Drawn and quarters Melora Koepke     From a coke-snorting canine to a matricidal child, Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane somehow manages to keep it clean enough for prime time "I'm living proof that television has nothing to do with social problems. My parents let me watch Caddyshack and Stripes and R-rated movies when I was eight years old," says Seth MacFarlane. "I saw breasts and swearing on TV and I turned out pretty much okay... It really is easy to distract from mothering issues with complaints about television. They did their parenting job properly and everything turned out fine." This from the man who may soon bring us TV's first gay, gun-toting baby and dog-to-human sexual content. Certainly, as a product of a TV childhood, MacFarlane has done better than okay for himself: He's the 30-year-old creator of Family Guy, the most gratuitous, filthy and laugh-out-loud funny of all the family shows in the '90s prime-time animation renaissance. He's also the voice of the show's three main (male) characters: Peter Griffin, paterfamilias and inventor of the phallic kids' toy "Mr. Zucchini Head" (Season 1); Stewie, the big-headed baby bent on world domination; and Brian, the alcoholic dog who's unlucky in love. (FACT: The best Chris episode, which never aired, has Peter deciding to convert Chris to Judaism so that he can be more successful in life. That episode will run as part of Comedia's The Other Network screenings at Just For Laughs this year.) Just For Laughs have schemed to bring us the first-ever chance to see Family Guy in the same live-action format as they did The Simpsons two years ago. So can the real thing be half as good as the cartoon? Hour spoke with the live-action Seth MacFarlane (who graciously fielded my request to speak with Stewie and - especially - Brian, despite a persistent head cold) just as Family Guy was poised to make a hero's return with 22 new episodes coming to prime-time network television after two years of being cancelled.

Hour So, to the surprise of many, the first Family Guy DVD set turned out to be the best-selling television property of 2003 - a real sleeper. Is that the reason for Fox resurrecting the show?

Seth MacFarlane I think it's a major reason - that and the cartoon network airings that have gotten such good ratings. After all, the show was cancelled for all the wrong reasons initially: The only reason it wasn't being watched was because the network kept moving it around.

Hour So what's the new season going to be like? Is it going to be more cohesive and sitcom-y, or all over the place like Season 1?

SM You can expect the bawdiness of the first season with the solid character development of the third season, so it's the best of both worlds.

Hour TV critics, the cynical ones especially, seem to get all weepy about how Family Guy really pushes the envelope somewhere in particular. But to me, the heart of the show has always just been the alcoholic dog, Brian, and his loser humans and their cheap laughs. But that's even better, no?

SM I don't give a shit about being groundbreaking, all I care about is being hysterically funny. There isn't that much on TV that is laugh-out-loud funny - our goal is to make people laugh out loud as many times as possible in any given half-hour period.

Hour Like many sitcoms, all the laughs are hinged on the characters' utter failures.

SM I'm after the same mindset as any show about the blue-collar community... Peter Griffin is in the same vein as Ralph Kramden from The Honeymooners. There's a Charles Schultz quote I like: Success isn't funny, failure is. It gives the characters something to strive for. Yeah, I think they have kind of a bum deal from time to time... Brian's problems are human: He dates women, and he's an old-fashioned Dean Martin drunk. He has problems, but in a lot of ways he's more human than Peter is.

Hour There are up moments... Like when Brian won the award for directing porn. Can I ask Brian a question?

SM [in Brian's voice] Sure, lady.

Hour How is it that a dog can get hooked on coke, as you do after doing duty as a police dog [The Thin White Line, Season 1]?

SM/Brian We have nostrils like people do, and they're bigger and wetter. Some of it sticks to the outer rim, but most of it gets in. Enough of it.

Hour What do you get away with because you're a dog?

SM/Brian I bought all my coke from Nick from Family Ties.

Hour I've sensed that you have a yen for Lois. Is your sexual yearning for the human female something that's going to be explored, do you think, in upcoming episodes?

SM You know, we have an episode coming up that deals with that specific issue.

Hour The liaison between Brian and Lois aside, what really needs to happen is that Brian needs to have sex with Meg, no? That would just make everyone happier.

SM We toyed with that idea down the line, having an episode where Brian, you know, where they... take a whack at it.

Hour Bestiality on the Fox Network? What's next?

SM We weren't going to address it sexually... um, exactly... but what would happen if they... well they're both kind of unlucky in matters of love, it seems logical that at some point they would, well, um, technically she's an older woman.

Hour Not in dog years.

SM Right.

Hour I know you're a huge fan of old Broadway musicals, and Stewie is so often clearly modelled after Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady. Is Stewie your real animus?

SM Actually, it's the opposite. I started out with Peter and Brian, and pretty much branched out from there. I had a drawing of a pretty generic-looking baby and thought, 'He's not the central character, so maybe I can go a little weird.' You know, let's have him bent on [world domination], and on killing his mother. Even if only one person thinks it's funny.

Hour And he's the perfect child star, because he never has to change... Is it strange to write static characters that never age? Or is that a comedic advantage?

SM We make a lot of allowances for things he can do that other babies can't... And kids always get less funny when they get older, so it's kind of nice that Stewie never will.

Hour To that end, no family is really as bad as the Griffins... Can I ask Stewie a question?

SM [as Stewie]: Yessss, I suppose. Oh God, this would be so much easier if my head wasn't crammed full of [cold and flu] drugs.

Hour There's an Internet rumour going around that Stewie is gay. Does it make you angry that you're only 1, and yet your sex life is plastered all over the screen?

SM/Stewie It's definitely possible to be a heterosexual and despise women... I'll answer that after my second testicle drops.

Hour When will that be?

SM [NOT in Stewie's voice] [Is this], like, the worst 976 call I ever paid for, the worst sex call ever? When will your second testicle drop? Am I supposed to be beating off to this?

Hour Wow. No one's ever come out and actually said that before.

SM If this takes too much longer I'm gonna have to sit down and have a good old yankfest...

Hour Okay, enough with the voices... I can see that in your flu state they are perturbing you.

SM We're both so uncomfortable right now...

Hour One last question. Are there episodes that you wanted to write, but couldn't?

Hour It would be nice if we could swear. But, other than that... We never had a desire to do what South Park does, but when someone says, 'Jeez,' it would be nicer if they could say 'Jesus fuckin' Christ.' Those casual expletives really help with the writing.

Hour So it's okay if the dog does the mom, and the one-year-old walks around with a semi-automatic weapon, but keep a lid on the swearing. Is that it?

SM Pretty much.