Do Family Guy Episodes Follow A Particular Pattern?

          Like most animated series, Family Guy has a number of recurring characters which deliver the same type of jokes in various episodes. To start with, there weren't many recurring characters, but in season four many one shot characters from previous episodes turned up, and there are semi-regular characters with long-running jokes.

          Also, the titles of some of the episodes in the first half of the first season, tend to follow the pattern of having words related to death in them, such as 'Death Has a Shadow', 'I never Met the Dead Man', 'Chitty Chitty Death Bang' and 'Mind over Murder'.

          The titles also seem to be parodies of existing television shows or films, such as 'Chitty Chitty Death Bang' ('Chitty Chitty Bang Bang'), 'There's Something About Paulie ('There's Something About Mary'), 'Love Thy Trophy' ('Love Thy Neighbour').