I’m the last person you’d call a Tucson apologist, but even I’m starting to get a little uncomfortable with all of the bashing our community has gotten from long-running animated sitcom Family Guy.

The latest jab at the Old Pueblo came in Sunday night’s episode, when after Lois and the Griffin family were worried that Peter’s business trips had made him too intelligent and aloof, they decided the only way to fix this was to send him to America’s dumbest city as a way of reversing his smarts.

So, of course, that meant the next scene had Peter walking into a room with a sign that said “Welcome to Tucson,” followed by the sight of several slack-jawed and summer-toothed simpletons punching each other in the junk while giggling.

YouTube video

The trip apparently worked, as Peter came home as his old dumb self, declaring that while in Tucson he’d seen a wet T-shirt contest using chocolate milk at the Tucson Philharmonic. Oh, and that Battleship was still in theaters here.

(Stupid writers: we don’t have a philharmonic)

This is at least the fourth jab at Tucson in the past two years on either Family Guy or another Seth MacFarlane-made show, American Dad. Past digs include calling this city unnecessary, questioning the University of Arizona’s admission standards and a variety of observations about the region while on a helicopter tour.

There have also been clips dedicated toward Arizona’s immigration stance and fondness of illegal immigrants, but since that’s completely true there’s no reason to quibble.

From what I can gather, there’s no overt reason for MacFarlane’s raging hate boner for Tucson, but there’s got to be something to it. Maybe he couldn’t get a good enough deal on renting Old Tucson Studios to film his soon-to-be-released Western comedy, A Million Ways to Die in the West? He went with Santa Fe, instead, which probably means there will be a lot of new age cowboys used as extras.

I’m still a Family Guy fan, and each episode includes at least two or three good laughs, and I’m sure the Tucson digs would be funnier if they applied to another city. I’m just surprised at the overabundance of them, as well as the fact that none have been in reference to the modern streetcar.

There’s enough material in that train wreck of a project for endless mock Tucson scenes.

Hey, at least this latest bash got someone to spark up a healthy debate on Yahoo! Answers, where someone started the “Family Guy says Tucson is the dumbest city, do you agree?” thread. Kudos to one person for citing “several internationally acclaimed spas” as a reason against our dumbness.

This article appears in Apr 10-16, 2014.

81 replies on “Seth MacFarlane and His Peculiar Distaste For Tucson”

  1. Strange in that he has a tie to the U of A School of Music through Keith Pawlak and the Nelson Riddle collection. Maybe it’s a dry love. Ah well, who cares.

  2. Yeah, stupid writers we don’t have a Philharmonic, we have a Women’s Symphony, it’s down the street from the Mexican Consulate, and the Police Station.

  5. Most people dont like to see their environs mocked… but you have to admit the Old Pueblo has stood out (for embarrassing reasons) for quite a while nationally. Whether politics, education, immigration, drunken riots, traffic, and for many outsiders lack of adequate mass transit & freeway system… There’s a lot to like about Tucson, but also a lot of not-so great things(like most any city our size)

  6. It’s funny! Only Convention and Visitors Bureau and Chamber of Commerce types are allowed to be so humorless as to get offended by this. And even they should lighten up most of the time.

  7. Family guy makes fun of a lot of places, and are often wrong about what goes on there. It’s meant to be a joke, and I am planning taking it as one.

  8. Yes, Tucson, AZ, which houses the University of Arizona, Raytheon, a number of NASA funded observatories, and an Air Force base, is clearly America’s dumbest city.

  9. I love Tucson, I really do, but our whole state is aggressively ignorant. We have wrecked education in every way possible. Spend some time in our public schools, including the U of A, and tell me McFarlane is wrong. I wish we’d spend less time debating whether he’s correct and spend more time trying to fix our glaring failures.

  10. No one will get a better deal to make a movie than in New Mexico. And at least he spelled “Tucson” correctly.

  11. I’m just assuming he’s never been to Albaquerque. Now that could inspire comedy like nothing else.

  12. We should have a sign at the city limits saying “Endorsed by Peter Griffin”. Why? Because we have a sense of humor, that’s why! We’re Hamlet 2’s place where dreams go to die! We’re whatever that forgettable vaguely sci-fi movie with the elevators says we are! And we don’t have to care, because… we’re Tucson, that’s why! Whether we’re trying to spruce ourselves up or Keep Tucson Shitty, we’re too busy enjoying doing not much to care what a guy who has recycled his own sitcom idea three times thinks about us.

