If vaccine holdouts won’t listen to Dr. Anthony Fauci, maybe they’ll listen to Stewie Griffin.
That’s the thinking behind a new public service announcement, which features the animated characters from “Family Guy” explaining the science behind the COVID-19 vaccine, and the benefits of getting it.
Show creator Seth MacFarlane voices the characters — vaccine skeptic Peter Griffin, toddler son Stewie, their talking dog Brian and Dr. Hartman — for the three-minute video.
The video blends “Family Guy’s” irreverent humor with facts, as Stewie and Brian shrink and enter Peter’s body, where they explain how the vaccine fights the coronavirus.
“Vaccines protect us from illnesses by activating our immune response without the danger of actual infection, thereby training the body to fight off the real thing,” Stewie explains.
Spoiler alert: In the end, Peter gets vaccinated.
The video is intended to deliver “critical vaccine information to audiences in a fresh and hilarious way that will surely inspire people to take the next step in slowing the pandemic,” Ad Council CEO Lisa Sherman said in a statement.
“We were proud to work with some of the nation’s leading immunologists and epidemiologists on this PSA,” said “Family Guy” showrunners Rich Appel and Alec Sulkin. “And while we never understood a single note they gave us, we took them all.”
Health officials are urging the more than 70 million Americans who have not yet been vaccinated to get their shots, as the delta variant of the coronavirus continues to spread across the U.S.
COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. are averaging more than 1,900 a day for the first time since March. Health officials note that while vaccinated people can still catch breakthrough infections, they tend to have milder cases and their chances of being hospitalized or dying from it are severely reduced.
“Family Guy” airs on Fox FOX, -0.14%, and is produced by Disney’s DIS, -4.17% 20th Television Animation.