The Family Guy Sings at Carnegie Hall

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice. Or you could buy tickets to see a show. We had the opportunity to see Family Guy Sings at Carnegie Hall in New York on Monday. The actors from the Family Guy performed a two part 100th episode of the series, where Stewie kills Lois and its second part, Lois kills Stewie, interspersed with songs from other episodes in the show as well as original numbers just for this show.

It was fascinating to see the actors speak in the voices of their characters from the show, because of course you have an idea of what they look like from the show, even if it is a cartoon. More interesting, and harder for the actors themselves, was when they had to do two , or three, different voices.

Seth MacFarlane sang the FCC song as Peter, Bryan and Stewie. It was amusing watching him keep the voices straight. He also performed other classics such as the Prom Night Dumpster Baby, and my favorite from The Road to Rhode Island, as Brian and Stewie. People in the audience called out for Shipoopi and he sang that, which was great. I do wonder if the young people know that is from the Music Man and not original to the Family Guy. He did sing some Family Guy altered love songs with Alex Borstein as Lois.

Mike Henry sang "Somewhere that's Green" from Little Shop of Horrors that he sings about Chris in the episode The Courtship of Stewie's Father as Herbert, the old neighbor who lusts after Chris with the whistling "s" in his voice. Mike Henry also voices Cleveland on the show and sang for the first time in public, the theme song of the new series The Cleveland Show.



From left to right, Seth Macfarlane, Alex Borstein, Mila Kunis, Seth Green, Mike Henry, Danny Smith, John Viener (barely visible due to the people in front of me). Walter Murphy writes much of the music for the show and directed the 40 piece orchestra and chorus which accompanied the actors. he is barely visible behind the line of the actors.

The audience was very excited to be there for the show and that energy spilled over on stage. Some on threw a package of what the actors claimed was weed during the first half. The audience was made of all types. Just after they sang one of the filthiest songs of the show (no censors in Carnegie Hall), Alex Borstein noticed an 11 year old in the first row, which was amusing.

I suppose seeing this show means I have crossed the boundary between casual viewer and serious fan. For the record, Lynn found the show and bought the tickets. Perhaps she is the bigger fan. I would certainly see the show again if I could, but I would like to be even closer to see the faces on the voice actors as they do they stuff.