Check Out Seth MacFarlane’s Earliest Drawings
Walter Crouton, The Life of Larry, and the road to creating Family Guy.
June 21, 2015
Nearly every minute of every day you could find someone laughing at the quick-witted, cutting comedy delivered by the likes of Quahog’s Griffin family. From the very first episode of “Family Guy,” which premiered right after the Broncos took down the Falcons at Super Bowl XXXIII, through until the most recent Season 13, Seth MacFarlane has inspired legions of fans with memorable quotes, situational comedy, and all-too-true realizations about the world we live in.
Yet, back in 1999 it would have seemed unlikely for the show to be such a resounding success considering it was pitched to Fox by a newly graduated RISD student who executive producer David Zuckerman remembers getting stuck at the studio because he was too young to even rent a car. The New York Times mused ahead of the show’s premiere that he might likely be the youngest person to create a television series for a major network (ahead of even Matt Stone and Trey Parker who created “South Park” at 25 and 26 respectively).
While for some it must have looked like he came out of nowhere, MacFarlane had very clearly paved this path for himself. There were the early incarnations of “Family Guy” by way of “The Life of Larry,” but before even that there was his childhood, steeped in talent and rich with experimentation.
By the age of two, he was already drawing favorites like Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble from the popular “Flintstones” cartoon.
By the age of 9, MacFarlane even had his first comic strip published in the local Kent Good Times Dispatch — he called it “Walter Crouton.” This was the genesis of the type of humor he would become famous for.
“I would do it every week for five bucks a pop. I did a one-panel drawing for the paper one week that had Walter Crouton, who was the main character, taking communion and asking for fries with that,” he told James Lipton on “Inside The Actor’s Studio.”
In honor of his Stern Show appearance Monday, Seth hooked us up with one of his first full comic strips. Check it out below!
“Walter Crouton & Friends” by Seth MacFarlane:
