIR CHARACTERS.

Feeling blocked? Feeling tapped out of ideas? Is your imagination so dry that even your dreams are boring? Then just KILL YOUR CHARACTERS!

As a writer, you can do that and never do any prison time. Wipe out even one character, and you’ll start feeling better right away, like the all-powerful creative force you were meant to be. Kill off ALL your characters, and you’ll really feel like a demigod who has control over life and death.

Such is the writer’s lot, even if you’re writing for a cartoon on TV and not working on your Great American Novel. It’s true. Killing off your own imaginary creation can make you (or any writer) feel more powerful and, ergo, more creative.

That’s what actually happened to writers on an old soap opera, anyway.

Now, of course, the genre is almost extinct, with only four soaps still clinging to life on the three old networks. Years ago, however, these everyday dramas on TV and radio were ubiquitous company for housewives nationwide.

As the legend goes, the writers on this soap didn’t like their characters anymore. Couldn’t do a thing with them. These writers were so creatively blocked that they took the easy way out. They put all the characters on a bus. Then the bus went over a cliff. Good bye, old characters. Hello, new ones.

So they were running out of ideas for “Family Guy” and decided to kill the family dog. Can hardly wait for this year’s big Christmas special.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?