There has been no shortage of drama in the entertainment industry this year, from massive mergers, massive restructurings, the sudden ousting of CEOs and the plummeting values of Wall Street media giants. But from the perspective of a well-connected, well-funded, highly motivated product with a track record like Seth MacFarlane, the business has never been better.
“Family Guy” creator/executive producer said Sunday during an extensive question-and-answer session with Erica Huggins, president of his Fuzzy Door banner, held Sunday as part of the two-day Conference on Producers Guild of America.
MacFarlane has spent the past half-dozen years producing Peak TV to significantly expand Fuzzy Door, now based at Universal Content Productions. Huggins joined the company in 2018 after years in the featured side of Imagine Entertainment.
Huggins is enlisted to help MacFarlane spread his wings, since he prefers to dedicate primarily himself to one project at a time. “The purpose of having Erica on the business was really to enhance what we do who has a lot of experience working with talent and can take the raw materials and the foundation that we built and let it spread.”
To that end, among the series active on Fuzzy Door’s roster, due to debut on Peacock in August, is “The End is Nye.” It’s the perfect on-pitch example of a series that can only exist in the age of broadcasting.
MacFarlane described the series from veteran writer Brannon Braga as having something of a “law and order” format, revolving around science and climate change rather than jurisprudence. Nye goes through a cinematically orchestrated natural or man-made disaster in the first half of each episode and dies. But in the second half, Nye returns to explain how we hope science, technology, and green innovations can help mitigate or prevent such environmental crises in the future.
“The End is Nye” is also an example of MacFarlane choosing projects based on his diverse interests. “We look at what people watch, what’s popular, and we look at what’s not. What you don’t find you wish you had,” Huggins said.
MacFarlane and Huggins said UCP has been a great partner, providing them the flexibility to work within the global NBC ecosystem as well as pursue emerging entrepreneurial opportunities in international productions.
MacFarlane has been pressed about how his experience as a producer has changed over the past few years since he split from Fox after aligning with the studio for three decades, aged 24 and shooting Family Guy in January 1999.
But as the political climate began to change in the Obama and Trump years, MacFarlane became increasingly vocal about his annoyance at belonging to the same parent company as Fox News, given the extreme views espoused by some primetime opinion hosts. In the end, he voted by foot, and signed a huge deal with Universal in January 2020.
With Hulu’s “Family Guy,” “American Dad,” and “The Orville,” MacFarlane still has plenty of business with 20th Television (now part of Disney) and the Murdoch-controlled Fox Corp., the home of Fox Broadcasting Co. Fox News and Fox Sports.
“It’s an incredibly complicated relationship between me and that company,” MacFarlane said of Fox. “There are people with whom I have great personal relationships. There are people that I love very much. But it’s a different company than when I started. It’s very difficult for me to reconcile exactly my relationship with this company at the moment. I, like many people, have many objections to their practices.”
But the controversial decision to include Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani as a contestant on Fox’s hit entertainment reality show “The Masked Singer” seemed like a thunderbolt to MacFarlane — a line crossed. Giuliani was a key figure who pushed former President Donald Trump to challenge the results of the 2020 election without credible evidence of election fraud — a position that seems to exclude him from mainstream television, particularly after the stigma of the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.
“Definitely the news department and the entertainment department operate relatively independently of each other. And that’s something that has allowed a lot of us to sleep a little bit better,” MacFarlane said. This was the first indication for me that made me wonder if I should question it.”
MacFarlane noted that during his many years on Fox’s payroll, he never faced any pressure to lighten his humor, even if his barbs were fraught with politics.
“The whole time I was there, no one ever tried to impose political censorship on the show,” he said. I was never censored and never pressured to show a different political viewpoint. And ‘Family Guy’ obviously tends to be very left-wing.”
MacFarlane also believes there is a need for a conservative news outlet that is more centrist than the far-right trends that fueled it under Trump.
“In this day and age, there really is an openness and a need—God help me—a conservative, rational news outlet. This presents an opposing viewpoint in a thoughtful way, that acknowledges science and acknowledges the reality of the world around us,” he said. “At some point, you could make the argument that Fox News was going in that direction. They really took a right-hand turn going in a radically different place.
“For me, the ideal situation would be if they could correct course and make a conscious, ethical decision to try and make that their turn moving forward,” he added. “I don’t think there is a chance in Hell but…”
Other topics discussed during the hour-long conversation included:
** “Ted”: Fuzzy Door adapts the MacFarlane comedy franchise about a man and his mouthy-talking friend as a series for Peacock. MacFarlane said the idea came from NBC Universal. He didn’t think it could be produced as a series due to the visual effects required for Ted rendering. “For me, the exciting thing is always doing something that hasn’t been done before,” MacFarlane said. “I don’t know there has been a TV series where a CGI character has this level of realism and detail in the show.” Huggins added that the company uses tools for green screen technology.
** “The Winds of War”: Fuzzy Door is in the early stages of developing a remake of the epic 1983 mini-series set against the backdrop of World War II. The project stems from MacFarlane’s love of history and Hermann Walk’s famous novels. Real history is better than any novel and it’s just soap. It nourishes you as if you were watching the movie ‘Dallas,’ MacFarlane said.
** Tip from the Trenchers: In the spirit of the event produced, Huggins provided some insights to attendees about the carefully packaged content market and promotions that generate the greatest responses from buyers. “They are looking for something transactional today. The more you collect, the more you can put together something, the better off you are,” she said.
(Pictured: Seth MacFarlane, Erica Huggins, diverseCynthia Littleton)
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