Culture

Seth MacFarlane Made A ‘Family Guy’ COVID Vaccine PSA For Anti-Vaxxers & It’s Actually Very Good

Naturally, Meg is the virus.

by Michelle Rennex  22 September 2021
FAMILY GUY COVID-19 vaccine PSA

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Despite Family Guy living on the FOX network, show creator Seth MacFarlane decided to let his smash show take a different stance on vaccines than its home network.

While FOX News has been known to stir up vaccine hesitancy time and time again — with Tucker Carlson grossly inflating the number of COVID vaccine-related deaths on-air and falsely claiming that the CDC thinks vaccines are ineffective — the cast of Family Guy is more than happy to encourage people to get the vaccine.

In the Family Guy COVID-19 Vaccine Awareness PSA, Stewie Griffin and Brian take over Dr. Hartman’s job and spend three minutes explaining how vaccines work to a hesitant, and confused, Peter Griffin.

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Touching on both the history and science of vaccines, Stewie and Brian shrink down and enter Peter’s body to demonstrate exactly how vaccines help to protect someone vaccinated.

“Vaccines protect us from illnesses by activating our immune response without the danger of actual infection, thereby training the body to fight off the real thing,” Stewie says, as antibodies fight off bad Meg Griffin-shaped spike proteins.

“Some of the COVID vaccines work by exposing your immune system to proteins, which resemble the spike proteins of the virus but cannot infect you.”

Stewie then goes on to explain that the vaccine actually stimulates your immune system to create antibodies against the virus, which helps to lessen your symptoms if you do manage to catch COVID.

Playing devil’s advocate on behalf of anti-vaxxers, and clueless people like Peter, Brian also made sure to bring up the potential side effects of the vaccine and the sadly beloved concept of “if everyone else gets it, why do I need to?”

“The common side effects of the vaccine are generally mild and last a few days,” Stewie explained for those fearful of possible side effects. “But you know what can have serious long-term side effects? COVID.”

“If the virus is allowed to spread through an unvaccinated population it could mutate into a variant that the vaccines might not protect against,” Stewie added, drumming home the importance of herd immunity to protect against virus mutations.

“And then we’re right back to where we started: Gal Gadot singing ‘Imagine’. We cannot let that happen.”

The Family Guy PSA is part of the ‘It’s Up To You’ campaign created by the Ad Council and COVID Collaborative to help the unvaccinated “get informed” by instilling confidence in vaccines as one in four eligible Americans have still yet to get the jab.

“We were proud to work with some of the nation’s leading immunologists and epidemiologists on this PSA,” executive producers and showrunners Rich Appel and Alec Sulkin said in a statement. “And while we never understood a single note they gave us, we took them all.”

“With millions of Americans still unsure about getting vaccinated against COVID-19, it’s more important than ever that we have smart, informative, and entertaining messages like this that will boost confidence in the vaccines,” Lisa Sherman, president and CEO of the Ad Council, added.

“This new work from Seth MacFarlane and the team at Family Guy is bringing critical vaccine information to audiences in a fresh and hilarious way that will surely inspire people to take the next step in slowing the pandemic.”

So there you have it. If you won’t listen to virologists, immunologists or epidemiologists, please, for the love of God, at least listen to Stewie Griffin.