    Meanwhile, there are dozens of cities across the country wishing they had that kind of attention. We should run with it: “Welcome to Tucson, Endorsed by Peter Griffin” with his smiling face (including his scrotum chin) could give anyone a smile.

  13. Man, cheap shots about the streetcar project never get old. You should work them into every post you write, no matter how unrelated! Oh, wait…

  14. Producer, Writer and Voice Actor on many of Seth MacFarlane’s shows; Mike Barker grew up in Phoenix and is a UofA alumni. Just an interesting bit of trivia when you hear a jab at Tucson or greater Arizona in any of the shows Mike works on. I’d always figured the city wasn’t picked at random, I never hear Tucson mentioned anywhere else (aside from Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within). It’s great to know that a UofA alumni has gone so far (explains why ASU is always made fun of too) , and that he’s giving his shootouts where he can.

  16. Way to not do a sufficient job researching your topic before writting an article about it. It’s not Seth McFarlane, it’s a writer/producer- Mike Baker. He grew up in AZ and went to the U of A. McFarlane hardly writes for his cartoon shows anymore.

  17. Keep in mind that Tucson simply doesn’t conform to what folks think a city should be–it is way too free spirited.
    And free spirited that isn’t San Francisco has no right to exist…plus, once you’ve visited Phoenix and Scottsdale, well what else is there to see besides the Grand Canyon??

    Hopefully the free spirited elements will not be broken down by the idiots (of every persuasion) out there!!!!

  20. Appearantly, McFarlane has never been anywhere in Wyoming, be it Cheyenne, Laramie, etc., where they ALL believe they are closer to the sun than the equator. Not to mention, according to Wyoming Workforce website, the state minimum wage is still 5.15/hr.

  22. You know a place is hillbilly when it’s locals will fight you if you do not associate them as the inventors of something called the Sonoran Dog which are bacon wrapped hot dogs aka pig and more pig; not really a huge invention there. All that being said, I would disagree with the family guy calling Tucson ” Americas Dumbest City”. This is purely opinion but I’d go with El Paso as the easy winner.

  26. Pretty sure one of his ex-girlfriends or the guy she dated after him or both of them were from Tucson. Maybe he was just her roommate.

  27. Nogales was mentioned in one of the episodes, maybe we can run with the endorsed by peter griffin idea, we need the attention! man, do we need the attention

  28. Overabundance?? Considering how long it’s been on, an “overabundance” is a huge stretch.”

  29. I can only assume it’s because of the ridiculous legislation being proposed at the Capitol. It makes us all look like rubes.

  30. Aaaand…the answer is:

    Look up Mike Barker on IMDB. He works with Seth (writing, producing, voice acting), and is a U of A alum and former Phoenix resident. He must’ve had some epic traumatic experiences here, because he’s a serial Tucson hater and makes no secret of it.

  34. Anyone else feel like anyone truly, genuinely upset by this is being a ridiculous child further driving this point home?

    ::raises hand:: Anyone?

  35. Tucson is a drug town wiped out buy meth and now the addicts are “speed balling” or shooting up with meth and heroin at the same time. Nurses do it often. I’m a soldier returning home to my wife and friend of 14 years and came home to make a baby with my cute nurse wife. She got pregnant the first day and the baby is dead now. She was busted twice with paraphernalia in her possession and high while driving a car. Only in AZ (Tucson) would they just let them go and ruing a guy for drinking two drinks in an hour and destroy his life. Focus on cleaning up this white trash and drug addicted city instead of focusing on budgets by screwing over the hardworking good people. It’s worse to get a DUI then busted shooting up driving kids around! I have lived in this city long enough and can’t wait to move away from Tucson’s corrupt and well recognized social structure, economy, drugs, lack of law where it actually matters. Tucson needs to be brought up to date… You go to the courts and they wear clothes that are far from professional or even classy. Look at yourselves Tucson… You have years more of embarrassment to go… Ghetto Tucson is here to stay awhile…

  36. The reason for McFarlane’s “hate boner” for Tucson has little to do with Mike Barker and everything to do with a batch of imbeciles from the U of A who became offended by The Cleveland Show and started a petition to get it canceled for its perceived racism/sexism/every other ism. You can thank that batch of sniveling, hyper-PC students for the drubbing Tucson has taken at various points over the past few years on The Family Guy.

