Lainey Wilson Joins ‘Family Guy’ Christmas Special & Sings New Theme Song

Family Guy is bringing out the big guns for their holiday special in the form of country music sensation Lainey Wilson, who makes her animated debut on the Fox series, and the reason behind it is both hysterical and perfectly sensible.

On Friday, November 28, Family Guy unleashes its answer to the annual onslaught of holiday films with its own takedown of Christmas romantic melodramas, a gleefully savage spin on the meet-cute-by-way-of-mistletoe formula that dominates every streamer and network once November hits. Disney’s Hulu’s Family Guy’s Hallmark Channel’s Lifetime’s Familiar Holiday Movie, which takes aim at the massive amount of generic holiday movies released the minute Halloween ends.

Brimming with clichés and drenched in saccharine romance, the holiday special skewers audiences’ obsession with formulaic Christmas films centered on the business-minded single woman who puts her career ahead of love, this time by placing Lois (voiced by Alex Borstein) at the heart of the melodrama as she falls for small-town mechanic Peter (voiced by series creator Seth MacFarlane).

Disney/Hulu

And to give the parody an extra touch of legitimacy to its Lifetime/Hallmark counterparts, the team brought in the big guns: Lainey Wilson, who lends her voice to the special’s theme song. She adds to the long tradition of country singers who lend their voices to Christmas movies, singing ballads about the meaning of the holiday and what it means to be a girl on the go.

“We did get the country music star, Lainey Wilson, to come in and do that theme, which was a really nice, authentic addition,” said showrunner and executive producer Rich Appel.

“Like so many of the great guest appearances on Family Guy, Lainey’s is due to our casting director Christine Terry, who thought she’d be perfect. If the part had called for, say, an ABBA tribute band, we might have been a little more helpful.”

As it stands, Wilson can be seen busking as Lois runs by, skillfully working the hefty title of the special into song.

She joins the ranks of other notable country stars who have lent their voices to the Fox animated hit, including Conway Twitty, whose running gags became a series staple; Waylon Jennings, who reprised his role as “The Balladeer” from The Dukes of Hazzard in the Season 3 episode “To Love and Die in Dixie”; Anne Murray, who appeared in a Season 11 installment; and the late Kenny Rogers, a frequent and beloved guest throughout the series.

Disney’s Hulu’s Family Guy’s Hallmark Channel’s Lifetime’s Familiar Holiday Movie, Friday, November 28, Hulu