In a huge win for lost media hunters, Family Guy’s original pilot episode has been released in full for the very first time. Though its first half existed as a bonus feature on the Season 1 DVD, the full episode was completely lost until now.
Pilot episodes are always a glimpse into the prototypical version of what a show will eventually become, and this is especially true of animation.
It’s hard not to look at footage of older shows like The Simpsons and compare its slightly altered art style and coloration to what the series looks like today. After all, with a show that runs for that long, technology ends up making several leaps that alter the way it gets made.
The same is true of Family Guy. And, now that the pilot episode has been released in its entirety, fans of the show can see just how far its come.
How was the Family Guy 1998 pilot found?
Though once considered lost media, The Family Guy 1998 pilot was discovered as a result of it being randomly posted to one Robert Paulson’s portfolio on his website.
He did some work on the original episode and had, for some reason, uploaded the entire original pilot to his website in 2022. It wasn’t discovered until 2025.
With how vast the internet is, it’s entirely possible that lost media like this is just sitting on people’s hard drives somewhere, with the person who owns it not even knowing that thousands of people may be searching for it.
Paulson has mainly worked with news stations to put together their on-screen graphics and animate things like transitions and broadcast segments.
But, if you scroll all the way to the bottom of his LinkedIn work history, there’s a small description about Paulson’s time working on the pilot. At the time, he likely had no clue he was working on what would become one of the biggest TV shows ever.
Thanks to him deciding to put the pilot on his site, it’s finally been found. If you’re curious to watch it, here’s the full pilot episode:
Family Guy is now on its 23rd Season, with the show officially being in production since 1999. It has also spawned a spinoff in the Cleveland Show and has had immeasurable cultural impact as one of the most popular prime-time animated shows ever.
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