Patrick Warburton, who has voiced wheelchair-using character Joe Swanson since the popular cartoon’s debut season in 1999, revealed that his parents “hate the show even more today than they did 25 years ago.” Warburton explained that his father “was in a monastery for three months” and almost became a monk, while his mother “[went] around the neighborhood when I was 13 years old passing out pamphlets on the sins of masturbation.”
Warburton’s mother, a member of the American Television Council, even tried to get the show canceled. “I was helping support my parents with Family Guy money,” Warburton said. “She tried to get me to sign the petition [to cancel the show]. 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.”
The controversial sitcom, created by and starring Seth MacFarlane, follows the misadventures of the Griffin family. Despite its popularity, the show has been criticized for its crude humor and mockery of current political issues. In a recent episode, the show skewered Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, comparing them to the Griffin family’s patriarch Peter, who suggests that he’ll “go at it alone” like the Sussexes after falling on hard times.
