< Family Guy

Family Guy/YMMV


  • Accidental Aesop: "Peter-assment": "Sexual harrassment is forgivable and OK if the harrasser is just lonely".
    • "Seahorse Seashell Party" has a disturbing one: "Victims of abuse should stay in their abusive relationships/households for the good of other people, especially their abusers".
  • Alternative Character Interpretation:
    • Does Lois try to do the right thing for her children and husband or has Flanderization turned her into absolutely nothing short of a monstrous shrew?
    • Peter Griffin: a well-meaning idiot who doesn't know any better, or a dangerous sociopath?
  • Artistic License Geography: All right, it really is a stretch to complain about this, of all things, but whoever planned the British attack on Berlin in Road to Germany should get a map of Europe. Delaying over the Black Forest? Are you trying to get your pilots killed? (Though, the writers get credit since it makes sense the plane crashing in the Alps and then drifting the Rhine towards the Black Forest. For the maps earlier which hardly indicate any European landscape... not so much.)
  • Badass Decay:
    • Stewie is considered to have undergone this by many during the show's later seasons. A quick example is "Halloween on Spooner Street," wherein Stewie not only cries after some bullies steal his Halloween candy, he also wonders if he's gone too far promptly after shooting a rocket at them. This is in complete contrast to his characterization in the earlier seasons.
      • However, his earlier characterization seems to have returned in season 10, especially "Leggo My Meg-O."
    • Joe has pretty much been reduced to a joke about the handicapped with rage issues. Few people seem to remember he was a pretty efficient cop who just so happened to be in a wheelchair.
      • That aspect of him returned in Season 9, however.
  • Base Breaker:
    • Brian and Stewie. Meg to a lesser extent.
    • Peter is starting to become one of these as well.
    • Fans also seem divisive as to whether turning Quagmire into a Self-Deprecation avatar counts as an Author's Saving Throw or the complete destruction of his character.
  • Non Sequitur Scene:
    • That overly long fight with the giant chicken.
    • "Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Conway Twitty!"
    • Given the show's humor and writing style, the show is notorious for having random flashbacks and cutaway gags that have no bearing on the plot and no one mentions ever again. Most, if not all episodes, feature at least one Non Sequitur Scene.
  • Broken Base: As far as the entire show goes, you're either in the "Family Guy is the Best Show Ever" camp or the "What The Hell Happened After They Brought It Back?" camp.
  • Cargo Ship:
    • Parodied in the episode "I Dream Of Jesus", where, after Peter loses his "Bird is the Word" record, he goes on a rant and lets slip the fact that he had sex with it.
    • Also this:

Peter: I'm going to go microwave a bagel and have sex with it.
Quagmire: Butter's in the fridge!

    • Peter and a cardboard standee of Kathy Ireland.
  • Clueless Aesop: "Family Gay," which manages to be incredibly homophobic while supposedly promoting gay rights.
    • Arguably any episode with gay rights as the topic, since every gay character is presented as remarkably stereotypical.
    • An episode meant as a vehicle for preaching the merits of legalizing marijuana is not the best place for constant stoner jokes. Especially bad after Brian's speech on how "productivity is skyrocketing and crime is miniscule" is right after a newscast in which the anchors were too stoned to even do their job.
  • Crazy Awesome: Mayor West.
  • Crosses the Line Twice: Stock in trade, apparently. Especially notable is "Terri Schiavo: The Musical". It's a short musical starring preschoolers...about Terri Schiavo. And did we mention it was mere days before the fifth anniversary of her death? That moment crosses the line billions upon billions of times, but eventually lands on an even number.
    • Quagmire's Dad manages to cross this at the very end, his dad had a sex change operation with Peter, Glenn and others not being particularly understanding or funny until Brian meets "her", not knowing that Glenn's dad had had the operation, sleeps with her and finds out the next day when Stewie tells him. He's totally grossed out, taking a cold shower and everything, at the same time Quagmire reconciles with his new mom and his "mom" tells him that she found someone and proceeds to tell Quagmire. Quagmire absolutely freaks out and beats the shit out of Brian, but then just as Quagmire is leaving, Brian picks himself off the floor extremely injured and quips, deadpan "I fucked your dad" and slams the door.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome: "Bag of Weed," the FCC song, Peter's rendition of "Shipoopi".
    • Any of the "special" credits themes, and all of the themes to the "Road to..." episodes
    • "Mr. Booze"
  • Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy: A logical occurrence given perceived Flanderization of the characters, namely with a great many of them becoming Jerkasses and weakening their ability to have an audience sympathize with them.
  • Die for Our Ship: A literally example in the 9th season premier where many Brian/Jillian shippers probably cheered on Derek's death.
  • Discontinuity: The name of this trope was used for a basic cutaway joke in "Dial Meg For Murder"
  • Dude, Not Funny: In-Universe in 'When you Wish Upon a Weinstein'. (Which is ironic, since said episode was banned for awhile.)

