After an old 2006 Family Guy clip blew up online, Seth MacFarlane shared where he got the idea for that famous scene where Peter Griffin trashes The Godfather.
The scene’s from season 4’s “Untitled Griffin Family History” episode, where the family’s stuck in a flooding panic room and Peter’s telling family stories.
As water fills the room, Peter drops this bomb: “I did not care for The Godfather.”
His family flips out and argues with him. When they ask why he hates it, he says, “It insists upon itself.”
The clip recently took off on social media, leading MacFarlane to spill the tea about the joke’s origins.
“Since this has been trending, here’s a fun fact: ‘It insists upon itself’ was a criticism my college film history professor used to explain why he didn’t think The Sound of Music was a great film,” MacFarlane posted on X. “First-rate teacher, but I never quite followed that one.”
The joke hits harder considering The Godfather is a 1972 masterpiece with killer performances from Al Pacino, James Caan, and Robert Duvall, widely considered one of cinema’s greatest films. So Peter’s claim that it “insists upon itself” is pretty wild.
As the clip made its rounds online, folks figured Peter was just trying to call the movie “pretentious” but couldn’t find a better way to say it.
