RIP, Brian.

Good... I think he's the most boring character on FG. What were they thinking in giving him a spin-off series?

Apparently, that episode was their holiday special (aired on Dec. 15th). I'm not surprised it was just a stunt.

[Off-topic:] At present, I have a head cold and I feel like hell. Am I dead, or merely animated?

O.k. I'll admit that I never really warmed to the world of Seth McFarlane. His stuff always sounded like the kind of humor that one grows out of with time. All that snarky, self-referential stuff seemed to telegraph its destination miles ahead of its arrival (if that makes any sense—I am running a fever).

Well, the biggest difference between all dead and mostly dead is simple- with simply dead, they are slightly alive. But with all dead, all you can do is go through their pockets looking for loose change. ^_~ (I so hope someone gets that joke!)

Take this miracle pill. The chocolate coating makes it go down easier.

Not to get too far off-topic, but I can name two examples of Only Slightly Dead:
1) Diego the sabertooth at the end of Ice Age. Though the villainous Soto was defeated, Diego was badly hurt in the battle, and lay in the snow unable to continue. Sid and Manfred left him once Diego lost consciousness; they believed Diego had perished. Fortunately, Diego later reunited with his friends. "Nine lives, baby!" Justifiable, in that a death-like stasis to repair critical injury is a known survival mechanism for felines.
2) Large, muscular rabbit Bigwig gets caught in a wire snare in Watership Down. Though the other rabbits are able to sever the anchor to the snare, thus removing the constriction of Bigwig's airway, Bigwig blacks out. His fellow rabbits mourn his loss: "My heart has joined the Thousand (id est, predators of rabbits), for my friend stopped running today." However, when little Fiver berates his colleagues for wanting to return to Cowslip's doomed warren, Bigwig concurs in a raspy rumble.

A show like Family Guy runs on the premise of sympathetic goofballs surrounded by affable morons. There's a limit to how much their characterization can grow before the main cast becomes either unworkable for the material or pigeonholed into narrow possibilities. Fans tend to like the Status Quo, so fan outcry may have brought Brian back from "the dead." Or MacFarlane was just yanking our chain. Either way, all lessons learned get un-learned, all aesops forgotten, and growth in the characters gets undone. Set them up like fresh bowling pins to await the next bowling ball of Fate.