Family Guy‘s executive producers have confirmed that one major recurring character has been killed 26 years after they made their debut, and it’s for a surprising reason as to why. Family Guy fans are currently waiting on the animated series to make its return to Fox next year with a whole new season, but having just wrapped this Summer, Season 23 had quite a lot to offer. Many of the episodes shook up the series in some fun ways, and there was one Meg episode in particular that came to an end with a brutal and bloody death. A death that’s going to stick.
Family Guy isn’t really that concerned with maintaining a strict canon across its episodes, but there are a few changes to the status quo that have been cemented in place. This includes when the show decides to kill off a character, and the latest example has been with Ernie the Giant Chicken. With Meg killing him off during Season 23, Family Guy‘s executive producers confirmed in a talk with TV Line that the Giant Chicken has indeed died for good, “I think that the chicken has gone the way of all flesh.”
Family Guy Kills Off the Giant Chicken for Good
In the Family Guy Season 23 episode, “The Chicken or the Meg,” the final sequence of the episode sees Meg starting a fight with Ernie the Giant Chicken before quickly revealing that she cut off the chicken’s head and tossed it aside without any real trouble at all. There’s no sign of the chicken opening its eyes and teasing a potential return much like fans have seen in the fights with Peter seen before, and it turns out that’s because Family Guy really doesn’t have any plans to bring back Peter’s longtime rival in the future.
“I think that the chicken has gone the way of all flesh,” Family Guy executive producer Alec Sulkin revealed. “Honestly, I feel like we got so many great set pieces out of the giant chicken fighting with Peter that they became hard to top. It’s a lot to ask of our production crew, and we may have just gotten the best out of that character.” Executive producer Richard Appel also confirmed this notion by highlighting that the fight seen between Peter and Homer in the famous The Simpsons and Family Guy crossover episode was really the height of the idea, “When you watch that, it’s hard to know where you take that further.”
Family Guy Killing Off the Giant Chicken Makes Sense
Family Guy really has taken the Giant Chicken as far as it could go as a gag. Originally introduced in the Season 2 episode “Da Boom” in 1999, the Giant Chicken has been sporadically popping up in the series as a longtime rival for Peter. Each time would result in an extended fight sequence between the two that ended with Peter winning, and teased the Chicken would be coming back for another round at some point in the future. Outside of this context, Peter and the Chicken even got a whole new look at their rivalry during the Season 19 episode, “Fecal Matters” which saw Peter helping to save the Chicken from dying to an illness.
Revealing that Peter needs this rivalry in his life as something exciting to help him get through the drudgery of the day, that’s pretty much where it settled until the chicken was killed off in this final appearance. Only having significant appearances in ten or so episodes across 25 seasons, it sadly does make sense why the Family Guy team decided to go with this death. Besides, they could just bring the chicken back like always if they wanted to in a future episode if a good enough idea comes along.
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HT – TV Line