Cleveland: Peter, not every Jewish person is good with money.
Peter: Well yeah, not the retarded ones I guess. But-but why would you say that? For shock value?! Geez Clevland, there's 'edgy' and there's 'offensive'.

    • Family Gay can be very disturbing if you're LGBT, or even a straight ally.
    • Even some hardcore fans of Family Guy thought the joke about Quagmire raping Marge Simpson then killing her entire family went too far. It almost ruined Matt and Seth's friendship and Seth admitted they went too far.
    • The 9-11 jokes wouldn't be too bad if there weren't so many of them. This makes it even more jarring when you couple that with the fact that Seth just barely avoided being one of the victims.[1]
    • Most of the Meg-Bashing especially if it is presented as "comedy".
    • In "And I'm Joyce Kinney," there's a news segment about a boy named Angus Reed, who has cerebral palsy. Tom Tucker says that he looks weird, and asks his co - anchor Joyce about the life expectancy of people with cerebral palsy. Her response? "You never see a gray - haired one."
    • In "Stew-Roids," Chris mentions that he became popular by beating up a Jew.
    • "Patriot Games" pulled a subversion of this trope: after watching Celebrity Boxing with Mike Tyson, Peter remarks "You know, Mike Tyson beat his wife once. (Beat) But there's nothing funny about that."
    • One of the latest episodes had a one off gag about school shootings. You don't see anything because Peter is listening over the phone, but you can hear a gun going off and people screaming.
    • There was a joke about Elizabeth Smart — a real life victim of child molestation — getting raped during her nine-month captivity. The punchline of the joke is that Elizabeth is so deeply traumatized by the ordeal that she's constantly thinking about rape, even when she's playing the piano. Fortunately, the real Elizabeth seems to be handling it quite well.
    • The Teaser from "Fore Father", where the family watches a Little House On the Prairie episode where they play pranks on the blind daughter.
    • Peter bashing an old man with cataracts with a baseball bat to steal his bingo board.
    • The random jab at autistic kids in "Tea Peter".

Tom: Autism; is it a real disease or just a lame excuse for kids to forget their manners?

