“Family Guy is basically just a bunch of guys sitting around a table throwing food at each other and trying to make you laugh,” says Chris Sheridan '89, producer and writer for the popular animated series. “The writer's room is as close to what it was like being in Chi Psi at Union as anything I've been involved in.”
While Sheridan makes writing for the show sound easy, he says there is a lot of pressure to maintain the high level of hilarity that has made it a hit among teenagers and college students. The show airs on Fox and is in syndication on the Cartoon Network and Comedy Central.
“As one of the writers, you have to sit there while 12 of the funniest people you've ever met go through your script, page by page, and agree when they say ‘this joke isn't funny enough,' or ‘this story doesn't work,'” he says.
“It's not a place for the weak of heart. You have to have a lot of self-confidence. Chi Psi and my time on the rugby team helped me develop that confidence.”
An English major who took every creative writing class offered at Union, Sheridan soon found his calling in screenwriting.
After a series of odd jobs following graduation, Sheridan landed in Hollywood in 1992 as a writer's assistant on the show, Shaky Ground. His big break would come a few years later as an assistant on Living Single, starring Queen Latifah, where he wrote and produced two episodes. He was promoted to writer and stayed with the show until it was cancelled in 1998.
Suddenly unemployed, he got a call from his agent about a new gig with a catch: he'd be writing for a cartoon.
“I was devastated. I thought writing for a cartoon meant my career was over. But I had no other options,” says Sheridan. “Once I met with (creator) Seth McFarlane and he explained what Family Guy was about, I thought it was going to be great.”
The show centers on Peter Griffin, a bumbling, blue collar father-think hyper-moronic Archie Bunker. He lives with his wife, Lois, and three children (Chris, Meg and Stewie) in the fictional suburb of Quahog, R.I. The Griffins have a refined and intelligent talking dog, Brian, who walks upright and sips martinis.
Family Guy is one of the few shows in television history to be cancelled and then picked up again by the same network. Originally, the series ran on Fox for three seasons (1999-2001) before it was dropped. During a two-year hiatus, DVDs raised Family Guy from cult status to widespread popularity. The show returned to Fox in May 2005 and begins a new season this fall, airing Sunday nights.
While the show was on hiatus, Sheridan wrote for other notable sitcoms like Titus and Yes, Dear. While devoting most of his time to Family Guy, where he has been executive producer and writer the past two years, he also is working on a screenplay.
For current Union undergrads, Family Guy is a required part of the college experience. As Dan Amira '07 says, “Freshman year, our whole floor would get together and watch the DVDs. It was part of hanging out in the dorm.”
Since the show has been renewed, students catch new episodes together, often in Minerva Houses, at Family Guy theme parties.
“I never expected that Family Guy would be become such a college phenomenon,” says Sheridan. Since the show's return to Fox, Sheridan has begun to do the voices for some of his characters. He has played a caveman, an elephant, a fish friend of Aquaman and the recurring character of James Bottomtooth, a writer for the New Yorker with a huge lower jaw and upper-crust drawl. He also wrote a character last year for Robert Downey Jr. and worked with the actor in the recording studio.
Family Guy has been nominated for two Emmys for “Best Animated Series.” Sheridan himself was nominated for an Emmy for a song he wrote for one episode.
“It was a strange experience at the Emmys,” says Sheridan. “My song was called, ‘We Only Live to Kiss Your Ass.' I laughed out loud when the presenter had to list that song as one of the nominations alongside normal songs written by people like Marvin Hamlisch. I did not win, by the way.”
Sheridan, who lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Yolie, and their daughter, Lily, 3, credits his Union College friends for helping him define his sense of humor.
“There were so many funny people at Union,” he says. “It's like I was preparing for my career all along, just trading sarcastic insults with my buddies and playing jokes on them.”