There are some things even "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane can't stomach. After a clip of the TV show that used the Boston Marathon bombings as a punchline went viral Tuesday, MacFarlane condemned the footage as an "abhorrent" Internet hoax.
Just one day after two pressure-cooker bombs exploded near the finish line of the world's oldest annual marathon, killing three and wounding 176, an apparently edited clip from "Family Guy" surfaced on YouTube depicting main character Peter Griffin carrying out a terrorist attack at the event, causing mass deaths. With some already pointing to the video as proof of a false flag operation at the marathon by the U.S. government, and others outraged by the seemingly reprehensible joke, series creator MacFarlane took the Twitter Tuesday to denounce the clip.
"The edited Family Guy clip currently circulating is abhorrent," he tweeted. "The event was a crime and a tragedy, and my thoughts are with the victims."
Fox said the video came from an episode of the show called "Turban Cowboy," in which Peter Griffin crashes his car through the Boston Marathon finish line in order to win the race. In the unedited episode, Bob Costas interviews Griffin about how he won the race and he explains: "I'll tell ya, Bob, I just got in my car and drove it. And when there was a guy in my way, I killed him."
The footage currently circulating turns Costas' question into a conspiracy theorist's wellspring. Employing the show's typical quick cut, non-sequitur editing style, the video makes it appear as if Griffin's answer was setting off bombs at the end of the Boston Marathon. Before Griffin can provide his actual answer to Costas' question, the edited clip cuts immediately to the character at the bar with friends - a segment that Fox said actually comes from a totally unrelated scene later on in the same episode. Dressed in a turban, Griffin dials his cellphone once, hears nothing, and says, "maybe I dialed wrong," then, explosions are heard in the background. He tries again, and even more explosions can be heard, followed by screams.
The problem is, the scene actually comes from an entirely unconnected joke later on in the episode. In the accurate version, a terrorist who is trying to blow up a bridge befriends Griffin and gives him a cellphone. Then the incident in the bar happens. Of course, that hasn't stopped many from already claiming the clip somehow "predicted" the Boston Marathon bombings, or is proof of a national conspiracy. Commentors on YouTube have already plunged into manic theorizing.
Fox has already removed the episode entirely from Hulu and Fox.com, said Fox spokeswoman Gaude Paez. The network is also currently trying to have all of the edited clips pulled from YouTube.
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