While Family Guy still has a long way to go to reach the longevity of The Simpsons, the show’s staying power has been incredible, surviving occasional ratings trouble and outright cancellation. Now, it's gearing up for an upcoming 25th season, which includes a Halloween special, and will require a Hulu subscription to see. In that time, the show has had more running gags than it is possible to count. However, it seems one of them may finally have come to an end.
Back in the show’s very first season, fans were introduced to a giant chicken that gave patriarch Peter Griffin an expired coupon. This simple act led to one of Family Guy's funniest bits, a recurring brawl between the two characters that would pop up occasionally, often without warning, for the next quarter-century. However, in an episode last season, the chicken, whose name was Earnie, was killed off. Executive Producer Alec Sulkin tells TV Line that the giant chicken is likely staying dead, too, as he explained:
I think that the chicken has gone the way of all flesh. 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.
In Season 23’s “The Chicken or the Meg,” Meg Griffin began dating Nugget, the son of giant chicken Ernie. While Ernie was seemingly welcoming of Meg at first, he ultimately gave her an ultimatum to either cut Peter out of her life or stop dating the chicken. Her response was to brutally and bloodily decapitate the chicken. It’s a cartoon. These things happen.
Of course, the other thing that happens in cartoons, and Family Guy specifically, is that characters who die don’t usually stay dead, unless they've actually passed away. At this point, I think every major cast member on the series has died at least once. If the Giant Chicken just randomly started beating up Peter in a future episode, it’s not like anybody would even think twice about it.
But it seems that won’t be the case here. Apparently, there’s a feeling that the production crew has simply done all they can do with that particular gag. The goal with each ensuing use of the fight was to try and top what came before, and the feeling seems to be that they just can’t do that anymore. So it seems the days of the Giant Chicken are well and truly done. Meg did what Peter never could and ended him forever.
Things can always change. Maybe if somebody actually has a great idea on how to use the Giant Chicken at some point in the future, he could return. Maybe if that Family Guy movie ever happens. But for the foreseeable future, it appears he’s truly gone. It’s the end of an era.
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