 Executives at Fox saw the Larry shorts and contracted MacFarlane to create a series , entitled Family Guy , based on the characters . Fox proposed MacFarlane complete a 15 @-@ minute short , and gave him a budget of $ 50 @,@ 000 . Several aspects of Family Guy were inspired by the Larry shorts . While working on the series , the characters of Larry and his dog Steve slowly evolved into Peter and Brian . MacFarlane stated that the difference between The Life of Larry and Family Guy was that " Life of Larry was shown primarily in my dorm room and Family Guy was shown after the Super Bowl . " After the pilot aired , the series was given the green light . MacFarlane drew inspiration from several sitcoms such as The Simpsons and All in the Family . Premises were drawn from several 1980s Saturday morning cartoons he watched as a child , such as The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang and Rubik , the Amazing Cube . 
