Seth MacFarlane

From Philosopedia

Seth MacFarlane (26 October 1973 - )

Seth Woodbury MacFarlane was born in Kent, Connecticut, to teachers Ann Perry Sager and Ronald Milton MacFarlane, both of whom were teachers at the Episcopalian-affiliated Kent School, from which he graduated in 1991.

When nine, he drew a comic strip, "Walter Crouton," for the Kent Good Times Dispatch, and he earned his B.F.A. at the Rhode Island School of Design, hoping to prepare himself to work for the Walt Disney Company but choosing the American animation studio, Hanna-Barbera Productions.

When Kent's headmaster, the Rev. Richardson W. Schell, rebuked MacFarlane for his creative cartoons and asked Fox not to air his Family Guy, MacFarlane's parents resigned in protest. One YouTube clip, How Do We Know You're Jesus? illustrates Schell's disapproving view.

Known for his distinctive voice and Emmy-winning Family Guy and American Dad, MacFarlane covered a variety of his views in a March 2008 interview in Advocate, a gay publication. He is not gay, says if he were he'd have been pursued more by hot chicks, and said of the Parents Television Council's describing his work as the "worst TV show of the week,"

• Oh, yeah. That�s like getting hate mail from Hitler. They�re literally terrible human beings. I�ve read their newsletter, I�ve visited their website, and they�re just rotten to the core. For an organization that prides itself on Christian values�I mean, I�m an atheist, so what do I know?�they spend their entire day hating people. They can all suck my dick as far as I�m concerned.

MacFarlane, unmarried and the brother of actor-writer Rachael MacFarlane, lives in Beverly Hills, California. His New England-based humor often makes the family pet the foil, he mocks neo-conservatives, and in 2010 news stories is described as the highest paid writer on television. On a Larry King television show, MacFarlane commented about making offensive jokes:

• You don�t want to be nasty for the sake of being nasty. I mean, if you�re actually depicting a real person, for example, Terry Sciavo, as opposed to a deliberately inappropriate kid�s play, then you have serious discussions. Are we doing this? Is this just cruel? Is this just mean? And there will be a lot of those discussions that go on in the Writer�s Room on a day to day basis. I think there�s this vision of Hollywood writers as just this hedonistic bunch who are just out to make their dough and do something that�s gonna be there for shock value. Not the case. I mean, my writers, most of them are married. They have children. And there are a lot of discussions that we have in that room. Is this funny enough? Is it satirical enough that it warrants the edginess of the material.

Filmography as Actor

Tooth Fairy (14 Jan 2010)

Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder, 23 February 2009 (voice)

Hellboy II: The Golden Army, 28 June 2008 (voice)

Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story, 28 June 2008 (voice)

(See MacFarlane's 2009 Emmy Awards Video and various other YouTube videos.)