What happened to the original Meg on Family Guy?

Q: Did Family Guy get rid of Meg?

Lacey Chabert reprised the role of Meg Griffin Chaberts departure from Family Guy was an amicable one. Although she no longer portrays Meg, Chabert still watches the show and has kind words about her predecessor. According to HuffPost.com, Chabert called Kunis a great actress.”

Q: Is Mila Kunis still Meg on Family Guy?

Mila Kunis isnt the original voice of Meg on Family Guy, but shes voiced her the longest. The then-15-year-old actress replaced Lacey Chabert beginning with season twos Da Boom,” which aired on December 26, 1999. That was 17 seasons ago. The reason behind the recasting was a contractual thing.

Q: How long did Mila Kunis play Meg?

Looking back on the fact that shes played the character for over 20 years, she said: Its been the greatest job ever. Ever. Hands down. I dare anybody to tell me that they have a better, more amazing job than that.

From starring in That '70s Show as a teenager to her successful movie career, Mila Kunis is one of Hollywood's most recognizable lead actresses. Yet, arguably the most famous character of her career is Family Guy's Meg Griffin. For over two decades, Kunis voiced the teenage girl turned punching bag of the usually chaotic Griffin family while simultaneously going from TV to movie stardom. However, what many might not know is that Kunis wasn't the original voice of Meg. While Rachael MacFarlane, creator Seth MacFarlane's sister, voiced her in the series pilot pitch, Lacey Chabert who voiced Meg for the first season and some Season 2 episodes before being replaced by Kunis.

Table of Contents Show

Why did they change Meg in Family Guy?
Did Family Guy get rid of Meg?
Is Mila Kunis still Meg on Family Guy?
How long did Mila Kunis play Meg?

By the time Chabert voiced Meg, she was already a child star on the FOX teen show Party of Five. She also had voice acting experience as Eliza Thornberry on The Wild Thornberrys. However, her most famous movie role was as one of the Plastics in Mean Girls, one of the most beloved teen comedies of the 2000s.

Although she couldn't be credited for voicing Meg due to contractual restrictions at the time, Chabert was indeed her voice for Season 1 and for parts of Season 2 due to some episodes being aired out of order. At the time, Family Guy's premiere season wasn't the phenomenon it eventually became. While voicing Meg, Chabert was busy doing Party of Five and attending school, so she dropped out of Family Guy following its first season. Both she and MacFarlane have maintained that her departure occurred on amicable terms.

While Chabert left Family Guy on good terms, it didn't stop the show from making the occasional joke about her being Meg's original voice. In the Season 8 episode "Business Guy," Peter takes over Pewterschmidt Industries where he threatens to replace Lois as his wife. Lois calls his bluff, and he responds with, "Does the name Lacey Chabert mean anything to you?" She's immediately terrified and promises to behave.

Meg Griffin from Family Guy.

Whenever Stewie and/or Brian ever go back in time, they tend to use Chabert's voice for Meg as a meta-joke. In the time travel episode titled "Back to the Pilot," Brian and Stewie go back to the show's first scene with Meg voiced by Chabert from archived recordings. Stewie notices the difference in her voice and that "she sounds like someone who's about to give up a huge opportunity."

Then in the Season 11 episode "Yug Ylimaf," Stewie goes backward in time due to a malfunction in his time machine. When held by Meg, he notices the difference in her voice again and even knows whose voice it is, saying, "Oh my god! We're getting closer to the beginning. You're Lacey Chabert!" This indicates that he's getting nearer to the time of his birth. It's also with this cameo that Chabert finally gets credited as Meg in a Family Guy episode.

Chabert later voices herself on Family Guy in the Season 17 episode "Griffin Winter Games." When Meg competes in a ski race for the Winter Olympics, she inexplicably runs into Chabert also competing in the race. Chabert tells Meg, "This should be my Olympics!" After, they yell at each other with "Shut-up Meg!" before Peter does his own "Shut-up Meg!" It's the only time Chabert and Kunis share a scene together in Family Guy. While Chabert's career could have turned out differently had her scheduling allowed her to take on Family Guy, her acting legacy is already solid thanks to The Wild Thornberrys, Mean Girls and laying claim as the original Meg Griffin.

