On screen, the live-action Peter—a sweaty, balding man in stained khakis—turned to the camera and squinted.

On the TV, the animation style glitched. Stewie, rendered in stunning, terrifying photorealism for a single frame, looked directly at the audience. His head tilted, a tiny, menacing smile playing on his all-too-human lips.

"Victory is mine," the hyper-realistic Stewie whispered, "and it begins with your credit card number."

The screen went black. Then, a single line of text appeared, not in the signature Family Guy font, but in stark, white Arial: