A Conversation with Seth MacFarlane

This week, Neil deGrasse Tyson interviews Seth MacFarlane, the brains behind Family Guy, A Million Ways to Die in the West and an executive producer of COSMOS on FOX.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk Radio. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. I'm an astrophysicist and director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History. You're all invited. Our show today features an interview with Seth MacFarlane. Many of you know him as the creator and voice talent for the Fox animated series Family Guy. He's also the co-creator of the TV shows American Dad and The Cleveland Show. And in recent years, he's turned his skills to movies, co-writing and directing the hit 2012 film Ted. He also wrote, directed, and starred in his latest movie, a comedy western called A Million

• 0:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ways to Die in the West. But my connection to Seth comes from the TV series Cosmos, which I hosted. And we'll hear later in the broadcast that he's an executive producer of the series and was instrumental in bringing the show to Fox Television. But in this first part of the interview, I spoke to Seth about Family Guy. For those who haven't watched the series, it's centered on a family: parents Peter and Louis, their children Meg, Chris, and Stewie, and their pet dog Brian. The cartoon originally premiered on Fox in 1999, but was canceled in 2002. The show moved to the Cartoon Network in 2003 and immediately

• 1:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  became their top-rated show. The first two seasons were also released then on DVD, and the huge sales convinced Fox of the errors of their ways, and they gave their series another run in 2005, and it's been going strong ever since. Family Guy has been described by one critic as "a nasty but extremely funny cartoon." I gotta agree with that. And the show originally based much of its comedy on the character Stewie, voiced by Seth. Stewie, the youngest child in the family, is a supervillain who conducts evil experiments and has plans for total world domination. But as the show has developed over the years, its humor has expanded to encompass current events and pop culture. When I spoke with Seth MacFarlane, I told him how I first discovered his show.

• 2:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, my kids introduced me to Family Guy. They were huddled around their computer.

• 2:31Speaker 01

  See, they seemed like smart kids. Your kids are smarter than any of my friends.

• 2:37Speaker 01

  Your kids are what, like 12?

• 2:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, one is 13, the other is 17.

• 2:41Speaker 01

  I have no friends my age who are as smart as your kids.

• 2:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they were huddled around the computer. I said, "What are you looking at?" And they said, "Oh, nothing, nothing." And then I snuck in there and I said, "Wow, this is some funny stuff." And then I noticed that every second or third episode, there is some reference to science.

• 2:58Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it could be a positive thing about science or critique of people who themselves are critiquing science, right? There is some science reference. So I said, "There's a thread going through this guy. I wonder what that is."

• 3:11Speaker 01

  I was always a big science fiction fan, and so whenever possible, jumped at the opportunity to have Stewie veer into that world.

• 3:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right. He's the primary science conduit.

• 3:22Speaker 01

  Animation fans tend to be fans of science fiction and have an interest in science.

• 3:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Evidenced by the demographics that attend Comic-Con. Yes. Yes. Everyone there dressed as Klingon actually knows the difference between fantasy and objective reality.

• 3:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's true.

• 3:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They know the laws of physics.

• 3:39Speaker 01

  I kind of have a better grasp on reality than most people. What a profound concept. I never thought about that. I think you're probably right.

• 3:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. And then there's not only the science, there's the persistent reference to science fiction. Well, actually, there's a reference to a lot of pop culture, but I think only the science fiction earns full episode attention, right?

• 3:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like Star Wars.

• 4:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did George Lucas call you after that?

• 4:03Speaker 01

  It is strange. You know, if you're really being anal about it, is Star Wars really science fiction? Or is it kind of action-adventure?

• 4:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 4:11Speaker 01

  Fall into, I mean, if we're really being sticklers about it.

• 4:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I would have to agree, because there is no science in it that you're saying, "Hey, that could happen one day."

• 4:18Speaker 01

  I mean, I'd love it. Don't get me wrong.

• 4:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No one's having those thoughts, unlike with Star Trek, where they actually put thought into the warp drives and the phasers and the photon torpedoes.

• 4:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. They know that a parsec is a unit of distance and not time.

• 4:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a really geeky reference to the original.

• 4:31Speaker 01

  That always bugged me. That always bugged me. Really, even in 77, with all those smart people walking around, nobody caught that, huh?

• 4:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because Han Solo's boasting of his Millennium Falcon.

• 4:40Speaker 01

  Sounds like second. "Sek" sounds like second. It must be time.

