During an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Family Guy executive producer Steve Callaghan has been discussing last month’s passing of Adam West, during which he revealed that the actor had already recorded his lines as Mayor Adam West for five more episodes of the animated comedy series prior to his death, and they will air this coming season.
“He’s such an integral part of the series that it never even occurred to us to take that out,” said Callaghan when asked if there’d been any discussion as to whether to pull the episodes. “I would almost feel like that was somehow not properly honoring him. I think the proper way to honor him is to keep the character in the show. There were two or three episodes where his character had been written in, but he hadn’t yet recorded those, so obviously we’ve made accommodations for that. There was one scene where he was officiating a wedding, and it was easy enough to just have a different character do that. I [wouldn’t] even consider having someone come in and try to imitate his voice.”
“We haven’t exactly decided how we’re going to address the departure of Adam West’s character from the series,” he continued. “In fact, this is something that we’ve been dealing with concerning the loss of Carrie Fisher [who was a recurring guest voice]. But what I can say is that both of their departures from the show will certainly reflect the importance that each of those characters — and actors — had within our series.”
Season sixteen of Family Guy is set to get underway on October 1st.
Originally published July 1, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
