See the controversial Family Guy episode Fox won’t put on television… but doesn’t mind selling to you on DVD!There are some subjects so serious that you just don’t joke about them: cancer, genocide, the coming robot wars. But not abortion. Nope, abortion can be hilarious!
For proof, pick up tomorrow’s DVD release of an abortion-themed Family Guy episode that was so controversial, Fox refused to air it on television. In the ep titled “Partial Terms of Endearment”—Nothing like mixing your abortion jokes with your Shirley MacLaine references!— Lois agrees to act as a surrogate mother for an infertile couple, only to have the couple die in a car crash, forcing the Griffin clan to ponder whether or not to keep the baby.
Because of the content, Fox decided advertisers were skittish about the episode, so they shoved it in a brown bag and handed it off to their home video department. But while "Partial Terms of Endearment" does have the standard Family Guy absurdities—Lois is impregnated by natives wielding blow dart guns, Peter initially tries to stop the pregnancy with an ACME Miscarriage Kit—it somehow manages to discuss the subject respectfully enough to win positive reviews in the UK, where the Brits were ballsy enough to air the episode in June.
As a bonus feature, The Family Guy: Partial Terms of Endearment DVD also includes The Seth and Alex Almost Live Comedy Show. That was a non-animated special featuring Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane and Lois-voicer Alex Borstein singing and performing comedy bits. Admittedly, that special actually has aired on TV, but—judging by the number of people who actually remember it—it might as well not have.
That special was kind of awful. But I really want to see this episode now.
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