About

Lost Family Guy Pilot Episode is a 16-minute-long pilot episode created by Seth MacFarlane for his animated television show Family Guy. A seven-minute excerpt of the episode was first seen in the 2003 Family Guy Volume 2 DVD set, however, the complete version had not been made available for public viewing for two decades. In March 2025, a member of the Lost Media Wiki found the full episode on animator on Robert Paulson's personal website.

Origin

​The original pilot episode of Family Guy, created by Seth MacFarlane in 1998, was a 16-minute animation produced on a $50,000 budget. This pilot introduced the Griffin family and laid the groundwork for the show's humor and style.

A seven-minute excerpt of this pilot was included in the 2003 Family Guy Volume 2 DVD set and reuploaded to YouTube^[2] by VerbicideMag on May 21st, 2015, gathering over 900,000 views in nine years.

On March 20, 2025, user @GhostTheDeadGirl from the Lost Media Wiki's Discord community found the full 16-minute pilot on the personal website of animator Robert Paulson.^[1] Paulson had contributed to the digital ink, paint and compositing for the episode. Paulson had reportedly uploaded the video around September 4, 2022, but it went largely unnoticed until this recent discovery.

GhostTheDeadGirl reportedly broke the news on the Lost Media Wiki's Discord channel on March 20th, 2025, and shared the news on their Twitter^[3] / X account on March 20th, 2025.

The full 16-minute pilot was uploaded to YouTube^[4] by @Goobie on March 21st, gathering over 850,000 views in two days.

Spread

Several internet users reacted to the news that the "lost" Family Guy pilot had been rediscovered, including X^[5] user @DelhiWacky, who wrote, "Close the schools. They found the full Family Guy pilot," on March 21st, 2025, and gathered over 38,000 likes in two days.

Close the schools. They found the full Family Guy pilot. pic.twitter.com/UX3YZwUPhc

— 🍉Delhi 2024 SWEEP🍉 (@DelhiWacky) March 21, 2025

On March 21st, X^[6] user @blameitonjorge shared a number of stills from the episode, writing, "lmao family guy's lost pilot was casually posted online," and gathering over 130,000 likes in two days. Later that day, X^[7] user @MonSindex posted a screenshot of the episode hosted on Robert Paulson's website, writing, "apparently the lost family guy pilot was just.. sitting on a publicly known animator's portfolio for 3 entire years," and gathering over 69,000 likes in two days.

Later on March 21st, 2025, X^[8] user @SCREENONYMOUS shared fan art of Peter Griffin, writing, "Just a random Peter Griffin art but in the style of the Family Guy pilot episode, since the "full version" has been finally found today." The post gathered over 3,000 likes in two days.

Also on March 21st, the X^[11] account @FamGuyFunny shared a clip from the episode, showing Peter Griffin and Brian throwing money out of a hot air balloon. The post gathered over 1,000 likes in two days.

pic.twitter.com/RWuY3XnxKj

— Family Guy funny moments (@FamGuyFunny) March 21, 2025

The news was reposted to the subreddit /r/videos^[9] on March 22nd by Redditor /u/haarschmuck, who wrote, "After 30 years of searching the original never-before-seen Family Guy pilot episode has been found," gathering over 2,000 upvotes in a day.

Also on March 22nd, YouTuber Mutahar of SomeOrdinaryGamers posted a YouTube^[10] video about the find, gathering over 100,000 views in a day.

Search Interest

External References