Seth MacFarlane decries hoax ‘Family Guy’ clip on Boston bombings

Did “Family Guy� really predict the horrific Boston Marathon bombings in an episode that aired last month? No, but that’s the latest hoax making the rounds on the Internet a day after the tragedy.

The carefully edited clip that supposedly supports this theory got so much exposure that “Family Guy� creator Seth MacFarlane himself took to Twitter to denounce it.

“The edited Family Guy clip currently circulating is abhorrent,� he wrote. “The event was a crime and a tragedy, and my thoughts are with the victims.�

FULL COVERAGE: Boston Marathon attack

The edited clips came from an episode that aired last month titled “Turban Cowboy.� In the edited version, the show’s main character, Peter Griffin, appears to use a cellphone to trigger a pair of explosions in order to win a race.

While all the clips were taken from the episode in question, which did feature a terrorism-related story, they did not appear in such a way as to suggest that this was the inspiration for or a prediction of the Boston bombing.

VIDEO: Boston marathon explosion

The clip and theory was first put forth by conspiracy-theorizing talk radio host Alex Jones’ website InfoWars.com, whose founder tweeted shortly after the bombing on Monday that he suspected it was a “false flag� operation perpetrated by the U.S. government.

After getting wide dissemination online, the clip in question has been pulled from the YouTube website.

[Updated, 3:40 p.m. April 16: The Associated Press reports that Fox has elected to remove the “Turban Cowboy� episode of “Family Guy� from Hulu.com and Fox.com and has no immediate plans to re-air it.]

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