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Episodes featured material deemed too sensitive.
As first reported by The Futon Critic, FOX has pulled the new holiday-themed episodes of Family Guy and American Dad originally scheduled for this Sunday night, along with a 7pm repeat of The Cleveland Show’s Die Hard parody episode, “Die Semi-Hard”.
The network did not give an official reason or specifics on what occurred in the new Family Guy and American Dad episodes, but it’s understood they were deemed to feature content that would be too sensitive in the wake of the horrific shooting at a Newtown, Connecticut elementary school on Friday. This comes on the heels of Syfy’s decision to not air the new episode of Haven first scheduled for Friday night, which featured a violent high school-set storyline.
A second, brand new episode of The Cleveland Show (in the 7:30pm slot), along with new episodes of The Simpsons and Bob’s Burgers that were scheduled to run in what had been intended as an entire night of holiday episodes will still air. The 7pm Cleveland Show, plus Family Guy and American Dad, will be replaced with other previously aired episodes of the respective series.
As The Futon Critic notes, this is the second time in the past two years Seth MacFarlane's Sunday night animated series were pre-empted due to unforeseen real life tragedies occurring. The other was in April 2011, when Family Guy, The Cleveland Show and American Dad were scheduled to air a Hurricane-themed crossover, only for a number of devastating tornados to hit the southern United States. Those episodes eventually aired in October 2011.
