Seth MacFarlane is the genius behind News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) Family Guy animated television series. But why should News Corp. have all the fun programming cool content? That's apparently what Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) was thinking when it signed up Seth MacFarlane to produce a series of short animated clips for the Google Content Network.

According to The New York Times, MacFarlane has created something called Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy. Little two-minute clips will be distributed to various websites that key in on the youthful male demographic which loves Family Guy. When users click on the clips, they will perhaps see an ad before the thing starts or some sort of banner attached to it. They might also simply see the name of the presenting sponsor before watching. Google will split monies generated by the ads with MacFarlane, the website that features the clip, and Media Rights Capital, the entity which sells the inventory.

I love the idea of the Google Content Network and I think that, over time, it should be a great success, but as with any novel platform, it all comes down to the word in the middle -- content. Google will live and die by the quality of the content because, although lesser-quality stuff might still find an audience in other mediums, the web has such intense competition for eyeballs that have minuscule attention spans. If the clips don't grab the viewer right away, then the ad inventory won't be as valuable to the buyers.

Granted, MacFarlane's name is going to bring in a lot of surfing eyeballs, but I'd have to believe that, in the back of Google's corporate mind, they are counting on acquiring innovative content from less established talent that won't demand as much compensation and/or budget expenditures as MacFarlane will. Google, after all, believes wholeheartedly in the power of the unknown to drive shareholder value since it paid a lot of money for YouTube. I concede, though, that a big brand name will act as a needed catalyst for the platform.

MacFarlane will have a lot of his followers watching this series when it debuts in a couple months, but I do have to say that the example clip mentioned in the article centering on mad cow disease didn't sound too funny to me. Hopefully it's just an example of something that needs to be seen to be enjoyed. Whatever happens, I think Google's foray into these kinds of content-development deals and novel advertising platforms will pay dividends down the road, and I think Google should definitely look for unknowns to help program the space.

Disclosure: I don't own any company mentioned; positions can change at any time.