Family Guy has been on air since 1999 and is now in its seventeenth season. After all this time, not too much has changed about the show, but now the executive producers, Alec Sulkin and Rich Appel, are saying that they feel uncomfortable upholding some of the show's old ways.
In an interview with TV Line, the two talked about the inclusion of an episode which mocks Donald Trump (a more explicitly political stance than the show has had in the past) and also the decision to stop making jokes at the expense of gay people. Sulkin explained that the climate has shifted away from these jokes (or, in other words, Kevin Hart's got kicked out of an Oscars-hosting job): "If you look at a show from 2005 or 2006 and put it side by side with a show from 2018 or 2019, they’re going to have a few differences. Some of the things we felt comfortable saying and joking about back then, we now understand is not acceptable."
Appel had a similar but more in depth view, although he too didn't address the fact of making these jokes in the first place:
if a show has literally been on the air for 20 years, the culture changes. And it’s not us reacting and thinking, 'They won’t let us [say certain things].' No, we’ve changed too. The climate is different, the culture is different and our views are different. They’ve been shaped by the reality around us, so I think the show has to shift and evolve in a lot of different ways.
Watch the Comic-Con reel for the new season which includes the episode "Trump-Guy:"
