The Life of Larry and Larry & Steve

The Life of Larry and Larry & Steve are two animated short films created by Seth MacFarlane in the mid-1990s that eventually led to the development of the animated sitcom Family Guy. The cartoons feature a middle-aged man named Larry Cummings and an intellectual dog named Steve.  Executives at Fox saw both Larry shorts and contracted MacFarlane to create a series based on the characters, to be called Family Guy. Peter Griffin, the main character of Family Guy, was largely based on Larry while Steve served as the main inspiration behind the Griffin family dog Brian.