In the wake of the recent passing of beloved director/part-time weatherman David Lynch, it’s worth remembering that one of his best talents was his acting. He always nailed it in his live-action performances, be it as Gordon Cole in “Twin Peaks” or as John Ford in “The Fabelmans,” but he brought his A-game to voice acting, too. Case in point: The 2016, season 15 episode of “Family Guy,” “How the Griffins Stole Christmas.” Lynch doesn’t play a major role, but he does pop up in a cutaway that asks the question, “What if instead of Santa Clause coming down the chimney, it was David Lynch? The result is something that any “Twin Peaks” fan can surely appreciate:

What’s nice about this cutaway is that the writers of it clearly seem to have actually watched Lynch’s work and can make specific jokes about it. On social media, you’ll often see people attempt to joke about Lynch’s work and they’ll make it clear that “Lynch = weird” is the most thought they’ve put into it, but I think it’s safe to say that at least one “Family Guy” writer is a true Lynch fan. And that makes sense: “Family Guy,” like most Seth MacFarlane-created works, is a show obsessed with pop culture from the ’80s and ’90s, and “Twin Peaks” is one of the most iconic works to come out of that period. 

It totally fits that “Family Guy” would want Lynch to guest star on their show. The real question is why David Lynch would want to act for “Family Guy,” a show that seemingly has little in common with Lynch’s most famous works. His appearance on “Family Guy” was not quite on the same level of absurdity as John Waters cameoing in an “Alvin and the Chipmunks” movie, but it is still a little strange. 

Some Lynch fans may be surprised to discover that Lynch was a recurring character on all four seasons of “The Cleveland Show.” He played the bartender Gus, a guy who was odd yet friendly, and who also sure seemed to have a lot of eccentric qualities in common with Lynch himself. In terms of how much prominence bartenders have in cartoon shows, Gus is a step below Moe Szyslak from “The Simpsons” but definitely given more personality than Jerome or Horace in “Family Guy.”

In a 2010 Entertainment Weekly interview, “The Cleveland Show” creator Mike Henry said he wasn’t sure if Lynch was even aware of the “Family Guy” universe before signing onto the series, but that he wanted the eccentric director involved anyway. As he explained:

“I am a huge David Lynch fan. I have been greatly inspired by his true uniqueness. Back in the day, when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do after college, I saw ‘Wild at Heart’ and I got in my car and moved to California. I figured if this guy could do something this weird and hilarious and awesome then I’m going to go for it. You know, I talked to him on the phone, I told him about the show, and he was completely down. And so he’s our eccentric bartender.”

As for what Lynch himself thought of the show? Henry revealed, “I talked to him the other day and he said that he had seen a couple and that we were doing ‘great work.’ So I’m just going to take that at face value.”

Assuming Lynch was being legit, what was it that appealed to him about “The Cleveland Show” anyway? The show was not, as “Family Guy” itself would point out after it was canceled, a particularly well-received series. In a 2010 tweet, Lynch gave a brief explanation for why he took on the project: “Mike Henry asked me to do it, so I said yes.”

Lynch never elaborated much on his reasons for saying yes to roles in the “Family Guy” extended universe (all while saying no to voice work in “Gravity Falls”), but beyond Mike Henry’s request, one possible appeal is “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane’s genuine love of musicals. “Family Guy” may be sarcastic and edgy, sure, but MacFarlane has a pure love for music and he will often pause the whole show to do an elaborate musical number. Peter singing the entirety of “Shipoopi” in an otherwise non-musical episode is pure extravagant self-indulgence and something that breaks every basic rule of screenwriting, but “Family Guy” did it anyway. “The Cleveland Show” wasn’t quite as big on musical sequences, but couldn’t resist doing them occasionally, either. 

There’s nothing that screams “Lynchian” about MacFarlane’s love of music, exactly, but it does share a central part of Lynch’s appeal: MacFarlane’s work, much like Lynch’s, is not as ironic or as cynical as its reputation suggests. “Family Guy” isn’t making fun of the old musical sequences they’re parodying, just as Lynch genuinely does seem to love small-town American life, even if it might seem at first glance like he doesn’t. (Lynch also loves himself a musical non-sequitur.)

Another potential appeal of “Family Guy” to Lynch is the show’s constant feuding with the networks, and its constant willingness to mess with the audience. Like how ABC kept interfering with the production of “Twin Peaks,” Fox notoriously mishandled “Family Guy” in its early seasons. And much like how certain “Twin Peaks” viewers complained at the time about the weird surreal stuff only for Lynch to double down, “Family Guy” viewers would complain about those longwinded Conway Twitty asides only for “Family Guy” to keep on doing them. “Family Guy” and David Lynch may not have a ton in common, but at least they both like to thumb their noses at television norms. When pondering why Lynch would want to cameo on the show two years after “The Cleveland Show” was canceled, there’s no shortage of reasonable explanations.