Seth MacFarlane's animated sitcom "Family Guy" has long traded in shock humor and crass jokes. Like a fratboy-ready version of "The Simpsons," "Family Guy" came into being when many comedians and TV shows were testing the limits of what was deemed acceptable on television. Many of said comedians were pushing back against the still-remembered manufactured wholesomeness of Reagan's 1980s. MacFarlane was born in 1972, so he grew up witnessing the blandness of the "classic American sitcom." There was also a general cultural bristling at the 1990s trend toward "politically correct language," even from those who agreed with the sentiment toward sensitivity.

MacFarlane's "Family Guy" opened with a riff on the title sequence for "All in the Family," and then exploded into a glitzy song-and-dance routine about (ironically, of course) restoring "good old-fashioned values." The title was ironic, though. Peter Griffin (MacFarlane) was not a "family guy" at all, but a crass, media-blinded, alcoholic jerk with tendencies toward sexism and bigotry. The old-fashioned values, MacFarlane was declaring, were actually horrific and dated.

Much of the shock humor on "Family Guy" is intended to be a send-up of sexist, bigoted attitudes so often seen in "good old-fashioned" TV shows, revealing how rotten a lot of America's core Conservative values really are. With many of the show's jokes, though, the line in blurred. Sometimes, MacFarlane is making a comment. Sometimes, he's just being crass for the sake of it. There will be at least one joke per episode that will offend most people.

"Family Guy" has ridden that line for 426 episodes over the course of 23 seasons. The show has been canceled and resurrected, and it shows no signs of ending anytime soon. In a 2022 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, MacFarlane, and producers Alec Sulkin and Rich Appel, theorize how they've been able to get away with it for so long. MacFarlane posits that few people are genuinely offended by his show.