Mayor West is characterized as an intense yet friendly, soft-spoken, childish crackpot whose delusions often came at great expense and sometimes danger to citizens of Quahog. His psychotic whims include dispatching the entire Quahog police department to Cartagena, Colombia, to search for the fictional character Elaine Wilder from the film Romancing the Stone, or wasting council money on a solid gold statue of the Dig 'Em frog and cementing coffins since he is afraid the dead will return as zombies. In the episode "420", he legalizes marijuana after listening to a song Brian sings, only to re-criminalize it a few days later when Brian is forced to sing a song condemning the substance. He was also a brainwashed Russian sleeper spy activated by the phrase "Gosh, that Italian family at the next table sure is quiet". In the episode "Brothers & Sisters", he marries Lois' sister Carol. In "Road to the Multiverse", it is revealed that he is 95% helium. The episode "Dr. C and the Women" strongly suggests he is fully sane and his bizarre antics are actually a smokescreen to throw people off and cover up a dark, murderous side.
Development
Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane wrote several episodes of the cartoon seriesJohnny Bravo. West played a similarly intense and odd rendition of himself in an episode written by MacFarlane, "Johnny Meets Adam West!", first broadcast in December 1997. In the episode, West's fictionalized persona displays similar deluded characteristics to the later Family Guy character, such as believing a race of megalomaniac mole-people lives under a local golf course. However, he dressed formally and behaved slightly similarly to his character in the 1960s series of Batman. MacFarlane found West's character and performance in Johnny Bravo so funny that he created a similar character for Family Guy. Following the real Adam West's death on June 9, 2017, Mayor West died offscreen in Family Guy as revealed in the episode "Adam West High". Following his death, MacFarlane said, "Family Guy has lost its mayor. He is irreplaceable". Producer Steve Callaghan told Entertainment Weekly that there were still five unaired episodes featuring West that would air in the upcoming season. Callaghan revealed that they had not decided how they were going to address the departure of West's character from the series, while also revealing that it is something they have been dealing with concerning the loss of Carrie Fisher in December 2016. Callaghan went on to say that both the departures of Fisher and West from the show will certainly reflect the importance that each of their characters and actors had within the series.
