‘Family Guy’ Officially Kills off Character After 23 Seasons

After years and years of feuds, one of Peter Griffin’s most bitter rivals has come to a final end.

In the season 23 episode “The Chicken or the Meg” earlier this year, Meg began a romance with Nugget, the son of the giant chicken Ernie. As fans of the series know, Ernie and Peter have had many deadly battles in the past.

But this time, Ernie met a permanent end at the hands of Meg after the chicken told her she had to cut all ties with her father or cease dating his son. The Griffin daughter decided to take matters in her own hands and decapitated the chicken in his front yard.

This is Family Guy, of course, and characters die all the time only to be brought back later. But executive producer Alec Sulkin said Ernie’s time on the show is finished in an interview with TVLine.

“I think that the chicken has gone the way of all flesh,” he said. “Honestly, I feel like we got so many great set pieces out of the giant chicken fighting with Peter that they became hard to top. It’s a lot to ask of our production crew, and we may have just gotten the best out of that character.”

Not many characters have ever permanently died on the series, with the Chris Parnell-voiced character Doug (killed in season 21) being the most recent.

Family Guy returns to TV next year. The series dropped a Halloween special earlier today to tide fans over.