Family Guy, the outrageous Fox cartoon that was canceled two years ago, will resume production next month with 35 new episodes to premiere early next year on Cartoon Network and possibly on Fox.
It marks the first time a canceled show has been resurrected based on DVD sales. The first volume, which sold 1.6 million, was last year's top-selling TV DVD; a second volume sold another million copies. And those 50 reruns are the biggest draw on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block of late-night programming, with 1.9 million viewers.
All this for a show about a blue-collar Rhode Island family, including loutish dad Peter, evil toddler Stewie and a talking, martini-swilling dog.
The comeback surprises Seth MacFarlane, who created Family Guy at 24, won a huge post-Super Bowl launch on Fox in 1999 and then watched the show founder in several time slots.
"We kind of gave up lobbying a while ago," MacFarlane says. "For the most part, when a show is dead, it's dead. It's something none of us ever expected."
But in Family Guy's late-blooming success, 20th Century Fox Television sees a chance to profit further from DVDs, merchandise, a potential video game and the ultimate pot of gold: syndication to local TV stations, which usually requires at least 85 episodes.
"When we saw the way the fan base reacted, it obviously got us thinking there was a very pure audience that would follow it anywhere," says 20th Century Fox's Gary Newman.
The news is equally heartening to Cartoon Network. "Getting this deal done has been my obsession for the last six months," general manager Jim Samples says. "It will be one of the things that keeps Adult Swim thriving."
If Fox airs the new episodes, it will get them before Cartoon Network.
