T Dog’s Think Tank: Basic cable’s racy content at a crossroads

Stan wasn’t the only one up in arms about Comedy Central taking a hatchet job to a recent episode of “South Park.” For the last few weeks, cable was on a hot streak: SyFy acquired Friday Night Smackdown, stealing it away from My Network TV, while Turner Broadcasting snared both Conan O’Brien and part of the NCAA Tournament. But on […]

T Dog’s Four Pack: Hoop it up!

In honor of the month we all go basketball crazy, we salute the three-point buzzer beaters and the airballs of the last week-and-the-half: March Madness! The Bears spend like no tomorrow. Bears sign Julius Peppers and two other free agents last Friday (March 5.) The Bears had a good week last week, hoping to get the team back to Lakers-like […]

Tribune’s WGN-TV renews "Family Guy" – with WCIU in tow

  Soon, “Family Guy” will have TWO places to call home in Chicago. In a rather odd twist to a renewal deal, Tribune-owned WGN-TV has renewed syndicated repeats of Family Guy for a second cycle in a new four-year deal through 2015, which kicks in on September 12, 2011. But as a part of the deal, Weigel-owned independent station WCIU-TV […]

T Dog’s Groovy Grab Bag- The Animated Edition

A ton of news featuring Family Guy and South Park today here in The Grab Bag. It’s like having Cubs fans and White Sox fans together in the same room. Oh-Oh… Hey, no beer throwing! – To build up Emmy buzz for its nomination as a Best Outstanding Comedy Nominee, the producers of Family Guy held a live table reading […]

2009 Emmy nominations announced

Here they are, the 2009 Emmy nominations. Click here to see the list. Among the biggest surprises of the day was Family Guy getting nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series, the first to do so since The Flintstones in 1961, when it lost to Jack Benny. The Emmy Awards takes place Sept. 20 at 7 p.m. (CT) on CBS. Thought: This […]

Comic-Con: Day 2

Media-related news and notes from Comic-Con Day 2: – It isn’t Comic-Con without manatees: Seth McFarlane had a panel featuring Family Guy and its new spinoff, The Cleveland Show. MacFarlane talked about Family Guy’s upcoming season – a Sliders take off, another episode where Brian and Stewie travel back to 1939 Poland – and accidentally drag Mort Goldman with them […]

TCA: MacFarlane, Groening discuss their shows

Fox’s presentation at the Television Critics Association tour continued with Fox’s Animation Domination Sunday block with Simpsons creator Matt Groening, Family Guy’s and American Dad’s Seth MacFaralane, and King of the Hill’s Mike Judge. Highlights from the panel: – Best line of the day: “Is this where Karl Rove sat? Because I don’t want to get AIDS.” – Seth MacFarlane. […]

Let’s go to Cleveland

Remember when Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane was upset with Fox for airing those episodes of Family Guy that were not approved by him during the recent writer’s strike? Well, I guess all is forgiven… Fox is talks with McFarlane about a possible spin-off of Family Guy featuring Cleveland Brown, the lone African-American character on the show. If you watch […]

Fox to proceed without McFarlane for new "Family Guy" episodes

Get your jet skis ready, because there’s gonna be a show. Fox is apparently proceeding with the production of new Family Guy episodes, without the input of creator Seth MacFarlane, who is on strike with the rest of the Writer’s Guild, and has refused to work on the series. The first of those “strike affected” episodes will air, starting this […]