Last month, many saw the death of beloved ‘Family Guy’ character Brian as nothing more than a stunt, not believing the popular Fox series would permanently kill a fan favorite character.  And it looks like they may have been right.

Though Fox has declined to comment, reports have indicated that killed off family dog Brian is set to appear in an upcoming episode, slated to air on December 15th.  The plot for the episode, called “Christmas Guy”, states that “Stewie devises a master plan to get the one and only thing he wants for Christmas,” and the deceased dog is listed as an appearing character.  Brian is also listed for further episodes into the next season, for example one where Brian falls for a jogger voiced by SNL-Alumni Maya Rudolph.

Brian was run over by a car on the November 24th episode, and Stewie was unable to repair his destroyed time machine in order to save his friend.  The Griffins have already moved on and brought a new dog home, Vinny, voiced by Tony Sirico.  Executive Producer Steve Callaghan claimed that the decision to kill off Brian was made to shake up the show,

As soon as this idea came up, we started talking about what the next couple episodes could be and we got very excited about the way this change will affect the family dynamics and the characters.

While many fans believed the death to be nothing more than a publicity stunt, others believed the death to be legit and started a petition to bring Brian back, quickly gaining over 125,000 signatures.

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