Family Guy's Giant Chicken Is Dead After 23 Seasons, EPs Confirm: Ernie 'Has Gone The Way Of All Flesh' (Exclusive)

There's one character Family Guy fans shouldn't expect to see when the show returns for Season 24: Ernie, the giant chicken with whom Peter Griffin has faced off multiple times since he was first introduced in Season 1, is officially dead.

Ernie's fate was left in question earlier this year, following his appearance in Season 23's "The Chicken or the Meg," in which Meg began an ill-advised romance with Ernie's teenage son Nugget. Despite Ernie's brutally violent history with Peter, the giant chicken welcomed Meg into the family with open wings — that is, until another chance encounter led him to give Meg an ultimatum: either cut ties with Peter or stop dating Nugget.

This didn't sit well with Meg, who realized that Ernie was just as bad as her own father — possibly even worse — and proceeded to decapitate him, leaving his headless body to run around the front yard for a few seconds before finally slumping over.

But in the world of Family Guy, where Peter and other main characters have been "killed" countless times, would Ernie's death really stick? Seven months after "The Chicken or the Meg" first aired, we finally have our answer.

"I think that the chicken has gone the way of all flesh," executive producer Alec Sulkin confirms to TVLine. "Honestly, I feel like we got so many great set pieces out of the giant chicken fighting with Peter that they became hard to top. It's a lot to ask of our production crew, and we may have just gotten the best out of that character."

Fellow executive producer Richard Appel points back to Family Guy's 2014 crossover with The Simpsons, in which Peter and Homer engaged in a massive chicken-style fight that involved a variety of characters from both shows. "When you watch that, it's hard to know where you take that further," he admits of those comically long action sequences.

Only a handful of recurring characters have truly died on Family Guy, the most recent being Stewie's classroom nemesis Doug (voiced by Chris Parnell), who was killed off-screen in a commuter plane crash in Season 21.

Though Family Guy doesn't return to Fox for Season 24 until 2026, Hulu is tiding fans over with another pair of holiday specials; the Halloween installment, "A Little Fright Music," premieres Monday, Oct. 6, while a date for the Christmas special has not yet been announced.

Are you disappointed to know that Ernie has fought his last chicken fight in Quahog, or do you agree that it was time for him to go? Drop a comment with your thoughts below.