Family Guy - Mike Henry
by Daniel Robert Epstein for SuicideGirls (http://suicidegirls.com/)

Mike Henry has one of the best jobs on Earth. He is a voice actor, writer and producer on my favorite primetime cartoon ever,Family Guy. In addition to doing the voice for Peter Griffin’s neighbor Cleveland he does a myriad of other voices including Herbert the aging pedophile and the Greased up deaf guy. As any Family Guyophile can tell you, the show’s first run was brilliant but was finally cancelled due to FOX treating it like a redheaded stepchild. But now thanks to amazing DVD sales and Adult Swim’s reruns the show is coming back to air very soon.

As a big time promotion there is going to be a Family Guy Live stage show that I just can’t fucking wait to see. Every major cast member including Mike Henry will be onstage making us all very happy.

Family Guy Live plays two shows at The Wiltern in Los Angeles on April 15 and four shows at Town Hall in Manhattan on April 29 and 30.

Buy tickets for Family Guy Live

Daniel Robert Epstein: How did Family Guy Live come about?

Mike Henry: Just for Laughs in Montréal approached FOX about doing some kind of a live presentation. I guess they chose Family Guy on the heels of it getting picked up and the new momentum it had. They just rounded us up and took us up there. It was pretty darn amazing. We work on this show pretty much in a vacuum either in the writer’s room or in a recording booth. To actually interact with fans is pretty overwhelming. We had four sold out shows and people were mobbing the stage for autographs.

DRE: What exactly happens at the live show?

MH: What we did in Montréal is start it off with Eye of the Tiger playing with a smoke machine and a video presentation playing a montage of clips. Then they introduced [Family Guy creator] Seth [Macfarlane] and he introduced all of us. We sat down and read the script from the Once Upon a Weinstein episode.

DRE: So you guys aren’t on stage changing costumes every second?

MH: No we’re just sitting there. There were a couple points within the reading where Seth sings “I Need a Jew” as Peter. Then afterwards we did a Q & A then Seth and Alex Borstein [Lois] sang a song from the new Family Guy album which Seth just finished last week.

DRE: What is that exactly?

MH: It’s called “Family Guy Live in Vegas” and it’s kind of a retro Vegas style show with all the characters playing to an audience. It’s a lot of shtick and songs.

DRE: Do you have a song as any of your characters?

MH: I do. I play Herbert.

DRE: That’s you? Do some!

MH: [as Herbert] Hey muscly arm, what you doing over there?

DRE: [laughs] Awesome.

MH: He used to be a nice old man who was kind of a pervert but then one pedophile line got pitched and that’s what everyone grabbed onto. I will say that he is less a pedophile and more of an innocent 15 year old girl from the 50’s that has a crush on Chris. On the album he sings “One Boy” from Bye Bye Birdie.

DRE: How many of the characters that you voice are coming back in the new episodes of Family Guy?

MH: Herbert will be showing up in seven or eight shows. There is one episode where he ends up singing a love ballad to Chris. Also Cleveland of course and Greased up deaf guy.

DRE: What else is the Greased up deaf guy going to be doing?

MH: He’s just going to show up from time to time often to button a scene. He’s not too plot intensive so he’s just a good joke.

DRE: What was it like when you got the call saying Family Guy was going back on the air?

MH: It was awesome. All of the frustration over how it died too soon just went away when we heard the official word. It also helped the old bank account. We had been hearing so much positive feedback particularly in the last year or so since the DVDs came out and Adult Swim kept us afloat. There were little pockets of people who were Family Guy freaks. Whenever I’m with my mom in a public place and there is a 20 year old around she will pimp me out as Cleveland. I’ve had friends of friends tell me they want me to call up and leave a message as Cleveland.

DRE: Are you doing as much on Family Guy as you did before because you also do voices on American Dad?

MH: I do voices on American Dad but I’m not involved with the writing at all. I’ve been a writer on Family Guy since the beginning and now I’m a producer. It’s a dream situation for me because I like shit jokes and I have a lot of voices in my head.

DRE: Is the Family Guy straight to DVD movie going to end up becoming episodes?

MH: I think we’re calling it a three part adventure because it’s basically three episodes that are being packaged as a larger format piece. I think they are going to release the DVD first then break it up into episodes for the fifth season. That should be pretty cool. It was a little challenging to make episodes that would stand alone. A lot of it is definitely stuff that we could only get away with on DVD.

