Fan-Favorite ‘Family Guy’ Moments From When the Show Was Still Bonkers

It seems today that all you see is violence in movies and sex on TV, but what Family Guy once had going on was wilder than both.

Before Family Guy followed The Simpsons into the endless undeath that is a standing season reorder on Fox, Seth MacFarlane’s breakout hit series was once one of the most controversial shows on TV, and not just because of the criticism it garnered for its striking similarity to that other show. As soon as Family Guy first hit airwaves following Super Bowl XXXIII on January 31, 1999, it became a high-priority target for conservative media watchdog groups who considered its irreverent, often crass and always insane sense of humor to be the biggest threat to the (white) Christian American family since the pinkos put backwards satanic chants in all those Beatles records.

Inevitably, in the decades since the dawn of Family Guy on Fox, the times have drastically changed along with the show itself, and new Family Guy episodes are — dare I say it? — relatively tame compared to the more unhinged comedy offerings available in 2024. 

However, the Family Guy fandom on Twitter hasn’t forgotten the show’s most deranged days, which reached such levels of derangement that a single joke about drinking horse semen inspired more than 200,000 FCC complaints. Earlier this week, one thread went viral in which Family Guy fans tried to out-do each other with the most unhinged clip of MacFarlane’s animated comedy career…