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Seth MacFarlane Makes ‘MNF’ Theme Song Joke…But Where Have We Heard It Before?

Ah, the classic Hank Williams Jr. “Are You Ready For Some Football?!?!?!?!” tune that’s brightened many a Monday night through the years. Go on, try not to sing it to yourself now that you’ve been reminded of it – it’s just the right combination of cheesiness and, um, more cheesiness to get you fired up for some gridiron action.

It’s an iconic enough anthem, in fact, that it recently spawned a Twitter joke from Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane:

Congrats to Hank Williams Jr. for his Lifetime Achievement Award from the Football Readiness Institute.

It got retweeted like mad, and it’s easy to see why – it’s a fine joke. In fact, it would probably be one of my favorite jokes I’ve seen in a while…if not for this.

Sadly, MacFarlane has deleted his version of the joke (we’ve got a screengrab below), presumably after finding out The Onion did it almost nine years ago. Perhaps it was the right move, considering MacFarlane doesn’t exactly have a reputation as the most original voice around (ex. the joke at 1:02 of this NSFW clip).

Poor MacFarlane – we assume he had no malicious intent here (and check out the rest of his Twitter – he’s got some good lines, so it’s not like he’s incapable of thinking up something funny), and he still winds up looking like a joke thief.

One day, Seth, you will devise a brilliant line that will be yours and yours alone. And when that day comes, we will be tweeting. Screengrabs of both MacFarlane’s joke and the Onion’s brilliant original from October 31, 2001 (still one of my all-time favorite jokes of theirs) below.

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