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A common misconception among more casual "Family Guy" fans is that creator Seth MacFarlane is personally responsible for every single creative decision. Although he voices many of the characters, his presence in the writers' room is a lot lighter than one would think. He's mentioned in interviews that he hasn't written for "Family Guy" since around 2009, and even before that, he only officially wrote the scripts for three episodes. That's right: only three episodes in the show's entire 400+ episode run were penned by MacFarlane.

Of course, as any writer for a long-running sitcom will tell you, the writing for these shows is very collaborative. There'll often be one writer who receives credit for the episode, but the script will typically go through multiple revisions from the rest of the staff. I know from interviews with staff writers from "Rick and Morty" and "Futurama" that it's often hard for the staff...

John Peaslee, the writer and producer who worked alongside his longtime creative partner, Judd Pillot, on such sitcoms as Coach, Just Shoot Me!, According to Jim and Liv and Maddie, has died. He was 73.

Peaslee died Monday of natural causes at his home in Sherman Oaks, Pillot announced. The two had collaborated for 35 years.

“I will be forever thankful to the universe that I was with him for several hours that day, that I was able to hold his hand, recount all the stories — way too many to tell, but not nearly enough to fill the hole in my heart,” Pillot wrote on Instagram.

Peaslee and Pillot teamed on ABC’s Coach from 1989-93, on NBC’s Just Shoot Me! from 2002-03, on ABC’s According to Jim from 2005-09 and on Disney Channel’s Liv and Maddie from 2013-17.

The pair also created ABC’s A Whole New Ballgame,...

No, it's not Friday the 13th. But it is Halloween, and the 13th season of King of the Hill looks to be its last.

Reports are coming in that the long-running Fox comedy will not return past the 13 episodes currently in production bringing the total to something like 250. King of the Hill, created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels, has aired on the network since 1997. Although it's not the ratings getter it once was, King stalwarts such as Ain't It Cool News' Hercules tout the series as Fox's greatest comedy. Both Judge and Daniels have moved onto other projects. Judge's newest animated comedy, The Goode Family, launches on ABC midseason, while Daniels is running NBC's smash hit The Office. Judge still supplies the voice for Hank Hill on the series.

Meanwhile, Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane continues to enjoy his renewed success over at Fox. Variety has announced that MacFarlane's...

Ron Rifkin has been tapped to co-star in ABC's drama pilot Brothers & Sisters, while Chi McBride has been cast in another ABC drama pilot, the untitled Hank Steinberg project (formerly Nine Lives). In other pilot casting news, 14-year-old Keir Gilchrist has landed a co-starring role on Fox's comedy pilot Becoming Glen. On the cable side, Ryan McPartlin (WB Network's Living With Fran), Joanna Canton (Fox's That '70s Show), Brian Howe (Fox's A Minute With Stan Hooper) and Dhirendra round out the cast of USA Network's one-hour pilot Underfunded. Brothers & Sisters, from Touchstone TV, is a family soap revolving around adult siblings. Rifkin will play the siblings' uncle.

Veteran comedy writer-producer Barry Kemp has inked an overall deal with Touchstone Television. Under the two-year pact, Kemp will develop series projects for the studio. Kemp, who landed his first TV writing job on ABC's comedy Taxi, went on to create and executive produce CBS' Newhart, toplined by Bob Newhart, and ABC's Craig T. Nelson starrer Coach. Last season, he co-created and executive produced with Norm Macdonald Fox's short-lived comedy A Minute With Stan Hooper, which starred Macdonald as an urbanite moving to a small Wisconsin town.

Eric Lively has joined the cast of Showtime's The L Word, Megan Fox has landed the role of Hope's teen daughter on ABC's Hope and Faith, and Arj Barker has been tapped as the lead in NBC's comedy pilot Nearly Nirvana. On Showtime's provocative drama The L Word, from Viacom Prods., Lively will play Jenny Schecter's (Mia Kirshner) new roommate. Lively most recently starred in NBC's comedy pilot The Men's Room in a role that was subsequently recast. Last season, he co-starred on Fox's comedy A Minute With Stan Hooper. His credits also include NBC's miniseries Uprising and the indie Speak, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and is set to debut on Showtime.

Stu Bloomberg is Doing It for ABC and Touchstone TV. The network has picked up a drama project from the former ABC entertainment president, now a producer, and Touchstone TV-based nonwriting producer Francie Calfo, with a script commitment. Based on a British book, Doing It is a coming-of-age drama told from the point of view of three teenagers. Jeff Judah and Gabe Sachs (Freaks and Geeks) are attached to pen the script as well as executive produce the project with Bloomberg and Calfo. Doing It is one of several ABC/Touchstone TV projects on Bloomberg's development slate, which includes two other dramas he is executive producing with Calfo -- a mob drama from writer Stuart Beattie (Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl) and a suburb police drama from Robert and Michelle King. Additionally, Bloomberg is executive producing a comedy about two families in which the mom of one of them works as a nanny for the other, from Barry Kemp (Fox's A Minute With Stan Hooper) and Mike and Linda Teverbaugh.

Fox's summer sleeper The O.C. hung tough in its return to primetime Wednesday even as it faced off against ABC's reality hotshot The Bachelor. That '70s Show also strutted its stuff in its sixth-season debut, winning the 8 p.m. slot for Fox, according to Nielsen Media Research, but Fox's new Norm Macdonald sitcom, A Minute With Stan Hooper, struggled to hold onto its '70s lead-in. Despite the activity at ABC and Fox, NBC took the night overall in total viewers (12.7 million viewers) and adults 18-49 (4.5 rating/12 share) thanks to respectable showings from Ed and The West Wing and a big pop at 10 p.m. as usual for Law & Order. That '70s Show opened the night for Fox with an average of 9.9 million viewers and a 5.0/14 in 18-49. The premiere of Stan Hooper followed at 8:30 p.m. with 7.1 million viewers and a 3.6/10 in 18-49.

Fox's summer sleeper The O.C. hung tough in its return to primetime Wednesday even as it faced off against ABC's reality hotshot The Bachelor. That '70s Show also strutted its stuff in its sixth season debut, winning the 8 p.m. time slot for Fox, according to preliminary estimates from Nielsen Media Research, but Fox's new Norm Macdonald sitcom, A Minute with Stan Hooper, struggled to hold on to its '70s lead-in. Despite the activity at ABC and Fox, NBC took the night overall in total viewers (12.7 million viewers) and adults 18-49 (4.6 rating/12 share) thanks to respectable showings from Ed and The West Wing and a big pop at 10 p.m. as usual for Law & Order.