DRE: I’ve spoken to Seth Macfarlane before asked him about how running gags start and keep going. He said that someone will come up with it then other people will pick up on it. What is something you helped make recurring?

MH: Mostly characters like Cleveland. Early on the studio wanted Peter to have an African-American friend and I just pitched this voice was this kind of anti-homey. Cleveland is pretty much just a black nerd. That fit with the rhythm of the show because he is a change of pace. Everything is so rapid fire and he’s more cerebral and philosophical. He just caught on.

DRE: How did you come up with Cleveland’s voice?

MH: I just do a lot of goofy voices. I’m from Richmond Virginia and a lot of people there, both white and black, talk with that lazy R. I guess it’s a colloquial thing. I remember playing a pick up basketball game with a guy and he said he was from Merland. Then I realized he said Maryland. I thought the way he talked was so funny. I think the first joke Cleveland had was when all the guys were fishing and someone makes a joke and they all laugh. Then there is beat and Cleveland goes “Sometimes it’s nice to enjoy laughter.” That just said it all about him. He’s easygoing, making inane yet sweet observations.

DRE: How are the new episodes of Family Guy doing to be different from the old episodes?

MH: Pretty much every show still revolves around the family. There will be an episode which features Cleveland which I wrote with my brother Patrick. I think that will be the fifth new one to air. As far as any major differences it’s just going to be fucking funnier. In retrospect we didn’t enjoy the two years down but it was nice to get some perspective on things and be able to watch the old shows and not be under any pressure to make new ones. It’s almost like returning to a painting or a sculpture after a couple of years of not working on it because it gives you the ability to find some new things.

DRE: What is the Cleveland episode going to be about?

MH: Let’s just say that Quagmire stirs the pot.

DRE: How did you meet Seth Macfarlane?

MH: My brother Patrick went to the same college as Seth, Rhode Island School of Design. I was acting and doing standup so I acted in my brother’s short films. It turns out I played five different characters in my brother’s senior film so I was doing a lot of voices. Seth was just this ridiculously talented guy and he liked what I did. We kept in touch after he graduated.

My brother and I were shooting commercial parodies; we did stuff for Lorne Michaels and the Upright Citizens Brigade. In fact we just did a short called Kicked in the Nuts which was pretty popular and kickedinthenuts.com is going to be up soon.

DRE: A lot of people were asking me if you were black.

MH: Nope, just from the waist down. I have a lot of black friends so it’s all good.

It’s frustrating sometimes because y’know the Blackie Weather Forecast with Ollie Williams.

DRE: “It’s going rain!”

MH: The network wouldn’t let me do the voice because they felt it was over the top. But we have black guys doing white voices so I don’t know what the problem is.

DRE: It’s amazing they have a problem with that one little joke.

MH: I am not going to rock that boat by any means because I am so happy that they let me do Cleveland because it’s my favorite character to do. I also do Cleveland’s brother Broderick who is the plastic surgeon.

DRE: I think my favorite weird gag is when Peter drops the coin off the Empire State Building and it tears a cop in half and there is this little man in there who then runs away.

MH: Thank you, that’s my joke! I actually just pitched a joke the other day that’s a cutaway and they are at the circus. Peter goes “Chris check it out, the elephant is going to poop.” The elephant poops and that little guy falls out into a heap on the ground and then he runs away. But I guess we can’t show anything coming out of an anus.

DRE: Seth said jokes like that might come about because you guys stay up real late.

MH: The other night we worked late and some insane stuff came out that was so funny. It’s such a comfortable environment here and Seth is just so collaborative and talented. There are no clicks in the writer’s room with people trying to fight for their jokes over someone else’s. It’s really just whatever is the funniest. That joke might have come out of the gag rooms. We might be writing a script and we get to a spot where we need a TV gag or a cutaway. Peter might say “I haven’t been this embarrassed since…” Then four guys will sit in a room for an hour or two and they will come up with four choices, which we call alts, to use.

DRE: Any jokes ever offend you?

MH: I’m not too big on the cancer boy jokes because to me that’s just sad. I’ve got a young son so it’s tough. Also I’m less personally offended about the God jokes than concerned that they are going to cut out all the red state audience. There is a joke coming up where God is happy that he has a condom because he’s in a situation where he needs it. I’m from Virginia and I’m back there a lot because my son lives there. Whenever I’m in that environment I just see how different it is from Los Angeles and New York. Family Guy will persevere though especially now that FOX is 200 percent behind it.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck

web address: http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/Family+Guy+-+Mike+Henry/