It became increasingly common for Adult Swim to act as a home for reruns of animated series that had been canceled prematurely, such as "Home Movies", "Baby Blues", "Mission Hill", "The Oblongs", "The Ripping Friends", "Futurama", "Family Guy", and "God, the Devil and Bob", as well as burn off remaining episodes of said shows that never aired on their original networks, as a result of their premature cancellation. The block obtained "Futurama"'s exclusive pay-TV syndication rights in September 2001 for a reported $10 million, and the series first aired on the network on January 12, 2003. "Family Guy" premiered on Adult Swim on April 20, 2003, debuting with the episode "Brian in Love", and immediately became the block's top-rated program, dominating late night viewing in its time period vs. pay-television and free-to-air competition and boosting viewership of both the block, and Cartoon Network itself, by 239 percent. (Seth MacFarlane had previously created "Larry and Steve", a cartoon predecessor to "Family Guy", that was aired on Cartoon Network's "What a Cartoon! Show" in 1997. MacFarlane had also worked on several Cartoon Network shows, such as "Johnny Bravo" and "Dexter's Laboratory").