  • Ear Worm: Parodied and played for laughs on the "I Dream Of Jesus" episode with the Trashmen's "Surfing Bird". Peter's obsession for the song quickly degenerates into a nightmare for the rest of the family, with Stewie and Brian eventually stealing and destroying the record.
    • A bag of weed, a bag of weed! Oh, everything is better with a bag of weed!
    • Friendship is the best thing ever!
    • Don't mess with Mr. Booze!
    • What about the theme song?
    • Give it up! Give up the toad now! Its no joke!
  • Ensemble Darkhorse:
    • There's a Facebook group based around one-off character Sneakers O'Toole and Mayor Bee.
    • Ernie the Giant Chicken, Death, the Evil Monkey, Ollie Williams, Seamus, Herbert, Greased-up Deaf Guy, and Bruce (the Performance Artist that has "Oh no!" as a Catch Phrase) are all popular among fans. They were also one time characters before cancellation but due to their popularity they became Recurring Extra's soon after.
  • Fan Disservice: Are so many shots of Peter and Chris naked really necessary?
    • The Greased Up Deaf Guy himself is another example.
  • Forced Meme: Stewie Just Said That.
  • Fridge Brilliance: At one point, Stewie is seen on video auditioning for the Real World. He then shows off his dancing skills and ends up just saying "Look at my fanny, look at my fanny!" While an American audience would think that Stewie was a little boy who was talking about his butt, as many do, "fanny" is female genitalia in Britain, adding a whole new meaning to his video.
    • There's another example of Fridge Brilliance (mixed in with Cerebus Retcon): in "Jerome is the New Black," Quagmire tells Brian that Cheryl Tiegs was the love of his life who left him and the subsequent break-up is the reason why Quagmire is a sex addict. Two past episodes had clues that pointed to this (but seemed like they were insignificant at first glance): in "Emission Impossible," during the scene where Chris shows Quagmire all the things he found on the scavenger hunt, there's a poster of Cheryl Tiegs on Quagmire's refrigerator (you can probably see it better if you have a widescreen TV or a DVD player that can zoom in on pictures and move them to the left or right to see a lot of background sight gags that you can't catch on TV), and in "Barely Legal" (the one where Meg becomes obsessed with Brian after Brian stands up for her at a school dance), Quagmire has the Shel Silverstein book, The Missing Piece and tells Meg that he reads it whenever he feels like he needs to find that piece he lost in his life (which would be Cheryl Tiegs).
      • Also, when the gang is shipwrecked, when discussing being blind Glenn says "Every girl I'd do would be Cheryl Tiegs."
    • More like Fridge Squick, but if the flashbacks concerning Peter Griffin's heritage are legitimate, then he's married Lois more than once.
      • Which explains a lot about the family, when you think about it.
    • Stewie isn't gay. He suffers from gender dysphoria. He seems to wear dresses and behave in a feminine manner rather often.
      • Or it could just be that he's a baby and he hasn't quite come to terms with his sexuality just yet.
    • In one episode, a joke is made about 90% of Monty Python's jokes not being funny. A lot of Monty Python's sketches were funny, but the humor was visual or only made what little sense it did in the context of an extended sequence. The few sketches that everyone remembers (dead parrot, lumberjack song, etc.) are the short, quotable one-liner based bits that get stuck in your head like a catchy pop song - i.e. the exact kind of humor that Family Guy uses constantly, which obviously would appeal to its creators.
      • Not to mention humor that only holds relevance to those that are familiar with 60s British politics and obscure cultural areas.
  • Fridge Horror: The Battle of Endor from It's A Trap! is a lot more disturbing than what's shown in the actual film, but all they did was avert the Bloodless Carnage trope from the original film. The Ewoks still behave the same as they did in the original film.
    • Remember that episode where their stuck in the panic room? When Peter sets off the sprinklers, filling the room with water, he hands the rest of them parachutes, explaining "They're supposed to distract you while I put on the one scuba suit." Funny enough, but when you think about it, there was no reason to have parachutes there. In fact, there was no reason why Peter would include parachutes rather than more scuba suits. Unless it was deliberate. He plotted his own family's death.
    • All the one-off jokes about Meg, Chris, and Stewie having deceased siblings. Knowing Lois's and Peter's flanderized bad parenting skills, they could all be true.
    • In "Big Man On Hippocampus", when Lois is about to have sex with Quagmire, there's a lump in the bed that you think might be his knee, but then when Lois tells him that she trusts him, he gets scared and looks under the covers...and when he puts them back down the lump is gone...