• 4:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He describes how fast he was in his Millennium Falcon and cites the unit of time in parsecs.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's like, no.

• 4:53Speaker 01

  Thank, thank God they never got to light years.

• 4:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, to my surprise, after we had lunch one day, all you did was ask me questions about the Big Bang and the early universe. So I say, yeah, this guy's like, he's all there. Yeah, yeah. And then nothing else was spoken and you walked away into the mist. Eight months later, six months later, Stewie visits the Big Bang in his time machine. Now, I didn't see that episode when it aired, but my cellphone started lighting up.

• 5:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There it was, a full screen credit, Neil deGrasse Tyson, "Science Consultant."

• 5:30Speaker 01

  I'm trying to remember, did we ask you if we could do that?

• 5:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, not at all.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  It was just us being extraordinarily presumptuous, trying to legitimize ourselves. This'll get the critics on our side, damn it all.

• 5:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But how many cartoons get to cite "science consultant"? I mean, that was...

• 5:45Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 5:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, it was good. It was, I, I recommend anybody, you can probably get it on Netflix or wherever. It's the episode called "The Big Bang Theory."

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Stewie uses his time machine to go back to the Big Bang and he's outside of the space-time continuum.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With Brian. That was brilliant. It was brilliant. Not just because I inadvertently advised on it, but I think it was very well done. In my world, everybody's favorite scene in Family Guy is when Peter wants to become a redneck.

• 6:09Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 6:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And take on the culture.

• 6:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gets the hat, gets the boots, they move south and he turns on the TV.

• 6:14Speaker 01

  Cosmos.

• 6:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tell me what went through your head there. What, what is that?

• 6:17Speaker 01

  It's, it's an illustration of the modern day clash between science and religion. And I don't remember who wrote that gag, but it was in one of our cutaway rooms. We have these satellite rooms that go off the main room and they come back with a series of gags and we'll pick the best one. So, you know, I'm not the only Cosmos fan on that staff. I did do the voice of Carl Sagan, though.

• 6:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me hear, let me hear something from Carl.

• 6:37Speaker 01

  It's just a slightly, slightly altered Kermit the Frog.

• 6:44Speaker 01

  I feel terrible. He's one of my heroes. But it was, he had a very distinctive voice.

• 6:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so in that scene, in case you hadn't seen it, there's Carl Sagan delivering some lines from the original Cosmos, and it's edited. And Peter says, "Honey, look, it's Cosmos edited for Redneck." And he says, "In the beginning, there was the Big Mac. God."

• 7:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're gonna stretch it all out because that's...

• 7:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  "And the universe is 13 billion, 6,000."

• 7:13Speaker 01

  You know, it's interesting, and I do try, and I know you do as well, to try to talk about that without succumbing to the temptation to say, "Come on, there's just no evidence." I mean, the Earth cannot be 6,000 years old. It just can't. I mean, it's not a matter of your beliefs versus my beliefs. It just can't.

• 7:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But there aren't many cartoons that address this. That's my point. So I tip my hat to you. Did you have any concept at the time that you would be working on Cosmos?

• 7:40Speaker 01

  No, because I didn't know that it was even being discussed.

• 7:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, you had, we hadn't met.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've been listening to StarTalk Radio. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson. When we return, we'll continue the conversation with Seth MacFarlane on how he came to produce the Fox TV series Cosmos.

• 8:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. Our show today features an interview with the actor, writer, director, voice talent Seth MacFarlane. He's also a producer, and he served in that role for my TV series Cosmos. In this part of the interview, I talked with him about when we first met and how he came to bring this Cosmos sequel to Fox TV. Do you remember when we met?

• 8:42Speaker 01

  It was at that seafood, well, we met at the, that's where, that's where we discussed Cosmos.

• 8:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But we met?

• 8:48Speaker 01

  At the Science and Entertainment Exchange.

• 8:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, evidence that there's a science thread running through Family Guy is that you're like a founding advisor to the Science and Entertainment Exchange. This is crazy. It makes crazy good.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  It's an honorary title of sorts, but...

• 9:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But you have to have some energy to try to join the two.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love the idea because, you know, well, first of all, everyone in Hollywood is also very interested in science. These are people who are...

• 9:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they're educated.

• 9:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're creative by nature, curious by nature, and they want to know. They don't want to settle for what the most comfortable illusion is. They want to know what science can tell them.

