‘Family Guy’ Set to Return to Adult Swim in 2025

Family Guy is about to make another comeback! While it won’t be similar to the one it did after Fox canceled it following its second season, it is returning to the home that helped revive the show when the network thought Peter Griffin and his antics didn’t have much longevity.

Per Deadline, Family Guy is returning to Adult Swim, the home integral to reversing Fox’s decision to cancel the show after Season 2. Adult Swim stopped airing the popular animated sitcom three years ago, but now they have made a non-exclusive licensing deal for the rights to old episodes of the show that will begin airing at the top of the new year. Its return to Adult Swim will begin with a three-day marathon from 7:00 PM to 5:00 AM EST/PST on Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. Its regular block of scheduling will be during Adult Swim’s primetime weekday stretch from 10-11:30 PM. Family Guy has several homes beyond the Fox network, which includes a similar licensing deal made by Comedy Central to air episodes of the show. The Seth MacFarlane series can also be seen on FX, FXX, and Hulu.

Adult Swim stopped airing Family Guy reruns when its license on the show expired in 2021 and Disney fully acquired 21st Century Fox, which included Family Guy and other 20th Television series. When speaking about its return to its lineup, President of Adult Swim, Michael Ouweleen, said, “Adult Swim is a huge part of Family Guy’s early history, and we’re excited for the series to return to our lineup in 2025. Having Family Guy back on our air is a great complement to the amazing slate of animated originals we also have planned for next year.”

Family Guy’s Run Has Been Historic on Television

Family Guy began in 1999, but the series initially struggled in the ratings following a promising start after airing following Super Bowl XXXIII. Fox decided to cancel the show at the end of its second season, but they reversed that decision and opted for a thirteen-episode third. The series was put on Thursday nights at 8:00 PM, which was a particularly competitive slot that pitted it against behemoths like Survivor and Friends. The network shuffled the show around frequently and the ratings began to suffer even more, resulting in its cancellation once again.

The revival of the show began due to it finding success after Cartoon Network bought the rights to the episodes that had aired on Fox. The network aired the reruns on Adult Swim beginning in 2003, and it quickly became their top ratings performer. The first and second seasons were also released on DVD on the same week as its start on Adult Swim, and the sales of the DVD sets were also massive, going on to become the best-selling television DVD of 2003. Seeing how successful the show was becoming after cancellation, Fox decided to renew it with new episodes on their network, and the rest is history.

Family Guy has now aired for 23 seasons and a total of 426 episodes, and is still a reliable performer for the Fox network. The show has what most series dream of, which is international appeal, something that makes the Family Guy brand lucrative for Fox and for MacFarlane, the man who created it. This is most of the reason the creator has kept it going, citing how people still love it and pointing to its financial success, which has been a big part in making some of his favorite charities successful. In a similar way to The Simpsons being a profit generator for Fox, Family Guy is much more than its humble beginnings and has become a true institution.