Advertisers shunning 'Family Guy'

Fox's new animated show "Family Guy," which had the makings of a hit during its run on the air this spring, is in trouble with a list of important advertisers, some of which have already pulled commercials from the series.

The advertisers, which include Coca-Cola and Philip Morris, had each received strongly worded letters as part of a letter-writing campaign directed by a Connecticut school headmaster who complained that the show includes anti-Semitic, racist and sexist humor. Executives at Coca-Cola and Philip Morris, however, said they dropped out as sponsors based on their own review of its content.

The headmaster, the Rev. Richardson Schell of the Kent School in Kent, Conn., who is also an Episcopalian priest, did not disclose to the advertisers that he had a personal connection to the creator of "Family Guy," Seth MacFarlane. MacFarlane was a 1991 graduate of the Kent School, and Schell was headmaster at that time.

Fox executives, who declined to be named, discussed the situation in response to questions from the media. They said that one week before the show went on the air in January, the headmaster contacted MacFarlane and asked him to change the last name of his cartoon family, because the name, Griffin, is the same last name as that of Schell's assistant, Elaine Griffin.

Schell did not return phone calls to the school and his home Tuesday. MacFarlane, through Fox executives, declined to comment.

Fox executives explained more about the connection between MacFarlane and Schell, such as the fact that MacFarlane's mother was for 15 years a college guidance and admissions adviser at the Kent school.

The executives said Schell "also lobbied another member of MacFarlane's immediate family." MacFarlane told Fox executives Tuesday that his mother recently resigned. Fox also said that when the network and MacFarlane elected not to change the name, "this upset Schell greatly."

In an interview in Advertising Age on Monday, Schell said that although he wrote his letters to advertisers under the heading Proud Sponsors USA, there was no such organization and he was acting on behalf of himself. He said he had never protested any other TV show.

In the article, which did not mention the connection to MacFarlane, he said, "It's a moral matter for me." The show has been attacked by some critics for some tastelessness; others have reviewed it favorably.

But Schell's campaign clearly led some of the advertisers to re-examine the content of the show. A long list of current and potential sponsors now say they will not advertise in the show, including such big advertisers as Sprint, Chrysler, The Gap, Kellogg, Pepsi, Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonald's.

Philip Morris already had bought commercials in "Family Guy" to advertise a "youth smoking prevention" campaign. After getting Schell's letter, the company decided to withdraw support for the show, because, as company spokeswoman Mary Carnavale put it, "it is not consistent with our values as a company."

Jon Nesvig, the head of sales for the Fox network, said Fox had lost three or four advertisers so far as a result of Schell's campaign.

He noted Fox had had experience with viewers who seek to damage shows by asking advertisers to withdraw their ads. In 1989 Terry Rakolta, a resident of Michigan, managed to get a number of big companies, including Coca-Cola, to pull their ads from the Fox comedy "Married . . . With Children."

"It's hard to say what the implications of this are," Nesvig said. "Terry Rakolta helped put Fox on the map as a network. But we're in a different era now."