FAMILY GUY Casts Sam Elliott to Replace Adam West as the Mayor of Quahog
Sam Elliott has been cast in Family Guy and will replace Adam West as the Mayor of Quahog. West played the Mayor for more than 100 episodes, and after he passed away in 2017, the series paid tribute to him several times. The show acknowledged West’s passing a couple of years after his death, and the high school was renamed after him.
Executive producer Richard Appel told EW:
"We wanted to take the time to respect Adam. In having a conversation about 'How do you replace him?,' the universal belief was: he’s irreplaceable. And then the next question is, 'Do you find a new mayor?' In the world of Family Guy, he had an important role, and a role that was necessary for a lot of stories."
Well, choosing Sam Elliott to replace West as the Mayor is a perfect choice! I love Elliott, and he’s going to be great in this show! When talking about searching for a new Mayor, Appel said:
"Who could be as original and unexpected and comedically fun and fresh as Adam? Sam has a voice that — obviously he’s a movie star but he also has a voice made for radio, and Sam Elliot quickly became our first choice."
It’s explained that Elliott's character is actually Mayor West's cousin, “whose first and middle names are Wild. That's right — meet Wild Wild West. Wild West comes East to Quahog when Peter becomes unhappy with the candidates in consideration for the job and decides that the town needs a celebrity figure who is fun, so Peter persuades him to run for office.”
Elliott was reluctant to take the job; he even turned it down because he didn’t “want to play himself.” So the creative team switched things up so he wouldn’t be playing himself.
“We thought, 'Wait a minute, that note is a smart note. Because that was more what Adam West was doing. And the new mayor shouldn’t be another real-world celebrity playing himself within our fictional world. So we kicked around a bunch of ideas and then said, 'What if we refashion this as Wild West for Sam Elliott and create this new character?' And he responded very well to that idea."
So, Elliott took the job, and we will see him appear in a handful of episodes this season! We’ve also got a couple of first-look images.
Family Guy kicks off Season 19 on Sept. 27 at 9:30pm on Fox.