KEEP READING: Family Guy: Why Stewie and Peter Griffin NEVER Worked in Comics

Voice acting, it’s good work if you can get it. Especially if you’re only asked to read for a single character, not an entire small village, like Hank Azaria and Harry Shearer do on The Simpsons. Or Seth MacFarlane does for ALL his shows. Take Family Guy‘s Mila Kunis, for instance. The character she voices, tortured daughter Meg Griffin, spoke about 10 sentences in Sunday’s “The Simpsons Guy.” Kunis takes home between $175,000 and $225,000 per episode, so she made a cool $20,000 for each of her lines. Again, good work if you can get it.

You probably know that Kunis wasn’t the original voice of Meg, mighty fetch Mean Girls star Lacey Chabert was for the first season and into the second, but you might not be aware of why it happened. Here’s what Chabert told GameSpy, for some reason, back in 2006.

GameSpy: Now this, of course, was not your first experience voice acting. You’ve done voices for a number of cartoons and video games over the years, including, if I’m not mistaken, Family Guy, where you were the original voice of Meg Griffin, right?
Lacey Chabert: I was. I did that for a season.
GameSpy: Does this mean you have a grudge against Mila Kunis, who does her voice now, and if so, can this be settled in a game of Sonic the Hedgehog?
Lacey Chabert: No, I actually left the show of my own accord. And only because I was in school and doing Party of Five at the time. But I think the show is hilarious, and don’t have a grudge against her at all. I think she’s a great actress. (Via)

That’s what they all say, “all” being anyone who was replaced on a massively popular TV show that’s been on for 13 seasons and counting because of a mistake. Oh yeah, about that:

What was the reason behind the recasting of Meg?
Seth MacFarlane: You know, it was just purely a contractual thing. Lacey Chabert, I think there was a mistake in her contract, and I guess she had not intended to be involved for, like, the full run of the show. I don’t even remember. To be honest, I don’t really, to this day, know what it was. It was nothing – there was no tension or anything. She wanted to go, and she was very cool about it. We obviously don’t want to keep anyone there who doesn’t want to be there. So, you know, it was early on enough in the show that it wasn’t a huge – that happens from time to time, you’ve got to replace a voice actor. Fortunately, what Mila brought to it, Mila Kunis, was in a lot of ways, I thought, almost more right for the character. I say that Lacey did a phenomenal job, but there was something about Mila – something very natural about Mila. She was 15 when she started, so you were listening to a 15-year-old. (Via)

That was Seth MacFarlane’s diplomatic response to what happened to Chabert, who it’s worth mentioning was actually the SECOND Meg. Cree Summer, who you might know as Elmyra from Tiny Toon Adventures, was originally hired for the role, but she was fired because, well, let her explain it.

Meg’s casting is as tortured as the character herself.

Why did they change Meg in Family Guy?

Meg was voiced by an uncredited Lacey Chabert for the first season, and by Mila Kunis in subsequent seasons after Chabert became busy with school and her role on Party of Five, although some of her work became second season episodes due to production order.

Did Family Guy get rid of Meg?

Lacey Chabert reprised the role of Meg Griffin Chabert's departure from Family Guy was an amicable one. Although she no longer portrays Meg, Chabert still watches the show and has kind words about her predecessor. According to HuffPost.com, Chabert called Kunis “a great actress.”

Is Mila Kunis still Meg on Family Guy?

Mila Kunis isn't the original voice of Meg on Family Guy, but she's voiced her the longest. The then-15-year-old actress replaced Lacey Chabert beginning with season two's “Da Boom,” which aired on December 26, 1999. That was 17 seasons ago. The reason behind the recasting was “a contractual thing.

How long did Mila Kunis play Meg?

Looking back on the fact that she's played the character for over 20 years, she said: 'It's been the greatest job ever. Ever. Hands down. I dare anybody to tell me that they have a better, more amazing job than that.