Fox has removed from its web site a recent episode of "Family Guy," which showed mass deaths at the Boston Marathon.
A doctored version of the clip, which made fun of Monday's terrorist attack at the marathon, has since circulated online.
Fox Broadcasting refused to comment. But Seth MacFarlane, creator of the "Family Guy" cartoon, condemned the hoax episode in a Tuesday tweet.
"The edited Family Guy clip currently circulating is abhorrent," he tweeted. "The event was a crime and a tragedy, and my thoughts are with the victims."
The "Turban Cowboy" episode was originally broadcast on March 17, and Fox confirmed that it has since been pulled from Fox.com and Hulu.
The episode showed the main character of the show Peter Griffin mowing down other runners with a car in a bid to win the marathon.
The online hoax spliced together two clips from the original episode. The hoax showed Griffin appearing to trigger explosions with his cell phone, while depicting the scene of bloody carnage when he drove his car through the runners.
This is really absurd. They might as well shut down the whole Family Guy and while they are at it the American Dad; the carnage these cartoon characters sometimes leave behind is on a regular basis. So what if tomorrow a guy started a fight with a chicken and trashed half the city?
"Fire cannot kill a dragon." -Daenerys Targaryen, Game of Thrones
