Rhode Island native Danny Smith and Seth MacFarlane (an honorary Rhode Islander by way of RISD) perform together during “An Evening With The Cast and Creators of Family Guy” in August.

Fox TV

Danny Smith is a Family Guy. He’s also a Rhode Island guy. And for that twofer, he’s going to get an award.

“Danny Smith has done much in his Hollywood career to promote Rhode Island and our valley to a national audience,” says Robert Billington, president of the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council. “As a local native who built his creative talents here in the Ocean State, we are very honored to recognize him this year.”

Smith is the recipient of the tourism council’s 24th annual Excellence in the Arts Award. The dinner and award ceremony, which is open to the public, is Thursday at Twin River. However, on Sunday night Smith, an executive producer and head writer for Family Guy, could win another award, an Emmy, for the animated sitcom series that he develops with its creator, Seth McFarlane, another Rhode Island guy (by way of RISD).

“My agent said he found a job for me on a cartoon created by a 24-year-old on his kitchen table,” Smith says. “No joke, I said, ‘Is this the end of my career?’ ”

Actually, it was the culmination of a career that now extends 20 years as a Hollywood TV writer. But the foundation of that career began here in Rhode Island.

After graduating from Smithfield High School in 1977, Smith went to Rhode Island College, where he graduated in 1981, and where, by default, he found his artistic focus.

“I entered as an art major. I wanted to be a Disney animator. About two years into it, I figured out I couldn’t draw well enough to do that.”

On his art projects, Smith says he received grades of A for his ideas, and grades of C for his execution of those ideas.

“I realized I was supposed to be a writer, not an artist.”

Smith decided to minor in English. And with his well-rounded education, he landed a job lugging golf bags as a caddy at a country club. But one day when Smith was off the links, he strolled through the Lincoln Mall and found a poster promoting auditions for a local TV program, PM Magazine. Smith got the job, which was supposed to be for just five segments, but extended to two years.

Lucrative it wasn’t.

“I had to sell cable TV at night to supplement my income. When I went to people’s doors, they recognized me from TV and didn’t know if I was doing a comedy bit.”

Smith asked for a raise, which he didn’t get. And his then-wife suggested he move to where he could make a living as a TV writer.

“We packed everything we could into her Chevette and drove to California like the Beverly Hillbillies.”

It was 1984. Smith went back to cable TV, selling service door-to-door.

He eventually found jobs writing for such shows as Nurses, 3rd Rock from the Sun and Head of the Class. In the late 1990s, while working on Soul Man starring Dan Aykroyd, his agent sent him a tape of a new pilot called Family Guy.

“I couldn’t get over how inventive, funny and edgy it was.”

Smith agreed to work on the show, and then met with McFarlane, who grew up in Kent, Conn., and who graduated from RISD in 1995. The first question McFarlane asked Smith was where he was from.

“He recognized my Rhode Island accent. We just started talking about Buddy Cianci, Haven Brothers, Del’s Lemonade and the drunk, fat Irish cousins we had. We hit it off immediately.”

Initially, Family Guy wasn’t set in any particular part of the country, but network executives wanted the show to have a sense of place. So Smith and McFarlane came up with Quahog, R.I.

The show is quite a success, now. But it was cancelled in 2002 after 3 years on the air. Fan support — 3.5 million DVDs were purchased, and reruns on Cartoon Network boosted viewership by 239 percent — persuaded Fox to bring Family Guy back.

“Characters in sitcoms usually learn something in every show. On Family Guy nobody ever learns a damn thing. Everyone remains just as stupid and full of themselves.”

In order to qualify for the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council’s Excellence in the Arts Award, recipients must have lived in the area and worked in the arts, ideally in a way that promotes the state. Past winners include Kevin Lima, a director at Disney, and movie makers Michael Corrente and Bobby and Peter Farrelly.

“Bill Murray says Hollywood prepares you to fail, but it doesn’t prepare you to succeed. When it happens, you say, ‘Now what do I do?’ We’re trying hard to keep the show fresh. At first we were trying hard not to do something The Simpsons had done. Now we’re trying hard not to do something that we’ve already done.”

The Excellence in the Arts Award evening is Thursday at Twin River in Lincoln. There’s an auction at 5:30 p.m. and a dinner at 7 p.m. Tickets are $55, $35 for students. For reservations, visit tourblackstone.com or call (401) 724-2200.

brourke@projo.com