-I want to talk about Donald Trump
because in 2011 I hosted
the White House Correspondents´ Dinner.
-Yes. -I told some jokes about him.
But that year, you actually emceed --
people forget this happened very, like, soon before.
You did the Comedy Central "Roast of Donald Trump"...
-That´s right. -...when you emceed it.
And he actually seemed to be a pretty good sport.
Certainly a better sport there than he was a few months later.
What was your memory of that night?
-I -- you know, the strange thing was,
I-I have the same thought, like he´s --
he´s taken all this.
The only thing I think we weren´t allowed to joke about
was the bankruptcy. -Yeah.
-Bankruptcies. -Mm-hmm.
-Everything else was kind of on the table.
That was the one thing he was sensitive about. And I just --
-I guess that´s the one that goes the farthest
against what he presents himself as.
-Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. -Yeah.
-But I just remember thinking,
"man, this guy is really freaking boring."
[ Laughter ] -Yeah.
-This is... -Like, in your interactions
with him? -Yeah. Yeah.
-Yeah. -It´s like this guy´s just
really dull and it´s -- it´s -- it´s, you know,
I meet -- businessmen at that level that I´ve met in the past,
it´s kind of the same reaction. It´s like they´re just --
they just seem like dull guys. -Yeah. And dull guys --
-And unfortunately, yeah. -Dull guys don´t make
for great roast -- ´cause they actually, they finished.
They closed the night. -Yeah.
I mean, every joke that -- that we told, you know, it´s like,
hey, Donald Trump...you know, I don´t know what the hell
the joke was, when he has sex, he closes his eyes and imagines
himself jerking off. [ Laughter ]
And I look over -- and that joke and every -- I look over
and Trump´s face is like... [ Laughter ]
It´s like -- kind of like, "all right, I´ll give him that one."
-Yeah. -So -- so not the same guy
that he seems to be now.
-No, he´s -- he´s turned -- he´s evolved?
-Mm [ Laughter ]
-So... -Yeah.
-Congratulations, "Family Guy´s" 16th season.
-Yeah. -That´s amazing.
[ Cheers and applause ] -Yeah.
-And, you know, it´s everywhere. -Yep, yep, yep.
-The show is everywhere, multiple countries and --
which is nice and easy when you have an animated show,
´cause you just have people re-record...
-Right. -...in their language.
But are there jokes that you make
that do not translate into other languages?
-I -- there -- there have to be. -Yeah.
-There have to be. The show has weird titles elsewhere.
I was told that in Korea the show is called,
"The Shocking Family." -Oh, well...
[ Laughter ] -That´s the title of the show.
-I like that they were worried that people would see it
as, like, guidance if they didn´t call it that.
-Yeah, exactly -- -Like this is a regular family.
-Yeah, so I don´t know. I don´t know.
And that kind of gives everything away up front.
-Do you ever get to hear -- like, do they run by,
"hey, here´s the voice of the person in Korea
who´s going to do the characters"?
-You know, they -- they... [ Laughs ] they don´t.
-Yeah. -They don´t.
And I -- I don´t -- you know, like every once in a while,
I´ll catch a clip of, like, "Family Guy" or "Ted"
in German and it´s like Peter,
but he´s like... [ Imitating German ]
[ Laughter ] And it´s like, that wow --
that -- I don´t know what´s going on. I don´t know how
the show is perceived there. -Do you -- when you hear it,
do you have an appreciation where you say,
"that´s a pretty good German Peter"?
-I´m just glad somebody else is worrying about it.
-Yeah, that´s -- I liked. Yeah. Micromanaging, that is --
that´s a loser´s game. -Yeah, yeah, yeah.
-You -- these characters, these voices, do you just sort of,
like, talk until you find something you like
or are they based on people?
-You know, it´s -- they come from different places.
I mean, Stewie, as I´ve said in the past,
is based on Rex Harrison. -Mm-hmm.
-He´s the character actor from those Henry Higgins.
Peter was based on a security guard that I went to --
you know, worked at my college,
at the Rhode Island School of Design.
[ Laughter ] -Does he know this?
-I think he -- I -- they don´t know which one,
and I´ve never kind of made it clear which one.
-[ Laughs ] -There´s a very specific guy,
but they all -- there´s actually several of them, you know,
are like, "oh, yeah, that´s me he´s talking about."
[ Laughter ]
-And do you think -- do you think when he says that
and people hear it, they go, "oh, it
Do you think it -- is it that close to him
that they would say --
-It´s -- it´s -- yeah, yeah, it´s possible.
-Yeah. [ Laughs ] -You know what?
They´re a lovely bunch of guys, if I can make them all happy
believing that they´re all Peter.
-[ Laughs ] That´s true. -Then that makes me happy.
-And so obviously you were a Rhode Island School of Design
artist before anything else. Pretty much, right?
-Yeah, yeah, I was -- -And you -- I was hearing that
your first cartoon actually got you in trouble, which sort of --
certainly trends towards a guy who makes a show called
"The Shocking Family." -Yes, yes.
-What was your early cartoon and your early complaint?
-Shockingly, I-I-I wanted to work for Disney
when I was at the -- in college...
[ Laughter ] ...if you can believe that.
-Yeah. -And then that --
-That would have been a whole different --
-That went away. -Yeah.
-And... [ Laughs ] -Yeah.
-And, no, I got a-a hate letter from the town priest
for doing a --
[ Laughter ]
-Can it be a hate letter from a --
-Well, I don´t know. You know, listen, I was doing comics
for a local paper. I was 10-years-old,
getting a letter from a priest -- wait a second.
[ Laughter ] Um...
Hang on. It just -- the -- you know, I was 10.
The cartoon was a guy getting communion at church and he says,
"can I have fries with that?" You know?
-Yeah. -10-years-old.
-10-years-old, that´s such a very --
-Yeah. -That´s a really good, edgy,
10-year-old joke.... -Sure, absolutely.
-...that anybody 14 or over should not be offended by it.
-Yeah, no, it´s fine. It´s fine.
You might see it in "Family Circus."
-Yeah. -But, yeah, the letter said,
"shame on you for insulting the Almighty God
and those who love Him." -Wow!
-Yeah, yeah. -That sounds like a priest who
has
Yeah. -Exactly.
And from that point on, I knew exactly
what I wanted to do with my life.
-And when -- how far, like, were you still --
Disney was actually when you were at RISD?
-At college, yeah, yeah. -And like when did you realize,
"oh, this isn´t gonna -- I shouldn´t do Disney."
-You know -- it was two-fold. I started doing stand-up.
-Uh-huh. -And was getting laughs
with a certain type of material, and I thought,
"well, that -- this isn´t going to fly there."
-Yeah. -And then "The Simpsons"
obviously reinvented the whole ball game and --
-Yeah. -Oh, God, you can --
cartoons are once again not just for kids,
so it was two-fold.