  37. Actually I think we owe MacFarlane a big thank you. I take it as mostly a well deserved jab at our political leaders and if we can have a few less folks from the east coast moving here….that’s a good thing. Would love to see Tucson be half it’s current size. But that’s me.

  38. Hey, I lived in Tucson for five glorious years during college and I’ve been taken back as well. But there could be a silver lining. Maybe less snowbirds will go to Tucson. Think about it. Seth is vindictive. That’s one of the things that makes him funny. Something happened that he decided to take his wrath out on Tucson. I would love to know what happened.

  40. 40 comments for this story. Must be a record. So who lives in Tucson. Looks at yourselves and wonder why he chose us.

  41. Hopefully this will keep more people from moving here in droves. If you don’t like Tucson, you can always move.

    And, it’s a comedy show that makes fun of everything, it’s just nice to mentioned. Even if it discloses the problems of people taking crotch shots at each other at the airport, that truly is a most terrible problem afflicting our fair city indeed.

    Aloha, Amigos.

  42. Fraser: Still not in the top 20 most commented stories on our site, actually. Not sure if that means anything, but I thought you’d appreciate the info.

  43. The reason they use tucson so much because two of the main writers graduated from the UofA… So it’s more of a pride thing

  44. Dude, you just spent all this time writing an article about a COMEDY SHOW that bashes everything and anything. why don’t you take a quick look at wikipedia before you write your next one so you don’t waste your time. One of the writers went to U of A so he likes to put in as many tucson and phoenix, mesa etc jabs as he can, as any local would to get airtime for their town-no one is going to watch the family guy episode with all of those quotes about “how beautiful the mountains are, or how nice the people are.” this is television for gods sake, expect it to be crap or don’t expect anything at all. For your benefit, here is the link to reddit tucson page that discussed this not only a week ago, and the the wiki article within.
    http://www.reddit.com/r/Tucson/comments/1n…

  45. Sweet Jesus, are you people ever taking this topic WAAAAAAAAAY too seriously!!!! I look at these comments and all I see are clenched fists and furrowed brows. There’s just too much effort going on here to rebut a cartoon whose writer makes fun of Tucson: “well, we DO have so-and-so cultural thing after all,” “But look at this other city that sucks worse!” etc.

    Do you really care if someone doesn’t like your city? And if so, WHAT ON EARTH FOR??????

  46. Written like a butthurt Tucsonan. Face it, that city sucks balls. If you live there and don’t believe that, you haven’t experienced a more “evolved” city. I went to high school in Tucson 20 years ago, this clip from Family Guy perfectly illustrates more than 50% of the guys I went to school with. If you can’t find humor in this, it may be because you are one of them.

  47. Tucson is very liberal….. always will be! That’s what you get when you vote for Democrats all the time! Truth hurts doesn’t it Tucson Weekly!

  50. It has nothing to do with Tucson he probably has a guy working for him that used to go to the U of A so they make fun of him for it.
    I lived in Tucson for 10 years then moved to Phoenix to go to ASU it’s just fun playful banter don’t over analyze it but also take a look at what’s been in headlines.

    Those kids that throw canisters at the cops because their game lost? That’s pretty idiotic behavior. That doesn’t speak to all of Tucson but oh my gosh there are some idiots in that town you have to have to admit that haha.

  51. I left Tucson for the same reason his alum does haha. Phoenix, although still has tons of idiots, has less idiots the farther away from frat houses you get.

