Cartoons kill off characters all the time, like South Park and Kenny. They're usually back before the end of the episode because, after all, it's a cartoon.
There's numerous reasons why otherwise lighthearted shows kill off recurring characters. In the case of Brian Griffin in Family Guy, it was probably to reduce Seth MacFarlane's workload.
In other cases, it's to nab ratings for sweeps by killing off an unecessary character, like when they killed off Maude Flanders in The Simspson.
Maude was just the most memorable character, but there's been dozens of others, like Bleeding Gums Murphy, Dr.Nick Rivera, Snowball II, etc..It's a simple formula: take a character no one really likes and kill them off, base the whole episode on the characters dealing with the death and you've got an Emmy.
King of the Hill pulled the same shit too as a rating booster when they killed Luanne's boyfriend with propane, or the Cleavland Show where they killed Cleavland's cheating ex-wife, Loretta. Those deaths didn't really effect the show, but allowed them to explore the grieving process, which isn't particularly funny. Since these are cartoons, it's like they're trying to explain death to children with puppets, which isn't their job in the first place.
South Park sometimes has dozens of deaths per episode. When Chef was killed off (only to be brought back as Darth Chef) it turned out to be bittersweet, mainly because of the fake-out. The episode initially dealt with Isaac Hayes leaving the show due to a conflict of interest (Scientology), but with the chracter reappearing early on it made it seem as though he'd somehow come back. It quickly became apparent that they'd intentionally dubbed his voice in as badly as they could. It was a classic episode, but it took on a different tone once Isaac Hayes died in real life shortly thereafter.
M.A.S.H. has a half-dozen examples of characters being killed off, which is little wonder because it's spun-off of a movie that begins with a dentist commiting suicide. The theme song was written by a fifteen-year-old and has the lyrics, "Suicide is painless and it brings on many changes." (It doesn't ryhme well.) Pick a character like the Colonel or Radar on the show and the either died off-camera or saw someone die. ("IT WAS A BABY!")
Remember in Seinfeld when George's fiancee died because he was too cheap and bought tainted envelopes? That was dark. It single-handedly saved the show from evolving. It could have gone off in a whole different direction with George becoming a husband and possibly a father while hanging around with his single friends, but instead they up and killed his fiancee. They managed to get a few extra episodes out of her death too as George tries to con her parents into thinking he has a upscale second home when he doesn't, and another episode where he tries to find an applicant he likes for a tuition set up in his former fiancee's name.
Then there's the last episode of How I Met Your Mother where the real identity of the "mother" was revealed. Surprise! She's dead, and Bob Saggat's voice has been telling his kids the story over the course of the series to explain why he wants to move on and bang their aunt. Classy.
Sometimes characters have to be written out of the show as the actors who play them quit or are fired. Take Two-and-a-Half Men after Charlie Sheen goes on an world-famous bender and has the most public breakdown since Britney Spears. They had to write him out somehow, so the chose to have him explode like a bag of meat after being hit by a metro train. Don't cry for him, he made more money being fired than you'll ever make working your whole life. You and your children and your children's children. who by then might also be Charlie Sheen's children. Charlie was the main character, though, so it was a little odd for the show to keep going.
It was just as odd as when John Ritter died during the ongoing production of 8 Simple Rules. John was basically the show, and he died, but they kept it going for FUCKING 45 more episodes. It was ballsy in the first place to keep the show going, especially after such a dark turn, but John was only in 31 of 76 episodes. That kind of takes away a lot of the brunt of losing him.What a way to honour a great man's legacy than to prove how unecessary he was to begin with. If a fictional character is that replacable, how replacable are we?
Then there's sitcoms where chracters died because their real-life actors died. This happened to News Radio and Suddenly Susan, two light-hearted comedies about journalism. In News Radio, the legend Phil Hartman was inexplicably muredered by his wife and the whole cast had to come back for the season premier and do an episode where they share memories about his character. The tears were real. They had to bring in John Lovitz, one of his closest friends to replace him, which was off because he'd already played a suicidal separate character in a previous episode.
In Suddenly Susan, the character of Todd Stiles died after the actor, David Strickland committed suicide. Simmilar to News Radio, the cast had to come back after a break and reminisce. The cast shed real tears and could barely make it through their lines. Hilarious! The series itself was light on humour, despite being a sitcom, but that was particularly dark.
So yeah, shit gets dark. Go watch your favourite show tonight and imagine your favourite character dying and how you'll keep watching that show. You fucking weirdo.
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