Seth Green

Family Guy star Seth Green is working on an animated sitcom based on the Star Wars saga, according to the head of licensing at Lucasfilm.

Howard Roffman said the series would premiere "within the next two years" but refused to be drawn on details.

Taboo-busting animation Family Guy has already created three one-off specials based on the first Star Wars trilogy.

Roffman added that inspiration had also been drawn from French And Saunders’ spoof of The Phantom Menace.

The extended sketch, which aired in a 1999 Christmas special, starred the comedy duo as Toby Jugs Kenobi (Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan Kenobi) and Pork Dim Sum (Liam Neeson’s Qui-Gon Jinn).

Robot R2D2 was played by 1970s game show character Dusty Bin.

Parodying the film’s labyrinthine plot, which revolves around a series of trade negotiations, the main characters spend time delivering tedious exposition full of meaningless jargon.

"We have been dispatched here to negotiate the present blockade and thereby relieve the present turmoil and accelerate the plans of the trade union congress of the deltoid outer nebobbian haemorrhoid rim," notes Kinobi in one scene.

Roffman said he had shown the spoof to Star Wars creator George Lucas "with trepidation in my heart, but I don’t think I have ever seen him laugh that hard!"

Green, who plays the imbecile son Chris Griffin in Family Guy, is also the co-creator of anarchic animation Robot Chicken. Both series have produced parodies of the Star Wars films.

French and Saunders in their Phantom Menace spoof French and Saunders took on the roles originally played by Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor

In Family Guy episode Something, Something, Dark Side - a retelling of The Empire Strikes Back - the makers poke fun at the genre conventions of science fiction.

"May I have everyone’s attention please?" says Princess Leia, addressing the rebel forces.

"We’re evacuating into outer space with literally infinite directions in which to flee. However, we have decided that our transports will travel directly towards the fleet of Star Destroyers. Any questions?"

Even the iconic Star Wars title sequence is parodied: "It is a time of civil war and renegade paragraphs flying through space."

Speaking at the Brand Licensing convention in London, Roffman said that in addition to the animated series, a live action TV programme based on the Star Wars universe was under consideration.

He had previously described the much-rumoured programme as "an ambitious move".

"We have to solve the problem of not being able to produce movie quality programming on a TV budget," he told Marketing Week earlier this month.

The Star Wars franchise is one of the most lucrative in film history, worth almost $23 billion (£14.57 billion) since the series’ cinematic debut in 1977.

In addition to video games, collectable characters and other merchandise, a 3D version of The Phantom Menace will be released in February next year.