• 9:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you and some of your pals, who else is in this?

• 9:26Speaker 01

  Well, Jerry and Janet Zucker founded it.

• 9:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, Jerry Zucker of Airplane.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  Airplane, Naked Gun.

• 9:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Naked Gun, that whole series.

• 9:32Speaker 01

  Top secret.

• 9:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's a way for writers, producers, creative Hollywood.

• 9:36Speaker 01

  To connect with scientists.

• 9:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To connect with scientists. And it's a branch of the National Academy of Sciences.

• 9:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think the thinking was that, well, look, Hollywood wants to get its science right because it just makes us look like we've done our homework and it's in the interest of the scientific community because the entertainment industry is so widespread and, and when they see a forensic show or a space show or a medical show or a show that deals with any branch of science, audiences assume that we've all done our homework and we almost never have. Unless you have a science consultant on staff, we've almost never done our homework and this is a great way to...

• 10:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Look at the success of the sitcom The Big Bang Theory. They have a physicist on staff.

• 10:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who changes the whiteboards every day with a new equation relevant to what's going on in that show.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  It's, it's great.

• 10:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then it gets talked about in the blogosphere, right? So it's a very rich thing.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  Why can't you hear the band in the background?

• 10:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 10:23Speaker 01

  We're backstage at The Tonight Show.

• 10:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we meet there, do the Science and Entertainment Exchange, and then we exchange phone numbers and it's Hollywood. I say, all right, this season ever. And you fricking call me. You come to New York and you call me.

• 10:37Speaker 01

  Sorry, it was two in the morning and I was drunk, but you know, a call's a call.

• 10:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What the hell were you thinking?

• 10:44Speaker 01

  Hollywood is a one industry town and the only people that I know in Hollywood who are involved with science are all medical person. They're doctors. There are the friend who's a brain surgeon and they're some of the most interesting people that I know because you hang out with them and you don't talk about your project. You don't talk about movies. You don't talk about TV.

• 11:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They've got something else to talk about.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  They've got something of actual, of substance to talk about and, oh, wow, gosh, this Neil guy seems like he knows a thing or two. He'd be a fun guy to hang out with.

• 11:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so the first time you visited me in my office and we went to the space show, my office at the Hayden Planetarium. It was very cordial and I was pleased that you thought of me, but that was it. And then it was a second call.

• 11:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where we were at the seafood place.

• 11:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You remember that?

• 11:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was.

• 11:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Remember what you asked me?

• 11:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I said, I said, I got some disposable income here.

• 11:32Speaker 01

  Is there anything?

• 11:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How long did someone ever come up to anybody?

• 11:35Speaker 01

  What can I do with this? Well, because I, you know, I remembered reading in one of the, I think it was the Cosmic Connection. I think it was one of his first books. And he was lamenting that, boy, if we had found a private investor to pay for the attachment of this extra little thing to this spacecraft, we could have done this experiment. But I don't remember what it was. Something that stuck with me.

• 11:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was a unique and lost opportunity.

• 11:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. They just didn't have the money. And I said, my God, you know, this is exactly the kind of thing I'd love to write a check for. And so I said to you, you know, what's going on in the world of science that I can be useful?

• 12:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. And what I told you was, you know, we've got the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health. These are major government organizations, but the NSF budget is like $6 billion at the time.

• 12:16Speaker 01

  I'm not made of that.

• 12:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what I'm saying. So whatever is the disposable income you were referencing, it would not really make a difference there. But you didn't know at the time that Andrian, Steve Soder, two of the original writers of the original series and I, and Mitch Cannold, were shopping around Cosmos. We had already knocked on the door of Discovery Channel and PBS. And they all wanted to control it and manipulate. So I thought, let me just step in this pool of water that you put out there. And I was expecting you to say, well, maybe I can do a pilot.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's not what you said. You remember what you said?

• 12:50Speaker 01

  I think I said, Neil, you've eaten all my fries.

• 12:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, I did. They were good fries. Sorry, I admit, they were good fries.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  And, uh.

• 12:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I have long arms. But those two come out.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  I said, why don't I take you into Fox?

• 13:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that was the craziest thing I'd ever heard. At that instant, I said, no, he doesn't get it. Okay, this is a waste of time.

• 13:10Speaker 01

  The Discovery National Geographic, look, they're great places. Although I think Discovery has that ghost hunter stuff now, okay? That's not so good.

