‘Family Guy’s’ Darkest Character Started As A Joke —Then Became Something Much More Controversial

Herbert entered Family Guy as a frail old man with a soft voice and a hard to miss obsession. His interest in Chris Griffin was not subtle and the show made no effort to wrap it in layers of innocence. He clearly wanted Peter’s deranged son and the show played this for laughs in ways that made some viewers squirm while others chuckled uncomfortably. This is where the difference lies where another old man in animation might be confused and harmless but Herbert was shaped to be the kind of person you cross the street to avoid.

How Family Guy Lets Herbert Get Away with Everything

There is something almost bold about how openly Herbert behaves. He does not sneak around but makes creepy remarks out loud in front of adults who, for some reason, never react properly. It is as if his voice floats past them, harmlessly ignored.

The show often runs with that, with how characters fail to hear or comprehend things they should definitely act on. Herbert’s appeal partly lies in that contradiction, a predator hiding in plain sight, not through stealth but through everyone else’s indifference.

Some might argue the character is a jab at how people tend to ignore danger when it is wrapped in politeness or comedy. Maybe it is a nudge at how someone funny or familiar gets a pass, even when they shouldn’t and truth be told, that is one way to explain why no one calls the cops. He just whistles, speaks slowly, cracks a joke and the moment drifts by.

Herbert Was Not Supposed to Be a P-dophile

The truth is, Herbert was not created with a grand purpose in mind. According to Slashfilm, Mike Henry, the man behind the voice, built the character on a voice he used to imitate back in Virginia. The original idea was not so heavy but then someone in the writer’s room made the joke about his fondness for Chris, and that stuck. From there, the character shifted and what started as a harmless old man became something far darker, all because one joke landed and they ran with it.

It says a lot about how the early Family Guy episodes came together as there was never a fixed plan. Just watch the pilot and you will notice characters and voices that feel completely off compared to what the show became. Some parts got dropped, some got reshaped but Herbert the pervert survived. It is probably because the joke, as uncomfortable as it was, made someone in the room laugh.

If that first line about Herbert had not clicked, maybe the character would have faded away like others did. However, as we all know now, he didn’t. He kept showing up and those moments turned into a long-running part of the show’s identity. Even Mike Henry admitted the process was loose where he would improvise, Seth MacFarlane would laugh and sometimes that laugh was enough to keep something in the script.

At the end Herbert stayed, whether he was meant to or not and whether the audience laughed or cringed. Either way, he became a part of the fabric and in Family Guy, that is all it takes.

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