Family Guy

CHICAGO – The new Sunday ABC line-up of “Once Upon a Time,” “Revenge,” and “666 Park Avenue” looked very promising on paper. I think I even called it one of the smartest moves of the season. I was wrong. While the first two sophomore programs had decent ratings on their first night of the ‘12-13 season, “666” is empty, producing the kind of numbers that start the cancellation clock ticking. ABC just can’t win at 9pm on Sunday nights.

CHICAGO – With shows like “Archer” and a still-creative “South Park” leading the way in TV animation along with all of the fascinating risks being taken by Adult Swim, what are we to make of a Sunday night lineup on FOX that feels more creatively stagnant than ever?

LOS ANGELES – Phyllis Diller emerged as a comic force during the era of the beatniks and talk show hosts who smoked cigarettes on camera. Beginning her career as a pioneer female stand-up act at 37 years old, she went on to establish a memorable character and show business longevity, working virtually all the way to the end. Diller’s passing was announced yesterday by her manager. She was 95.

CHICAGO – “Ted” is one of the most inventive and surprising films of the year. It has a sense of humor that will be very familiar to fans of writer/director Seth MacFarlane’s “Family Guy” but is refreshingly unique in a film genre that is too often stale. In fact, most of the Summer 2012 movies have been incredibly predictable and there’s NOTHING predictable about “Ted.”

CHICAGO – In the latest HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film with our unique social giveaway technology, we have 25 admit-two movie passes up for grabs to the advance screening of the highly anticipated new “R”-rated comedy “Ted” starring Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis from “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane!

CHICAGO – When so much of your already-limited primetime schedule is devoted to reality singing competitions and animated programming, it gives a network little room to play. FOX only has a few timeslots once one takes “The X Factor”/”American Idol” and “Animation Domination” out of the equation. But play they will.

CHICAGO – The overnight totals have come in and it is no surprise to find that football was the leader of Sunday night. The Steelers and Colts squared off at Lucas Oil Stadium and reached a 7.2 rating with adults 18-49. While this is the top rating of the night, it is down 22% from last year’s week three Sunday night football matchup when the Jets took on the Dolphins in Miami.

CHICAGO – The legacy of “The Simpsons” lives on as the show premieres September 25th for its record-holding 23rd season. Afterward, the season premieres of Seth MacFarlane’s cartoon classics – “Family Guy,” “American Dad” and “The Cleveland Show,” are all part of “Animation Domination” on FOX.

CHICAGO – For weeks now, we’ve been trying to predict what the networks would do with their bubble shows when they announced their fall schedules next week. Well, Kevin Reilly of FOX decided to burst all of the bubbles at his network under cover of night, as news broke very late last night that “The Chicago Code,” “Human Target,” “Lie To Me,” “Traffic Light,” and “Breaking In” will be absent from the upcoming 2011-12 schedule.

CHICAGO – The opening crawl of “Family Guy: It’s a Trap!” jokingly suggests that the viewer should lower his expectations since the writers had totally run out of steam by this point and were pressured by Fox into doing a spoof of “Return of the Jedi” to close out their “Star Wars” trilogy, now released in one Blu-ray set known as “Laugh It Up, Fuzzball: The Family Guy Trilogy.”