• 13:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, there's a little bit of falling from grace there. But my point is that it took me about 12 seconds after hearing you say, let's take it to Fox. And I said, Fox, he doesn't get it. This is not going to work. But Fox is 20th century Fox and Fox is Fox Sports and Fox Business and Fox Searchlight Pictures. And Fox has the number one show on television and Fox, that's the best idea.

• 13:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so it took me 12 seconds to agree with you. But the first four seconds, if you had said, Neil, what are you thinking about? I would have said, go get out of here. We've got nothing to talk about.

• 13:49Speaker 01

  You would have kicked my ass in front of the whole restaurant and I would have been humiliated.

• 13:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what possible confidence did you have? Other than that, maybe you had Fox by the gonads because you're in a deep contractual relationship with them.

• 14:03Speaker 01

  I have pitched shows to them, to animated shows that they have declined to produce. So it is not an automatic yes from Fox.

• 14:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus they canceled Family Guy at some point. Yeah, so nothing was automatic.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  But this regime that is there now, that Kevin Riley and Peter Rice, these guys are very outside the box.

• 14:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So these are the executives and their titles are what?

• 14:21Speaker 01

  I don't know. They're both chairman, I guess. I don't know. President, chairman, big shot, head honcho, big Jesus, top dog. But I thought, you know, if anyone at a network anywhere is going to bite on something like this, it'll be these guys because they are kind of outside the box.

• 14:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And one of them actually came from Fox Searchlight Pictures.

• 14:38Speaker 01

  From Fox Searchlight, yeah.

• 14:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which had brought Slumdog Millionaire to the screen and...

• 14:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. And what amazes me is hearing you say that some of the other networks wanted to manipulate and it is amazing at the end of the day, when we look back, I don't think I've ever done a show where there's been less meddling.

• 14:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was people's fear.

• 14:53Speaker 01

  From a network.

• 14:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When it got announced that Cosmos was appearing on Fox with you as an executive producer, people, their heads blew up. They said, no, this will never work.

• 15:02Speaker 01

  But they really let this thing be what it is and they didn't try to change it.

• 15:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. And of course, the rest is history. Now, one of your big contributions to it is the... That we animate the historical bits, which in the previous cosmos, it was like glued on mutton chops and fake British accents. So what will you think? I was a little tepid to it, but then when I started seeing the animation, it's like, hey, I like this. Now I want more of it. And then you can do more in an animation. People can float up. You can get in the head of people. Yeah. What were you thinking?

• 15:32Speaker 01

  Well, you know, for a primetime network, anything you can do to make everything a little splashier, because I mean, you know, the original cosmos was very splashy. Sagan.

• 15:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In its 1980s.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  In 1980. It's 1980 form. Yeah. I mean, Sagan, I don't remember the exact quote, but I think he said something to the effect of, I want this show to be so visually stunning that people who have no interest in science will watch just because of the effects. And the other reason was that for television, obviously your budget is limited and we expected a very heavy special effects workload for this show. And as you can see, I mean, they just turned out great. And that's a beautiful feature quality effects work that these guys did. So, you know, we can't be blowing all that money building historical sets.

• 16:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which don't touch new ground.

• 16:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cinematically.

• 16:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, plus to send you all over the world at all these locations, there wasn't a lot of wiggle room. So.

• 16:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You have to put the budget where it could return the greatest.

• 16:24Speaker 01

  It was more exciting to look at for a younger audience and it was more practical budget wise. So it really worked out both ways.

• 16:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus we can get some marquee voices.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And to schedule the sound room.

• 16:34Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 16:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who do we have? We had.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  Patrick Stewart.

• 16:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sir Patrick Stewart.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  Amanda Seyfried.

• 16:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh huh.

• 16:39Speaker 01

  Richard Gere. Kirsten Dunst.

• 16:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know who I would have wanted? Liam Neeson.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 16:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We could just get him to say, I have a special set of skills.

• 16:49Speaker 01

  Right. He could have been Einstein.

• 16:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So a lot of these are friends of yours that you've worked with. So, so you were not just someone who brought us to Fox. You're someone who had a connectivity that enabled talent to show up for this.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  In some cases, I think Annie.

• 17:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Annie Druyan.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. Knew Kirsten Dunst.

• 17:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, that's true.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  But a lot of them just wanted to be involved.

