Family Guy is not a "show about nothing." Family Guy is a show about jokes. The evidence for this is the following:
1. It continues to rely on cut away jokes where a character says something like, "That reminds me of the time I . . ." and it cuts away from the main action to show something that the character just said. This is a way of telling a joke. You get a set up in the main action and a punchline--often a visual punchline--in the cut away.
2. It has no consistent metaphysics. In Family Guy, the Pilsbury Doughboy will show up inexplicably, Kool Aid Man will burst through walls, and the characters are capable of any feat including squeezing Play-Do out of their heads to create hair, or in Bryan's case, being 7 years old, but having a 14 year old human son. This flexibility allows the writers to do whatever they want in service of the jokes.
3. They tell actual jokes on the show. I don't have a good example off the top of my head, but listen to Quagmire's lines. Many of them are jokes you have heard before. Maybe in an email forward, maybe from a friend. But they are still just jokes you tell people.
