Family Guy creator reveals the origins of one of the show’s most iconic lines – and it involves The Sound of Music for some reason

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Seth MacFarlane has revealed the origins of a major Family Guy meme

Family Guy
(Image credit: Disney+)

Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane has revealed the origins of one of the show's most famous lines – and it's not what we were expecting.

Taking to Twitter, MacFarlane shared a clip from Family Guy that's become a meme. The scene shows Peter Griffin and the others moments from drowning, when Peter decides to share one of his deepest secrets: he doesn't care for The Godfather. His reasoning? "It insists upon itself."

"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. First-rate teacher, but I never quite followed that one," MacFarlane explained.

Just search "it insists upon itself" on Twitter and you'll see how often people use it as a critique of other movies – and now people are debating whether it's a valid critique at all.

"Dude I've seen so many threads of people taking the 'it insists upon itself' joke seriously over the years and I'm lowkey happy as hell MacFarlane has set this shit straight," says one person. "IT'S NONSENSE"

"I do think 'It insists upon itself' CAN be used as a legitimate criticism," says somebody else. "The Departed for example, is a movie that genuinely insists upon itself. Like holy shit I get it the movie is about rats I don’t need you to remind me every 5 minutes and have a CGI rat at the end."

"'It insists upon itself' actually being the perfect way to describe so many things," thinks someone else.

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Molly Edwards
Molly Edwards
Deputy Entertainment Editor

I'm the Deputy Entertainment Editor here at GamesRadar+, covering all things film and TV for the site's Total Film and SFX sections. I previously worked on the Disney magazines team at Immediate Media, and also wrote on the CBeebies, MEGA!, and Star Wars Galaxy titles after graduating with a BA in English.