    Frats are usually the problem. Seen it happen dozens of times. Frats and Sororities feel like they need to coexist and then it’s just trouble. Exactly what happened to Brandon Dietrich is something that happened to me similarly. That’s not to say that doesn’t happen at ASU either though. I just moved out of an apartment with a clinical alcoholic and a heroin addict. I told 922 Place about it and they said “tough luck” so I broke my lease because I wasn’t about to continue living somewhere I felt unsafe. Who knew heroin addicts who dealt drugs in your apartment aren’t the most pleasant people to be around? Same with College Town across from my current apartment. Just today some jack ass was clearly drunk and drove away.

    I just said to him “Don’t drive if you shouldn’t!”
    His response: “Oh yea dude I’m just like totally so wasted.” (in a sarcastic tone.)

    I shrugged my shoulders but he wasn’t driving straight at all. If I were a cop I would have pulled him over in a heart beat and tested his breath.

    Don’t text and drive, dont drink and drive and definitely don’t do both of those things at the same time… I don’t know why this is such a hard concept. It makes me terrified to go on the freeways here.

  53. Dan Gibson:
    Thanks for the update! Its 53 now!!! LOL
    At least the Tucson Weekly allows comments. The Arizona Daily Star went to the Facebook format and the numbers of comments went down by 90%. Heck the comments were fun to read. AND they have actually deleted comments recently. And not for violated any code of ethics. Just because they didnt like the comments. Its a Progressive thing there.
    Wonder how many comments you will nd up with!
    Fraser

  54. I was in Tucson 2 weeks ago on vacation. My first trip there. I loved it. Its the desert version of Lexington,KY (where I live).

  57. Gene Roddenberry hated Tucson because of a traffic ticket. Maybe MacFarlane got a ticket or something.

    It does seem weird. He’s doing Cosmos and UA’s contributions to astronomy are unarguable. Likewise, we’re the most liberal city in Arizona and that jibes with his politics. I don’t get it. If he wants to swipe at Arizona he needs to look a bit more north toward the seat of all craziness – Phoenix and the state legislature.

  59. Tucson is a pretty dull city when you look at it. I lived there for 22 years and not once did the city improve its entire situation. Aside from the natural pace of development, not once did I see any flare of originality or artistic tenacity. The only good artists didn’t stick around. They fucking left! I mean, yeah don’t get me wrong, the place has potential but no one was really harnessing it. WTF?! It really is no wonder why seth would take a jab at it. Unnecessary is putting it lightly. :1

  60. All in all though, I don’t think Tucson is the problem, it’s usually the people that are to blame. After all, its a collective effort. For better or worse. 😀

  61. Tucson-the town where politicians are actually dumber than the voters. Somebody help them please.

  62. @ Sasha Charls
    The riot at UofA after their NCAA basketball loss was not initiated by the students; rather, the riot was initiated by authority. University Blvd is the main road on campus that has eateries, shops, and hangouts which are perfect joints to be at during game day. People began leaving their hangouts on University Blvd after the loss and authority began harassing students stating an unlawful gathering. After an officer approached a girl for further harassment, a select few (nearly 20 students subsequently) retaliated and the remaining students on Blvd stood watching. Further note of idiocy by authority was about a month after the “riot” when a University officer drove into a structure intoxicated about 6x the legal limit.

    Anyways, there are plenty of idiots at any college since newcomers get their first dose of freedom and plenty of students are stuck with a high school mentality.

    In relation to this thread, when has TV (yet alone Family Guy) ever evolved from entertainment purposes to explicitly stating hard truths? Even public news and media will only produce half truths. People getting riled up from this show are a little more cynical than the rest of us.

  63. They make fun of West Virginia all the time too and you don’t see me complaining.

    Family Guy makes fun of nearly everything. Nothing is sacred. Just take it with a grain of salt and forget about it.

  64. Apparently, Seth McFarlane has never been to “any” city in Arkansas, or anywhere in the Deep South. I was stationed at Davis-Monthan and now live in Phoenix, but I was also stationed in Little-Rock and Biloxi before moving here, so I have experienced dumb in it’s purest form. I know McFarlane really can’t believe Tucson is the dumbest city, if so, he needs to put down the clam chowder and get out more.

