'Family Guy' Tries Alternate History

COMMENTARY | A recent episode of "Family Guy" entitled "Road to the Pilot" engaged in a little alternate history regarding the 9/11 attacks. While the scenario written by Seth McFarland was played for laughs, it actually does bear some examination.

As a practitioner I can do no less.

In the episode, Stewie, the maniacal baby, and Brian, the talking dog, go back in time to 1999 and the occasion of the pilot episode of the series. In keeping with the convention of animated TV, everyone is still the same age in 1999 as they are in 2011.

Stewie and Brian engage in a philosophical debate about changing history. Stewie is against it, fearing unforeseen consequences. Brian is all for it. In fact he has a change in mind, which he tells his earlier self.

When they go back to the future, it is learned that Brian is having a statue erected in his honor for stopping a hair-brained scheme by an obscure Muslim terrorist group to destroy the World Trade Center. This involves Brian flying on one of the formerly doomed airliners and taking a baseball bat to Mohammed Atta and company. A warning to ground all airliners is issued and the attacks are averted.

This also means that President George W. Bush is defeated for reelection in 2004 because, as Brian puts it, he was not able to use fear of the terrorists to motivate voters. One has to take into account the fact that "Family Guy" creator McFarland hates former President Bush and is not shy of expressing that hatred.

Things get more interesting when it is announced on TV that the southern states, led by former President Bush, are seceding from the Union. McFarland probably threw that in because he hates the south as well and thinks that secession is just something southerners are champing at the bit to do.

Examining the question closer, one has to ask, what would motivate the southern states to really secede in an alternate 2011? The answer is that the president who replaced President Bush has made such a mess of things, perhaps even to the extent of suspending civil liberties, that the south had no other option. McFarland does not tell us who is president in the alternate 2011, though one might guess it is either Howard Dean or John Kerry, both very arrogant liberals.

The next effect, seen a few years forward of 2011, is a little more dubious. Apparently the Second American Civil War went nuclear and there is constant street fighting in Quaghog. Joe, the wheelchair-bound cop, has become a cyborg and Quagmire, the skinny Lothario, has become a mutant.

It's a nice try at an alternate history, though the finale tends toward the unlikely. McFarland, likely because of his politics, avoids delving into the implications of a one-term Bush presidency causing things to go bad, It was, however, an enjoyable episode of "Family Guy."