Fox Says Feud Was Behind Bid to Boycott Show

At first, the story sounded like a classic David-and-Goliath tale: The headmaster of a prep school in Connecticut had single-handedly prompted advertisers to pull commercials from “Family Guy,” an animated series on the Fox network, telling a trade paper it was “a moral matter for me” because of the program’s inappropriate content.

Now Fox contends the letter-writing campaign mounted by the headmaster, Richardson Schell, was motivated by a personal dispute with series creator Seth MacFarlane, who once attended the Kent School in Kent, Conn., which Schell oversees.

Using the letterhead ProudSponsorsUSA, Schell successfully lobbied several national advertisers--including KFC Corp. and Philip Morris USA--to pledge they would no longer advertise on “Family Guy,” a prime-time comedy airing on the News Corp.-controlled Fox network.

Schell was quoted in the trade paper Advertising Age saying that he was acting alone, despite the organizational name used, and had not protested the content of any other prime-time series.

After that story broke, MacFarlane--the 25-year-old wunderkind who created the series--informed Fox that he graduated from the Kent School in 1991; moreover, MacFarlane told executives, Schell contacted him in January, after seeing ads for the series’ premiere, asking him to change the name of the family in the show, Griffin, because it mirrored that of someone who worked at the school.

When MacFarlane refused, according to Fox, Schell went to the writer’s mother, who until recently worked at the Kent School, hoping she would intercede on his behalf.

Fox officials wouldn’t discuss the matter beyond relaying the explanation provided to them by MacFarlane, who also declined to comment. Calls placed to Schell and the school were not returned.

Sources say Fox isn’t necessarily upset about generating a bit of controversy. Schell is not the only party to complain about “Family Guy,” which has featured a wide array of jokes about race and religion since premiering after the Super Bowl in January.