Family Guy Unaired Pilot (1998)
The first 7 minutes of the pilot.
On January 31, 1999, Family Guy premiered after Super bowl 34 with the episode "Death Has a Shadow". There were actually plans before 1999. In this article, it will only be covering Family Guy's Pilot, not Larry and Steve. In 1998, Seth MacFarlane took ideas from Larry and Steve and put it in a new family-based show. Seth originally made the pilot hand-drawn, looking a bit sloppier. Characters looked crude and different, Lois and Stewie received a more mixed color type design, Lois had blonde hair, to match her similarities with Chris's hair, but was later changed to a more distinguished brunette hair. Stewie has green overalls and a purple inner shirt, this was changed to red and yellow to make him appear more like a maniacal baby.
Seth MacFarlane 1999 Interview on his youth and creating Family Guy!
1999 interview with Seth MacFarlane, containing footage from the pilot.
The pilot was reportedly finished, but only seven minutes and a few low quality screenshots of the rest of the pilot survived. Many commercials for the show, despite being changed before them, still contain the early pilot scenes, matching the bad taken photos, except the courtroom scene, which remains lost entirely.
On internet forums of the late 2000s, people claimed to have a copy of the pilot tape, either from an "eBay seller" or "their family works for Seth MacFarlane and got from him", some even claimed to have taken the picture with their copy.
WUTV - Super Bowl XXXIII Commercials (January 31, 1999)
Commercial for Family Guy containing footage of the pilot (1:05:25-1:05:38).
