Oscar host SETH MACFARLANE shouldn’t be alive today! MacFarlane, 39, was ticketed to be on one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center on 9/11, but the hungover entertainer showed up 15 minutes late to the airport.
That’s just one of the surprising secrets behind the wealthy and handsome “Family Guy” creator, Hollywood’s $100 million man and the highest paid writer in television.
“By all rights, Seth shouldn’t be here,” said an insider. “He missed the plane because he was out boozing the night before the flight and got to the airport late. His travel agent was a half-hour off on the departure time, but he still shouldn’t have been cutting it that close.”
The Oscar host later admitted he was “very, very, very lucky.”
FANS WILL ALSO BE SURPRISED TO learn that Seth was a child prodigy. As early as age 2, he was drawing cartoon characters Fred Flintstone and Woody Woodpecker. And at age 9, he began publishing a weekly comic strip called “Walter Crouton” for the local Kent, Conn., newspaper, which paid him five dollars per week.
Besides being a comedy genius, Seth is also a gifted pianist and singer, who trained with the vocal coaches of Barbra Streisand and Frank Sinatra. He even released a big band/ standards album in 2011. The recording was nominated in the “Best
Traditional Pop Vocal Album” category at the 54th Grammy Awards. And he still performs with his group, the Influence Jazz Orchestra.
As anyone who watched the Oscars may surmise, Seth is also a big fan of “Star Trek.” William Shatner, playing Captain Kirk from the original 1960s series, helped him pull off a shtick at the Academy Awards, and Seth loves to drop “Star Trek” jokes into his animated TV series. Now, he says he wants to do a remake of the sci-fi show in “very thoughtful, smartly written stories that transcend the science fiction audience.”
It may come as no surprise that the irreverent funnyman is an atheist, but not many people know he’s a distant cousin of actress Ashley Judd. Both are descendants of William Brewster, who came to America on the Mayflower.
But his lineage to an actress didn’t keep Oscar perennial Jodie Foster from avoiding the Academy Awards because she heard that bad-boy Seth was going to take pot shots at her.
He didn’t disappoint, cracking: “Tonight’s ceremony is being watched by close to a billion people worldwide, which is why Jodie Foster will be up here in a bit to ask for her privacy.”
Perhaps the biggest surprise about the genius behind such edgy programs as “American Dad” and “The Cleveland Show” is that he’s an old-fashioned guy. A few years ago, fellow comedian Alex Borstein revealed: “Seth doesn’t have e-mail at home, doesn’t own a computer, and he doesn’t really watch television.”
POP FYI: He provided the voices of Stewie for "Family Guy" and "Ted" the bear in his film of the same name.
