-Seth MacFarlane. There he is. Oh, my gosh.
-How's it going? -Oh, it's going good, buddy.
It's so good to see your face. I want to see you in person.
Welcome to the family, right? Are we on NBC together now?
-That is correct. Yeah, yeah. I'm now with NBC Universal.
So we work for the same folks. -I'm so psyched.
I saw that thing come in, I go "Oh, this gonna be fun, man."
-We can go to the same cocktail parties and not feel weird.
-[ Laughs ] Exactly. How are you in the quarantine?
Are you getting anything done? Are you -- How are you feeling?
-I am. It's like I'm getting -- I'm getting a lot done.
I find that like, you know, we set up all these crazy systems
where I can edit the show from home.
I can record "Family Guy" and "American Dad" from home.
It's -- The technical part of our culture,
the way people have stepped up to kind of close these gaps
for us is kind of amazing.
-It is crazy, right? -Yeah.
-'Cause you do "Orville."
You were in the middle of shooting season three.
-Yes.
-Which -- By the way, congrats on season two.
I saw it was like 100% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
-Yeah. -That's always good.
But, dude, so, you're in the middle of doing season three,
and they go, "Sorry. We're shutting everything down."
-We were right in the middle
of shooting an episode of "The Orville."
So it's like -- When this thing airs at long last,
whenever that is, you're gonna --
One episode is going to be such that you're going have,
between one scene to the next, people are suddenly
going to gain 20 pounds and have, like, long white beards.
-[ Laughs ] Inexplicable. Yeah. No one can say why.
No -- No plans on when that's going to come out yet?
-Not -- It depends on when we get back to work.
It depends on... -Right.
-...in what conditions we get back to work.
So it's -- Yeah, it's all -- I mean, it's -- what --
We've shot about half the season. It's looking amazing.
I mean, it's -- We're basically going to be delivering people
a little movie every week, so...
-I mean, do you find -- Is that a lot of pressure on you?
Because, I mean, we're all kind of looking for
new "Family Guys" and new "American Dads."
And, man, it was like, "Seth, we need stuff.
We need content, dude."
Like -- Is it like --
Again, thank you so much for coming on the show, by the way.
I really appreciate it. -Oh, anytime. I love it.
-So many people watch, and they're big fans of yours.
But, I mean, like, I don't know.
It's like -- You're like, "I'm only one man.
I can do this. I can do that."
-I mean, I-I like to stay -- I like to stay busy.
I mean, and I -- And there's enough for me to do
from a writing standpoint and from a producing standpoint
that I can -- I can find ways to fill this time.
One of my writing partners on "Family Guy" said to me --
said to me, "I'm coming to the realization
that this is what I've always wanted --
an excuse to never leave my house."
-[ Laughs ]
-And -- Yeah, you know, I try to keep --
The biggest issue for me is, you know, as I look ahead
to what's next and as I start writing projects --
And I'm sure you've heard this before.
When you're writing characters,
it's hard to predict how people are going to behave.
Like, you know, "Jim shakes hands with Bob."
Like, is that ever going to happen again?
-Yeah, you're right.
-What is the world going to look like?
And how much a part of day-to-day interaction
between people is this going to be?
And you just can't predict that.
So you're just writing the world that we know now.
And so that's the biggest challenge to me.
-You can probably get away with it a little bit
with "Family Guy," right? -Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
-'Cause you kind of live in your own reality.
-I'm with two shows that don't really have to address it.
"Family Guy" is a cartoon,
and "The Orville" is 500 years in the future.
So I kind of lucked out.
-Yeah, you can make up whatever rules.
"Yeah, we never shook hands." Exactly.
I saw somewhere -- I was looking on your Instagram or something.
You've been drawing ever since you were a kid,
like, different comics and drawings.
And I thought that was awesome.
Like, how old were you when you started doing that?
12? 13? -I was about --
My parents have Fred Flintstones
and Woody Woodpeckers and Bugs Bunnys
from when I was about 2, trying to like, you know --
With my stubby baby-carrot fingers,
trying to copy them off the TV, holding my pencil wrong.
But, yeah, I started --
You know, I experimented with animation for the first time
I think when I was about 12. -Yeah.
-Just making short films
that were very crude and very, very, you know, loxy.
-Were you doing, like, video tape, like, pausing it,
and then changing the drawing then unpausing it?
-Yeah.
You know, it was a Super 8 camera, if you remember those.
-Yeah, it's 'cause they go -- [Imitates camera whirring]
-Yep, yep. -That one?
-There was a setting on it
where you could take one frame at a time,
and so that was what I was using.
And, you know, just coming out,
you literally wait like eight weeks
for the film to get developed 'cause it's got to go
to, like, Danbury, Connecticut, or someplace.
And then it comes back,
you see what you did wrong, and you do it again,
And then you wait another eight weeks,
and it was a very slow process. -That's right.
It had to come back to that -- We used to have Fotomats.
-Yes. So did we.
-It was, like, a weird little booth
in the middle of a parking lot.
And that's all they did, was give you your developed --
It was so odd.
-It's like a toll booth for film.
-I can't even imagine now like --
What's the real-estate deal on that?
-I have no idea.
And, yeah, 'cause it was never its own space.
It was always a part of a larger parking lot.
-It's just -- And I feel like you can kind of just lift it
right off the ground if you really wanted to rip them off.
It was a dangerous place. -Not good in bad weather. No.
-Yeah, it was a toll booth. All right.
Talk to me about "The At-Home Variety Show"
and what's happening.
Where can we see this thing?
-Well, basically, this is --
This is a show on Peacock,
which is a new streaming service.
-[ Laughs ] Oh, is that right?
-With a great name. Peacock. -Oh, what a name.
[ Laughter ]
-None of us were in that board meeting
when we probably should have been.
-No comedians were in that board meeting, no.
-There were no comedians...
"Excuse me. If I'm -- Sorry. Yes, back here!"
Is there -- Is there..."
-"Just sit back down. We got it. We're good, we're good.
We don't want any other suggestions. We're good."
[ Laughter ]
-But, yeah, it's a weekly -- Or, nightly, rather.
A nightly "At-Home Variety Show" that I'm hosting,
and each -- each installment features a different celebrity
who comes in and does their own act of some kind or other.
The array of installments is pretty diverse.
-How fun. -Everybody's doing it different.
Yeah, it's very experimental. It's very avant-garde.
-And it's all helping people during the pandemic.
-Yes. It's all for charity.
All for essential workers and communities in need.
-Is it sort of like a "Circus of the Stars" type of thing?
Do you remember that?
-I do remember "Circus of the Stars," yeah.
I think this is more voluntary.
I think these people are happy to be there doing this.
-[ Laughs ]
Are you saying they were against their will?
-I remember reading that, like, "Circus of the Stars"
was something that, like, the actors were kind of forced to do
if they wanted to keep working.
-I loved it. What was the Olympics?
-Like, "Gabe Kaplan, get on that trapeze."
-It'd say, "Brooke Shields
is going to walk on broken glass when we come back."
And you go -- So you're saying
she didn't really want to do that?
-"Charlotte Rae is going to swallow a sword."
[ Laughter ]
-From "Facts of Life"? Mrs. Garrett?
-Yes.
-[ Laughs ] Oh, my -- Holy moly. That's unbelievable.
Well, we're going to put --
We put the website up on the screen right now.
You go to peacocktv.com/forgood.
And how are you on that variety show?
Will you be hosting it? Will you be appearing on it?
-You know, I'm literally, at the moment, just hosting.
I'm standing in my --
standing in my house and rolling out the acts.
-I think it's awesome. Thank you for doing that.