How the Violence of ‘Family Guy’ Caused One Fan to Dream of God

It seems today, that all you see, is violence on TV and God in your dreams.

Despite the cheery wholesomeness of the show’s introductory sequence, Seth MacFarlane’s long-running animated comedy series Family Guy isn’t fun for the whole family, especially in those households with children younger than 14 or parents with strong religious convictions. For the last quarter-century and counting, MacFarlane and his writers have been thumbing their noses at America’s cultural conservatism while earning enemies in Christian parents’ groups across the political landscape with obscene, sacrilegious and extravagantly violent humor to make your pastor quake in his clerical robes.

Unfortunately, when God-fearing organizations like the Parents Television Council cried, “Won’t somebody please think of the children?” over the content of Family Guy, they did have some reason to be concerned. As one Family Guy fan explained on Twitter, the show exposed them to so much death and desecration at such a young age that the Lord Almighty had to come down from Above and charge them with ferrying the souls of dead Family Guy characters into the afterlife.

God knows Norm Macdonald couldn’t be bothered to do it.

In all seriousness, there are simply too many depictions of violent death and destruction in the average Family Guy episode for anyone to ever begin watching the show when they’re still just a “baby” like Twitter user ScooberVevo says they did. For as much as Family Guy championed the rights of comedy — and, specifically cartoon comedy — to go after the sacred cows of society and push the boundaries of acceptable humor, there’s no good reason for an extended sequence of Stewie beating Brian into a bloody pulp to be competing for children’s attention with Blue’s Clues.

But, hey, at least ScooberVevo had the good conscience to care for the souls of deceased cartoon characters to ferry them to paradise. The babies of Family Guy famously aren’t quite so merciful.