'Family Guy' Actor Reveals His Parents Hate the Show and Want It Off the Air
It’s not exactly unheard of to have parents disappointed in their child’s vocation.
From being an OnlyFans “star” to whatever it is that Hunter Biden is doing these days, examples of jobs that bring shame to parents aren’t exactly hard to find.
Even amid a sea of potential examples, however, this might be a new job that parents disapprove of: Being a voice actor on a long-running and highly successful cartoon.
Indeed, when you think of someone like Hank Azaria, a longtime voice actor on “The Simpsons,” the first thought you have of him isn’t that he should be doing something bigger and better with his life.
(No, the first thought is usually, “How does the guy who voices Moe Szyslak also voice Apu Nahasapeemapetilon?”)
And yet, for longtime actor and comedian Patrick Warburton, his 25-year gig as the voice of “Joe Swanson” on the raunchy cartoon show “Family Guy” is apparently one that his parents vociferously disapprove of — no matter how much the show may have helped the Warburton family out.
“They hate the show even more today than they did twenty-five years ago,” Warburton divulged at a Family Guy convention on April 19, according to People magazine.
The 59-year-old actor elaborated that his parents’ respective backgrounds prevented them from enjoying the adult cartoon.
“My father was in a monastery for three months. He almost became a monk,” Warburton said of his dad. As for his mom?
“My mother [went] around the neighborhood when I was 13 years old, passing out pamphlets on the sins of masturbation,” Warburton recalled, noting that that stunt didn’t exactly endear him to the “cool crowd.”
He added: “So they hate the show.”
Warburton’s mother, however, took that alleged hatred to another level and tried to get the show — which employed her son — off the air.
“My mother belonged to the American Television Council and they were trying to get the show canceled,” Warburton said, before revealing just how beneficial “Family Guy” had been for his family.
“I was helping support my parents with Family Guy money,” he said.
Despite that financial aid, Warburton’s mother even pushed her son to sign the very petition to get “Family Guy” removed from the air.
Warburton told People that, yes, “Family Guy” can be offensive but that’s sort of the point of the show’s brand of satire.
“Family Guy is a show that’s been running for 25 years,” Warburton told the outlet. “It’s a cartoon. It’s satire. As long as it remains relevant and current and creative, it [will] continue to go and to move.”
Warburton did admit, however, that the show “could be incredibly polarizing.”
“Family Guy” premiered in 1999 and follows the exploits of the Griffin family in the fictional city of Quahog, Rhode Island. The dysfunctional family consists of Peter, the bumbling idiot of a patriarch, Lois, the straight-laced mother who comes from money, Chris, the eldest son and perhaps more incompetent than Peter, Meg, the daughter that nobody likes, Stewie, a villainous toddler, and Brian, the anthropomorphic family dog.
The show is a raunchier, zanier take of “The Simpsons,” with inane reoccurring gags like Peter Griffin getting into protracted, bloody fisticuffs with a giant chicken.
The Fox show has been renewed for its 22nd and 23rd seasons, which will keep “Family Guy” — and Warburton’s Swanson — on the air through the 2024-2025 television season.
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