''Family Guy'' was pulled off the air by Fox after just nine episodes in mid-1999. And then again, after trying other time periods, in the fall of 2000. And then again, after more aborted airings, in the spring of 2002, when the vagabond adult cartoon was actually, finally, permanently canceled by the network.

Until its Lazarus-like return three years later.

And now the animated Fox fave airs its 100th episode Sunday (8 p.m. on KSTU Channel 13).

Of course, there's quite a tale in between cancellation and celebration, and it's one not many series could duplicate. This story includes the personal support of cultheads who happened to be network executives. And a vertically integrated corporate structure among producing studio, presenting network and DVD distributor, where the success of one benefits all, and the success of all three powers the universe. And a fan-base sweet spot covering the hardest-to-reach, most-coveted demographic in pop culture.

And lions and tigers and bears.

Just kidding on that last one. You gotta poke indiscriminate fun when it comes to ''Family Guy.'' That's what the show does. As Entertainment Weekly once wrote, series auteur Seth MacFarlane is ''either a rapier wit or a cheap-shot, free-associating vulgarian.''

That may be why much of America didn't ''get'' this scattershot animated sitcom when Fox premiered it to great fanfare in the prime slot following the 1999 Super Bowl. Animator-writer-voice actor MacFarlane, then just 25, had crafted what seemed to be some knockoff of ''The Simpsons,'' with its madcap suburban Rhode Island family with three kids and a dog. Except that dog Brian was an erudite martini-swilling raconteur and baby Stewie (with the football-shaped head) talked like a power-mad demon while scheming to kill his mother and dominate the world.

Mom Lois was sweet but with a demented streak, while dad Peter was a meathead whose insulting blunders made Homer Simpson look intellectual.

Did we mention that MacFarlane's random-access sense of humor relentlessly, ruthlessly (and often pointlessly) mocked the most sacred cows of politics, culture, mass media, any kind of propriety and every sort of race, creed, gender and lifestyle known to man?

Well, now he's really gone and done it. The 100th episode of ''Family Guy'' finds homicidal tot Stewie actually succeeding at the central mission of his diaper-wearing life. The half-hour's title is ''Stewie Kills Lois,'' so you can tell where it's going.

But first, you can see how it got there in a half-hour ''Family Guy 100th Episode Special'' (Sunday at 7:30 p.m.), filled with memorable, outrageous and offensive clips.