Last month, the Family Guy writers made a controversial move by killing off beloved family dog Brian. The move shocked viewers into full blown outrage. For weeks fans have been trying to get the Family Guy writers to change their decision about Brian’s life. Well it turns out that fans were overreacting…a bit. Because Brian came back to life only two episodes later.

In the episode entitled “Life of Brian”, Brian is hit by a car and ultimately dies. On tonight’s Christmas special episode of Family Guy, entitled “Christmas Guy”, an emotional Stewie tells a mall Santa that all he wanted for Christmas is Brian back.The replacement dog, Vinnie, tries to help Stewie deal with his grief, but his efforts fail to help him  recover from Brian’s death. Eventually, the two travel back in time to save Brian from getting hit by a car.

Killing off Brian ranks high in the most talked about 2013 television events category. It sparked all kinds of media buzz. It even sent some fans to Change.Org to get the Family Guy producers to rethink their decision.The petition received over 75,000 signatures before closing.

This is just one case in which shows’ creators see how invested their fans are in their shows and its characters.  Whether Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane killed Brian to get buzz for the show, or to show a big moral lesson to the viewers, they may never know. However, MacFarlane tweets after the show suggests the latter.

He tweeted this:

And thus endeth our warm, fuzzy holiday lesson: Never take those you love for granted, for they can be gone in a flash.

— Seth MacFarlane (@SethMacFarlane) December 16, 2013

Then followed it up with this:

Oh and hey… thanks for caring so much about the canine Griffin. He is overcome with gratitude.

— Seth MacFarlane (@SethMacFarlane) December 16, 2013

The real moral lesson from Brian’s death and resurrection is that fans should at least wait a couple episodes before they begin to panic and start a petition to get a character back on a show.  They should also maybe remember that cartoon characters die and come back quite often.

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