Patrick Warburton’s Family Really, Really Hates ‘Family Guy’
In a classic case of biting the hand that feeds you, Patrick Warburton’s mom actively campaigned to get Family Guy canceled — even though the actor was using his animation paycheck to support his parents. What's the matter, Mom, you don’t like heat in the winter?
Time still hasn't healed all wounds. “They hate the show even more today than they did 25 years ago," says Warburton, who has provided the voice for Joe Swanson for more than 20 years. PEOPLE reports that the actor shared his family’s disdain during the Family Guy 25th Anniversary Celebration at PaleyFest last week.
Family Guy made it to the quarter-century mark despite the vindictive efforts of Warburton’s mommy. “My mother belonged to the American Television Council and they were trying to get the show canceled,” Warburton says, The irony, of course, was he “was helping support my parents with Family Guy money.”
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Oh sure, she took the cash, but she still wanted to enlist Warburton in the effort to pressure Fox into canceling the show. “She tried to get me to sign the petition,” he admits. “I said, 'Mom, if you don’t think I’m going to talk about this publicly, this is the greatest irony. You’re laundering money, you’re laundering it to yourself.’ They hate it more today.”
Poor Warburton has been suffering his mother’s moralistic ways all his life. “My mother went around the neighborhood when I was 13 years old, passing out pamphlets on the sins of masturbation,” he says. That’s not the kind of thing that earns a guy a date to the prom or, as Warburton laments, “get me into the cool crowd.”
Dad isn’t much better. “My father was in a monastery for three months. He almost became a monk,” Warburton says. He told that crowd that his dad’s mentor was “a very famous Catholic scholar” but none of the assembled would know him because they were “heathens” who “watched Family Guy.”
Little of the religious piety has rubbed off on the comic actor. You don’t like Family Guy? Come on. “It's a cartoon. It's satire,” he says. "As long as it remains relevant and current and creative, it will continue to go and to move.” The people who don’t care for the show’s humor (cough Warburton’s mom cough) “really don't get satire and just find themselves offended with everything.”
Maybe Mrs. Warburton needs to be reminded that her son isn’t guaranteed a voiceover check. One coworker in particular is pretty good at multiple voices. “Seth (MacFarlane) is a genius. I’m just thankful that Seth hired me 25 years ago because we’ve seen what Seth does with his voice,” Warburton says. “I’m glad he’s not doing Joe. How about that?”
