Kenan Thompson has been a consistent talent on Saturday Night Live for an astounding 23 years, while Seth MacFarlane has also been making us laugh with some of the best animated TV shows for adults for over two decades. The Good Burger alum has now signed on to MacFarlane’s new Family Guy spinoff, and I’m actually surprised they haven’t collaborated before outside of SNL.
Stewie, an upcoming Fox animated sitcom that’s centered around Seth MacFarlane’s fan-favorite Family Guy baby, was announced earlier this year. In addition to the creator and Family Guy voice actor Mike Henry, several names have been added to the voice cast, including Kenan Thompson.
SNL’s longest-tenured cast member will voice Royal, who is described (per Variety) as “one of Stewie’s new friends who’s got a ‘Hell no’ attitude about the hazards of Stewie’s adventures.” Kenan Thompson has done plenty of voice work in his career, but somehow never for an episode of Family Guy, American Dad!, The Cleveland Show or any other Seth MacFarlane project.
He’s not the only Saturday Night Live talent tapped to join Stewie either. Vanessa Bayer, who left the show in 2017 after seven years, will voice the titular character’s teacher Morgan, “who should probably spend more time watching the kids, and less time partying.”
The trio appeared together in multiple sketches when Seth MacFarlane hosted SNL back in 2012. They joined Bill Hader in a hilarious puppet show sketch, and then Kenan Thompson got to pull out his Steve Harvey impression for a bit about giving MacFarlane’s character an extreme makeover, which you can see below:
It’s fun to see that these three will reunite after so many years, and they’ll be joined by Melissa O’Neil, Aaron Lee, and Jessica Lowe, who were also part of the Stewie casting announcement.
So what can Family Guy fans expect when the Griffin family’s youngest member becomes the main character? The official synopsis reads:
After getting the boot from his old preschool, Stewie is forced to enroll in a new one that’s not exactly top-of-the-line. It’s attended by a handful of kids he doesn’t know, an elderly class turtle with a half-cocked theory on just about everything, and a teacher who probably shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near kids. Stewie’s miserable, the other kids are miserable, even the turtle is miserable…until Stewie begins rolling out his trusty array of devices to take them anywhere in space and time, turning every boring day at school into an insane and unforgettable adventure.
Stewie will be the second spinoff series from Family Guy following The Cleveland Show, which aired for four seasons from 2009 to 2013 and can be streamed with a Hulu subscription. Both Stewie and the flagship series’ 25th season are expected to premiere in 2027, so unfortunately nothing for the 2026 TV schedule.
With this cast list — particularly the first non-SNL collaboration between Seth MacFarlane and Kenan Thompson — hopefully it will be worth the wait.
