Last night the animated Fox series Family Guy stunned fans by killing off Brian Griffin.
Show bosses had promised the death of a major character in Sunday night’s episode, but few expected it to be Brian, who has appeared in every episode for eleven seasons. Brian (voiced by Seth MacFarlane) was run over by a car in ‘Life of Brian’, with his partner in crime Stewie being unable to go back in time and save him after disassembling his time machine earlier in the episode.
Brian was quickly replaced by a new family dog named Vinnie, voiced by Tony Sirico, the actor who portrayed mafioso Paulie ‘Walnuts’ Gautieri in HBO’s hit The Sopranos.
Family Guy’s executive producer Steve Callaghan explained the decision to send Brian on a trip to Belize, telling E! Online: “This was an idea that got pitched in the writers’ room and it sort of caught fire, and we thought it could be a fun way to shake things up.”
“We started talking about what the next couple episodes could be and we got very excited about the way this change will affect the family dynamics and the characters.”
Killing off characters seems to be popular in cartoons this season with The Simpsons planning on doing the same.
RIP Brian Griffin.
