Executives at Fox saw the "Larry" shorts and contracted MacFarlane to create a series, entitled "Family Guy", based on the characters. Fox proposed MacFarlane complete a 15-minute short, and gave him a budget of $50,000. Several aspects of "Family Guy" were inspired by the "Larry" shorts. While he worked on the series, the characters of Larry and his dog Steve slowly evolved into Peter and Brian. MacFarlane stated that the difference between "The Life of Larry" and "Family Guy" was that ""Life of Larry" was shown primarily in my dorm room and "Family Guy" was shown after the Super Bowl." After the pilot aired, the series was given the green light. MacFarlane drew inspiration from several sitcoms such as "The Simpsons" and "All in the Family". Premises were drawn from several 1980s Saturday morning cartoons he watched as a child, such as "The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang" and "Rubik, the Amazing Cube".