Fox
The original pilot for the long-running animated comedy series Family Guy has been discovered online. The episode had previously been considered to be “lost media” for close to 30 years.
Lost media are any media — movies, TV, music, video games, books, etc. — thought to no longer exist in any format, or for which no copies can be found, which has become particularly rare in the digital age.
Some of the most prominent examples of “lost media” are the 1927 silent film London After Midnight, destroyed in a fire at the MGM lot in 1965; over 90 episodes of the long-running British fantasy series Doctor Who; The Day the Clown Cried, a 1972 Jerry Lewis film about a clown in a Nazi concentration camp; The Beatles’ ‘Carnival of Light’ 14-minute long experimental track; and even the Siegfried & Roy Tiger Attack Footage.
Up until a few days ago, the pilot for Family Guy was considered lost media until it was found on the portfolio website Robert Paulsen (not to be confused with the character Robert Paulson from Fight Club) , one of the animators who worked on it.
“The first 7 minutes of the pilot (excluding a portion of the communion wine cutaway) can be found in the Family Guy Volume 2 DVD set that was released on September 9th, 2003, however the rest of the pilot is replaced with a ‘Coming Soon’ bumper.”
“On March 20, 2025, user GhostTheDeadGirl discovered that the full 16-minute pilot was on Robert Paulson’s personal website. Rob is credited in the pilot as both one of the ‘Digital Ink & Paint’ crew members, and under ‘Compositing.'” [via Lost Media Wiki]
While the tone of the pilot is very similar to what Family Guy wound up being, there are some notable differences, the first and foremost being the rudimentary animation in comparison to the actual show. Additionally, series creator Seth MacFarlane — who voices a bevy of characters, including leads Peter, Stewie, and Brian Griffin — is heard voicing the role of Peter’s son Chris, a role that was eventually filled by Seth Green.
Family Guy eventually premiered on Fox in January 1999 and ran for three seasons through 2002 before being canceled. Due to massive popularity via DVD sales, fan-led campaigns to revive the series were ultimately successful, with the show returning to the air in 2005 and has been on ever since.