• 17:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And a director of photography, Bill Pope.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who directed The Matrix, my favorite movies ever.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. A lot of people just wanted to be in on this somehow. Paul Sorvino, I think did the show as well. I know I'll keep coming up with names.

• 17:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you're saying it wasn't completely you. It was just the total package that had the attractive.

• 17:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. It's.

• 17:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's science. It's on Fox. The country needs it.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's a thing that people gravitate towards.

• 17:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For some of us who are used to documentary style. We had to adjust to having commercials. But you live in the world of commercials, so but we needed some help there. You knew that, right?

• 17:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, I there's a lot of tweets I notice commenting on the just absolute dichotomy between what the content of Cosmos and then the hard cut to a car commercial or a fast food commercial. It's very sobering.

• 17:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but the way I look at it is it's like the Russian bear where people say he's not riding the bicycle that well, but then they forgot that it's a bear riding a bicycle.

• 18:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 18:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What a luxury it is to complain about the commercials on Fox for a science documentary.

• 18:11Speaker 01

  This is true.

• 18:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. Our show today features an interview with Seth MacFarlane. In addition to being an actor, writer, director, producer, voice talent, he's also a pianist and singer. He released an album in 2011 called Music Is Better Than Words, and it was nominated for a Grammy Award. So naturally, he's particular about the music used in his productions. And the score for his latest movie, A Million Ways to Die in the West, has already garnered critical praise. I spoke with him about the music for that film, the music for Cosmos, and how working as a director of movies differs from being the Cosmos executive producer.

• 19:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you wrote, produced, directed, starred in a million ways.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In Cosmos, you were executive producer. So am I asking a stupid question when I say, "What's the difference?"

• 19:47Speaker 01

  You know, it depends. An executive producer can mean you're running the show on a daily basis, or it can mean you slap your name on it and you go away. And so much of this took place while I was shooting The Western, but between Andrew and scripts and Brandon's writing and-

• 20:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Brandon Braga.

• 20:02Speaker 01

  Brandon Braga. And who also directed on the show along with Bill Pope and, you know, Jason Clarke, who pulled together this unbelievable effects work, and Caravallo, who oversaw the 2D animation. You know, by the time I came back into the mix, these shows were pretty far along and they just looked spectacular. It really came together in a huge way and it's resonated with so many people.

• 20:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but you were the glue and the magnetic force that brought, as in magnetic attraction force. People always say it's a magnetic attraction, but magnetic's also repelled.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  I wish Aaron Spelling of Cosmos. I don't know if that's good or bad.

• 20:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nowadays, when you're on interviews and talk shows and things, in the old days, I suppose they would always ask you about Family Guy, but has Cosmos worked its way?

• 20:44Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 20:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's now part of your identity?

• 20:46Speaker 01

  I get more tweets about Cosmos than I do about Family Guy these days. I get asked about Cosmos on an average day more often than I get asked about anything else. It's amazing.

• 20:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So now it's another one of your legacies. And just so you know, all of us had to defend you at the beginning of this.

• 21:03Speaker 01

  Thank you for that, by the way.

• 21:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Will there be any farts in space? Will there be any? Will Stewie? And I said, "No, the guy knows science. He understands science." Just look at Stewie's time machines. Look at, there's a whole episode called "The Multiverse." All right? So it's his time to reveal another Seth. And people kept trying to pigeonhole you. And I said, "Let the talent arise where it is." So, so we were your defenders.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  Oh, I appreciate that. I appreciate that.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  It was necessary.

• 21:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm told that the Wall Street Journal commented that Million Ways has an awesomely thought-through musical track. And you're a musician yourself, I've seen you perform, it's great. You want to be Frank Sinatra, admit it. Okay? As you sip your Scotch and rocks during this interview.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  In my suit.

• 21:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the music for Million Ways, did you pick it?

• 21:52Speaker 01

  You know, we can talk about music for Cosmos too. I'm very picky about composers. My friend Joel McNeely, who I did an album with, was a phenomenally talented composer. He used to do the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, among other things, which had a great score. Wrote a great classic western score.

• 22:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because we know western scores when we hear them.

• 22:11Speaker 01

  You gotta have a great composer, and there are a lot of really bad composers working in Hollywood today. But obviously, you know, for Cosmos.

• 22:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For Cosmos, we got the...

• 22:18Speaker 01

  Alan Silvestre.

