Joe Swanson (Patrick Warburton) is one of the four main “best guy friends” on Seth MacFarlane’s undying animated sitcom “Family Guy.” Swanson, along with the idiotic Peter (MacFarlane), the laconic Cleveland (Mike Henry, then Arif Zahir), and the perverted Quagmire (also MacFarlane) regularly meet to have drinks at their favorite Rhode Island bar, the Drunken Clam, and swap stories of their bad decisions and work triumphs. Professionally, Swanson is the most capable, having been a police officer for many years. He has a handsome square jaw and massive shoulders, and he is happy with his wife Bonnie (Jennifer Tilly).
In a rare case of good representation, Swanson sits in a wheelchair, making him one of the few disabled regular characters in mainstream television. He’s often seen as physically adept, able to grapple with perps more capably than his abled counterparts. “Family Guy,” however, is known for its aggressively tasteless humor, and sometimes made jokes at Joe’s expense. Indeed, a 2017 study found that Joe Swanson’s disability was mocked openly in 15% of his appearances throughout the first 15 seasons of “Family Guy.”
Warburton, who is not disabled, understands that “Family Guy” plays out on the edge, having grown its massive audience with a raucous, deliberately offensive style of humor. He plays his role with dignity and understands that a lot of the edgier jokes may not align with his own personal sensibilities. One cannot work on “Family Guy” if one is concerned with being offended.
But in a 2019 interview with Digital Spy, Warburton recalled at that Seth MacFarlane “crossed the line” a few times. And there was one instance of MacFarlane writing a joke he found to be so unbearably tasteless, he refused to participate in the episode. It wasn’t even one of Joe’s lines. He just hated the gag.
The ‘Family Guy’ gag that Patrick Warburton found offensive
Fox
Warburton tactfully — but also frustratingly — wouldn’t share the gag in question, or even what episode it was from, other than to say it was religious in nature. It should be noted that Warburton is a lifelong Christian and a political conservative, while his mother is a member of the ultra-conservation media watchdog group the Parent’s Television Council. Curiously, Warburton’s show is frequently targeted by his mother’s group. Nonetheless, Warburton found a “Family Guy” joke about the Crucifixion to be beyond the pale. The actor said:
“There was an episode one time … this has only happened once in 20 years of being on the show, the episode was so offensive I can’t repeat it now. […] It had to do with Christ on the cross but there was no humour in it and it was just so, so horribly offensive. It wasn’t a Joe line but I said, ‘Guys, I can’t participate in this episode if that line is in it. It’s a personal thing.’ I know what I signed up for. I signed up for a really offensive show and it is satire and there are different rules that govern satire; there are, because of what they’ve gotten away with.”
Warburton certainly wasn’t in the dark about his job, and likely had plenty of laughs reading some of the show’s more outlandish and offensive lines of dialogue, but prodding Christianity in the way MacFarlane wanted to wasn’t something he wanted to participate in. It should be noted that MacFarlane is an outspoken atheist and open critic of modern religious thinking, referring to God as “the invisible man that lives in the sky.” One might assume that MacFarlane aimed to deliberately prod religious institutions with a tasteless crucifixion joke.
One wonders how often the writer and the actor discussed religion.
Patrick Warburton wondered why they had to have the joke in the first place
Fox
It should also be noted that “Family Guy” made slapstick jokes about Jesus Christ all the time. Sometimes Jesus would appear to be mocked and for the characters to point out the hypocrisy of certain modern Christian groups, while at other times, Jesus was present as a moral bulwark, often pointing out the legitimate moral shortcomings of a cruel boob like Peter Griffin.
Warburton was offended by the crucifixion joke, but he was also concerned with its quality. It seems that making too many offensive jokes can indeed dull their impact over time. He said:
“I play along, and I’m not going to get in the way, but they go, ‘This line will never make it past standards of practice’ and I go, ‘Well, why does it have to be there in the first place?’ They know I am a team player, but I guess we all wonder if we have a line. I said, ‘If you ever do this on the show, it’s diminished returns. It’s not funny but so offensive to any Christian.'”
Warburton also wanted to add that this was the only time in 20 years of production that he felt MacFarlane crossed the line. ” He said, “In 20 years, there’s only been this one episode. We have great communication all the time. They are all great and listen to you.” Given that a conservative Christian was only offended once in a 20-year history of “Family Guy,” one can say that MacFarlane, however brusque his humor, was often playing fair.