  65. Tucson hasnt’ got a Philarmonic as Rome hasn’t got the Venice lagoon… Family Guys use to invent things that doesn’t exists…. I’m Italian and the episode regarding their trip in Italy is obscene.
    p.s. sorry for my strange english 🙂

  66. Its because one of the films writer Mike Barker is a UofA alumni and always loves to throw jabs at the local town he still loves, he also hates ASU and mentions it several times in Ted 2.

  67. Tucson is caught in an interesting dichotomy – we were voted as one of the most well read cities in the country, but Arizona is 49th in school funding. I gotta thank our Phoenix neighbors for this one – for electing Governor Ducey who cut 134 million dollars from public education.

  68. In the time that my kids went through the system (my youngest is a sophomore) schools have gotten worse. They forced teachers to do a reading system that didn’t allow any time for enrichment. My ex-father-in-law was volunteering to do special science experiments in the classrooms until they started that reading program and didn’t have time for anything but reading. Before the recent cut in funding, they closed several schools. So there were even more students in classrooms. (That was 5 years ago.) With threats of closing schools looming, teachers were forced to spend a big portion of the year preparing for tests. A good percentage of that time was TEACHING KIDS HOW TO TAKE THE TESTS.

  71. By far, Tucson is the dumbest city in America. Spend any extended amount of time in the city, and it will become painfully apparent why these jokes are being brought to light.

  72. Whenever I’m in Tucson and ask someone there if they like Tucson and they respond with oh I just love Tucson. I have to ask myself where the hell are they from? Chicago or maybe Detroit! All the dumb baseless arrogance. The best thing that ever came out of Tucson was interstate 10!

  73. Having lived in your insufferable town for seven years, I completely understand why Seth McFarlane has a hate boner for your town full of crazy. I am so glad I was finally able to escape that place. As I learned to say when I lived there, if I owned a place in hell and a place in Tucson, I’d live in the place in hell and rent out the place in Tucson to a sucker, because compared to Tucson, hell is not only cooler, it’s overall a more pleasant place with a better class of people.

  74. There are other writers and I thought Seth MacFarlane hadn’t done any writing for Family Guy since 2010, when he started moving on to other projects? Maybe one of the other writers hates it…

  75. LMAO Seth McFarland, pretty much nailed it!! I moved to Tucson & moved right back out. The only things Tucson has to offer are nice golf courses, casinos, & watching USC beat the crap out of U of A. All of Arizona, especially Tucson is by far the worst. A town full of posers & wannabes. That’s why Tucson is the BUTTHOLE of MERICA’.

  76. Weirdo ass backwards city. South Tucson is a forgotten part of town by city council members snd any other agency govt or othetwise. Tucsanians dont read so they dont know anything. Dont grow. Dont know. Just blank. They dont even speak up for themselves. Just blank. Sad little town. But wait! 3 different cities here. Well to do north tucson, u of a tucson, the rest of tucson fend for yourselves!!! Lol.

  77. Seth’s comedy of Tucson is absolutely on point! This place is 35 years behind the rest of amerikkka. Not a very educated place to be. Local politicians and investors want tucson to remain ignorant. Especially the forgotten neighborhoods. Nothing. Blank. Empty. Civil rights leaders are non-existent for African Americans. Incompetence in agency (local govt, post office, public transit, housing) is mind-boggling! Hilarious!

  78. Most of the commenters here seem to be some liberal retard that probably thinks the Mad Max hell hole known as Los Angeles is a better place to live.. I’m not even from Tucson and I know VUSD outranks 85% of the nation for elementary schools. Seems like everyone else forgot to look outside at the amazing scenery.

  79. MacFarlane actually dislikes the whole state and has said as much on Jimmy Kimmel interviews. And it’s not just the ‘stupid’ factor… it’s such a WILLFULLy Stoopid state ‘culture’ in general, that often seems to confuse Orneriness and ‘Bat Shit Crazy’, with being ‘unique’ and ‘different’… sorta like the stupid person’s idea of ‘Freedom’.

  80. Here is where all the haters need to go to vent
    Grand Canyon Village, Arizona 86023
    Only the most beautiful place on earth

  81. Remember Seth went to school in Providence RI, that city is about the dumbest and most corrupt city in America…..

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