• 22:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is he your bud?

• 22:20Speaker 01

  He is, he's a friend. He was, you know, we had wanted to do something together at some point, and this popped up, and he...

• 22:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I mean, just to remind people, he did...

• 22:29Speaker 01

  Back to the Future, Forrest Gump.

• 22:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Forrest Gump.

• 22:31Speaker 01

  Roger Rabbit, Contact.

• 22:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and Contact, yeah.

• 22:34Speaker 01

  And it's interesting, at the very end of the last episode of Cosmos, there's a little wink to Contact in his music.

• 22:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I got to meet him at one of the parties. He looks like a regular guy.

• 22:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. He's just like you and me. He looks so talented and wrote such beautiful music for that show. He's been with a full orchestra.

• 22:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was funny, because I'm in the ship, you know, the ship of the imagination, and during the filming, because you were busy with Million Ways, of course, and you'd check in on us every now and then, but people saying, "So Neil, you gonna have your own theme music like Shaft?"

• 23:08Speaker 01

  That wasn't quite a fit.

• 23:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So when I saw the first musical mix, I said, "Damn. Who's the bad man?"

• 23:18Speaker 01

  You do, you own that ship, man. You sit there very comfortably.

• 23:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're listening to StarTalk Radio. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. You can find us on the web at StarTalkRadio.net and on Facebook at StarTalk Radio. We tweet at, where else? StarTalk Radio. And if interested, I tweet at Neil Tyson. When we return, we'll have more of my interview with Seth MacFarlane.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  In the 50s and 60s and 70s, even well into the 80s, there was a national pride that was connected to scientific discovery. And somewhere along the line, that went away. And we started to become less interested. Our space program dwindled. When I was a kid, I watched Cosmos, and it was presented in such a way that placed it in a very different category from other science documentaries that tended to be a little on the dry side. And part of it was that you had this personality in Carl Sagan, who was clearly so passionate and so interested in this. There's never been a more important time for Cosmos to reemerge than right now because of the fact that we have, in too many ways, roundly ignored and rejected science when

• 24:31Speaker 01

  it used to be a source of pride for the country and for the species.

• 24:55Speaker 02

  Hey, guys. Can I play? Get out of here, Bennett! Get lost, Bennett! Get out of here, Bennett! Yeah, Bennett, get lost!

• 25:05Speaker 03

  John longed with all his heart for that one true friend that he could call his own. And for little John Bennett, Christmas Day brought a very special new arrival.

• 25:23Speaker 04

  Wow!

• 25:25Speaker 05

  I guess Santa paid attention how good you were this year, huh?

• 25:27Speaker 04

  Aw, Merry Christmas, John.

• 25:31Speaker 04

  I love you! I love you too, Teddy. You know, I wish you could really talk to me, because then we could be best friends forever and ever.

• 25:45Speaker 03

  Now, if there's one thing you can be sure of, it's that nothing is more powerful than a young boy's wish. Except an Apache helicopter. An Apache helicopter has machine guns and missiles. It is an unbelievably impressive complement of weaponry, an absolute death machine. Well, as it turned out, John picked the perfect night to make a wish.

• 26:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson. Our show today features an interview with Seth MacFarlane. In addition to writing and directing the movie Ted in 2012, he voiced the title character, a nasty teddy bear who comes to life. As I mentioned in this part of our interview, I played an unexpected role in the creation of this movie. You knew that I had criticized Titanic for getting the wrong sky.

• 26:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You called me up and said, "Look, I'm making Ted. He's born Christmas Eve, 1985. Give me a sky." What was your motivation?

• 26:48Speaker 01

  You know, I didn't want to get that phone call from you, Neil. I didn't want to have you call and say, "The guy who's involved with Cosmos couldn't get his damn stars right."

• 26:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you called me up. I was very flattered and honored. "The movie is such a fantasy, but you have the right sky."

• 27:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there's Titanic all serious and it's historical. They just pissed on the sky. The sky where the sinking ship was the wrong sky. We know where the thing sank and what it looked like. And the left side of the sky was a mirror reflection of the right side of the sky.

• 27:18Speaker 01

  Those jerks.

• 27:22Speaker 01

  You know, there's so many night star shots in A Million Ways.

• 27:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Haven't seen it yet, but I feel like I've seen 17 different promos.

• 27:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Can I staple it together? Is that the whole movie?

