Among the features of his new contract with Fox is a Family Guy movie he imagines as "an old-style musical with dialogue" in the vein of The Sound Of Music, a poster of which hangs above his desk. "We'd really be trying to capture, musically, that feel," says MacFarlane, whose father moonlighted as a folk singer. "Nothing today feels like it'll play 50 years from now, like Cole Porter or Rodgers and Hart."

If you're waiting for the punch line here, there isn't one. Critics may dismiss MacFarlane's show for being vulgar, but when he writes a song, it's going to be lush and jazzy and, at least musically, exactly as you might hear in something by Irving Berlin. It's all part of a manic attention to detail that not only gives the show its layered humor but also has made MacFarlane a massive multiplatform success.

Image: Seth MacFarlane and his wife at the DVD release premiere of Family Guy Presents Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story | Photograph: Mark Mainz/ Getty Images

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