• 27:31Speaker 01

  You can amazingly, you know, we get asked a lot, amazingly, there are so many jokes that are not in the trailers. It actually isn't a situation where...

• 27:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The best jokes are in the trailer.

• 27:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, you never want that.

• 27:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, man.

• 27:40Speaker 01

  You never want to ruin all your... The Doc Brown joke, I kind of wish we had saved, but it's one of many surprises of that type.

• 27:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, just so people know, that was filmed outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico, at the same time we were filming, while we were filming Cosmos.

• 27:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the studio. So, we got to use some of the overhead, the cost of cranes or booms or whatever. So, thanks for...

• 28:00Speaker 01

  Oh, sure.

• 28:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Riding your cinematic hotel.

• 28:03Speaker 01

  Hey, you know, the past and the future, working together.

• 28:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because, obviously, your movie budget is way bigger than our TV budget, but I felt like a part of the family.

• 28:11Speaker 01

  Oh, Neil, always. You were always a part of the family, my friend.

• 28:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, how many night skies did you have to get right?

• 28:16Speaker 01

  I don't know. You know, we called the effects house and we were like, "Just, please, just check with Neil on all this stuff."

• 28:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got a few phone calls, but they didn't ask me to give them a sky, but I think they knew they were all on notice.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  It may be a disaster.

• 28:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, they were all on notice.

• 28:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if they're not right, I'll tweet about it.

• 28:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, please do.

• 28:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'll certainly be taking a very close look at the night skies featured in A Million Ways to Die in the West. And when I do, I'll give you a full report. You know, one of the great things about Seth MacFarlane is his desire to get such scientific details right. And his passion for science not only led him to become the executive producer for Cosmos, he also acquired the full collection of Carl Sagan's papers and donated them to the archives of the Library of Congress. He said, and I quote, "The work of Carl Sagan has been a profound influence in my life and the life of every individual who recognizes the importance of humanity's ongoing commitment to the exploration of our universe."

• 29:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When StarTalk Radio returns, we'll have more of my interview with the actor, movie director, and science enthusiast Seth MacFarlane.

• 29:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, come on. If Mission Control thought we could help get the shuttle out of orbit, it can't be that hard.

• 29:33Speaker 06

  Okay, okay, uh, try this. Hit up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start. Then we'll have unlimited lives.

• 29:40Speaker 07

  Come on, we're running out of time! Oh, Meg. All your suicide threats over the years, and you're just as chicken [BLEEP] as the rest of us.

• 29:46Speaker 08

  Hey, guys. I think I have an idea that could help us. In space camp, we learned about countering forward momentum with retro-rockets. If we use them now, the ship might slow down enough for gravity to pull us out of orbit.

• 29:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chris, if you think it'll help, just try it.

• 30:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, we're slowing down. That's a good sign.

• 30:07Speaker 09

  Oh my god, I think it might be working!

• 30:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're spinning out!

• 30:16Speaker 08

  I have to reorient the retro-rockets to counter the spin-rotation!

• 30:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A long time ago, in a world lit only by fire, our relationship with the stars was far more... ...personal. For thousands of generations, we watched the stars as if our lives depended on it. Because they did.

• 30:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We humans, we're not the biggest, the strongest, nor the fastest of all the animals we competed against. But we did have one thing going for us: our intelligence. One aspect of that was a genius for pattern recognition. Night after night, we watched the stars. And over time, our ancestors noticed that the motions of the stars across the nights of the year foretold changes on Earth that threatened or enhanced our chances for survival. Welcome back to StarTalk Radio. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson. In this part of my interview with Seth MacFarlane, we spoke of our hopes and expectations of putting the science documentary Cosmos on the Fox Television Network.

• 31:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Was there anything unexpected in your work on Cosmos?

• 31:44Speaker 01

  You know, not really, because it was such a new experience that I really didn't have any expectation, high or low. You know, I thought, I have no idea how this is gonna turn out. This could be spectacularly brilliant, or it could be a misfire and we just can't do this for TV in this day and age.

• 31:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, we knew that it would survive on content, whether or not it would be a commercial success.

• 32:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We knew we'd get the science right.

• 32:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But we'd, no one would know whether it would work.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  Whether it would resonate with people to this degree. And, and you know, when I watch it, I watched that first episode in a screening room, like, my god, this holds up beautifully. It's like you're watching a movie. They're just stunningly spectacular episodes.

• 32:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And coming from your broad background, for you to say that, it meant so much to us. Because we're interlopers in the world here.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  No, it's gorgeous. I mean, it's, it's a real achievement with the number of, the amount of different styles of media that are in that show. It's a hell of an achievement.

• 32:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they would later tell me 13 episodes at a 42-minute broadcast hour is like a nine-hour movie.

• 32:37Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 32:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so I'd look at the call sheets, and I'm the only one that's ever called, you know, actors, you know, who's coming in.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  You, you deserve a lot of credit. There's two things I love about this. Obviously, you know, it's not like Leonardo DiCaprio narrating a movie about climate change. You're an astrophysicist, so if people approach you on the street, having seen the show, you can walk the walk.

• 32:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We have that conversation, right. It's not just, can I take a picture? It's like, tell me more about the black hole.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  But for a guy who has, I, I hope to god I succeed as well as you have in my version of, of what you've just done. Is, you know, for a guy who is stepping up to the camera for the first time to this degree, who is not an actor, who is an astrophysicist, to hold an audience on primetime television for an hour every week is a pretty astonishing achievement.

• 33:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, thank you.

• 33:24Speaker 01

  You're very proud of yourself, my friend.

• 33:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And also, getting back to that bear, is it, how well is it riding a bicycle? Getting back to that, just to see Cosmos discussed in the same sentence with Game of Thrones.

• 33:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, how's it doing against Game of Thrones? It's like, that's a sentence that's so...

• 33:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As host and as executive editor of Cosmos, I've been totally gratified by the very warm, popular reception this series has gotten, as well as the critical reception it has received from reviewers. And I think it may be a sign that America and perhaps the world are ready to sort of move on, to start thinking of objective realities as the foundation of our interactions internationally and the basis of governance. Who knows? We'll see. Finally, I had to ask Seth about his experience on September 11th, 2001. We all have a story from that day.

• 34:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And his has already been featured in our show about the 10th anniversary of 9/11. That's back in season two, episode 30, in the StarTalk archive, in case you want to check it out. And that would be on starTalkradio.net. Back then, my interview with him had been over the phone, but now I had him in person. And I thought it would be worthwhile to touch upon it again. So Seth, is it really true you cheated death in 2001?

• 34:50Speaker 01

  It is true. I cheated death. I gave death a run for its money and patted myself on the back for my ingenuity. I quote Captain Kirk. Yeah, I was booked on the first flight that hit the World Trade Center, Flight 11.

• 35:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From Boston to...

• 35:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, from Logan to LA. And through a combination of a little too much to drink the night before and a travel agent who put on my itinerary that the flight left 10 minutes later than it actually did, I showed up and they had just closed the gate. And so they told me I could take the 11 o'clock. So I went into the lounge and went to sleep and woke up about 45 minutes later. Everybody was huddled around the TV and the first plane had just hit. And I said, my God, that was the plane that I was supposed to be on.

• 35:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So did this totally freak you out?

• 35:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it was very rattling. The first thing that came to my mind oddly was, oh shit, we're all still in this airport. You know, what if something's going to happen here? That was, I remember the first thing that came to mind is that we should probably get out of here.

• 35:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is the kind of event that makes people religious.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  Well, some people.

• 35:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Some people, not this person.

• 35:51Speaker 01

  For better or worse, not me. No, the way I see it is every flight that takes off anywhere, somebody probably misses that flight. You cross the street on your way to work and if you'd crossed the street five minutes later, you would have been hit by a car and you don't even know it. That kind of stuff happens every day. This was, in terms of our culture, just much more visible and profound than something like that.

• 36:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you just understand the statistics of it all?

• 36:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you've missed planes before?

• 36:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, oh yeah. I had missed a lot of planes. I'm perpetually late for everything.

• 36:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Alright, so you couldn't overreact in that kind of way? Okay.

• 36:23Speaker 01

  No.

• 36:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright. Cause I was eyewitness to it. I mean, I lived downtown.

• 36:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 36:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Saw the whole thing. And it was before I knew anything of Family Guy. So this would have been snuffed.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, which some people, I think probably, they would prefer it that way. There was no Family Guy.

• 36:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well Seth, thanks for making time for this.

• 36:37Speaker 01

  Oh, anytime. Always, my friend.

• 36:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've been listening to StarTalk Radio. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson. As always, until next time, I bid you to keep looking up.