    • In "Back to the Pilot", when all the different Brians and Stewies show up from their respective timelines, one pair was trapped in barber poles, revolving endlessly. Then they puke and it fills up their tube... Apparently, that's how life is in their timeline. One would have to wonder why or even how such a thing could happen.
  • Fridge Logic: How can Brian not believe in Santa if he is the sole reason for Christmas presents? In "Road to the North Pole", the Griffins wake up to find they have no presents: ergo, Santa delivers them every year.
    • In the Family Guy universe who is Seth Macfarlane?
  • Funny Aneurysm Moment: The episode where Mayor Adam West is actually a sleeper agent for the former Soviet Union (whose purpose was unwittingly activated by Brian and Stewie with gibberish that was in fact the sleeper code to activate him) and nearly causes a war before being de-programmed becomes less funny after the incident in March 2012 where, during talks with former Russian President Medvedev regarding narrowing his missiles, Obama implies that he might do it against America's back after re-election when he "has space" which was broadcast on a live microphone without his knowledge.
  • Glurge: Joe's visit to the poor family of the thief is just sickeningly too much.
  • Growing the Beard: Season 8, especially when compared with Season 7.
    • For example, "Dog Gone" which shows that the show can indeed have emotional depth, and "Quagmire's Baby" showing that, while the show can bring in a few Crowning Moments of Heartwarming, the show still has its tasteless magic.
    • Season 9 shows that the writers are now going out of their way to improve the show as much as possible, as the show is now in HD, the stories are much, much better written, there are now actually pretty emotional moments every now and then, and the humor has been stepping up in quality as less and less recycled gags are used. Compared to the travesty that was Season 7 (with terrible humor, terrible stories, terrible writing, and most of the production interrupted by the WGA strike) the show has clearly improved quite a bit.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: In the banned episode "When You Wish Upon a Weinstein," Peter expresses how badly he needs help from a Jewish person. Later in season 8, in the episode "Family Goy," it's revealed that Lois and her kids are Jewish.
    • One of the cutaways makes fun of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, with the narrator unsure just what ethnicity he was (in real life, Dwayne Johnson is black and Canadian on his father's side and Samoan and Hawaiian on his mom's side). After that episode aired, he went on to voice a WHITE guy in the movie Planet 51 and he sounded pretty white to the point where you likely wouldn't have guessed it was him.
    • Miley Cyrus is revealed to be a robot in "Hannah Banana", her 2010 album Can't Be Tamed actually features a song called "Robot". The lyrics just make it even more funny.
    • In the episode "Family Guy Viewer Mail #1", Peter tells Diane and Tom Tucker to "Make like a Siamese twin and split, and then one of you die." Diane was Killed Off for Real in the ninth season premiere.
    • In the episode "Running Mates" there's a cutaway gag involving Peter boxing with a chicken. In "Da Boom," this would be the beginning of a long-running recurring gag.
    • Early episodes took a lot of potshots at Ted Turner, particularly "Screwed the Pooch", which paints him as Too Dumb to Live and willing to have sex with a dog. Guess who owns the network that rescued FG from cancellation?
    • In "Emission Impossible" (the 11th episode), Brian catches Stewie wearing lipstick (It Makes Sense in Context) and says "Boy, the evidence is really piling up." This was well before his characterization shifted from Evil Genius to walking gay joke.
    • In "Don't Make Me Over," The Griffins become musical guests on an episode of Saturday Night Live hosted by Jimmy Fallon. The episode first aired around the time that FG was returning from cancellation (around 2005-ish). Jimmy Fallon wouldn't host an actual episode of SNL until six years later (in 2011), and unlike how the episode depicted him, Fallon never once ruined a sketch by cracking up (he almost did during the "Beethoven's Band" sketch, but he caught himself, and he even admits that his cracking up ruined a lot of good sketches in the actual episode's monologue), but he did make out with a girl who looked younger than he did (it was Rachel Dratch, who is in her 40s in real life but can pass for a teenager eerily well. Also, unlike the FG depiction, it was part of the sketch, as Fallon and Dratch were reprising their roles as the Boston Teens).
    • In Episode 3, Peter gets Stewie a birthday cake with a naked man on it. A few seasons later, what did the higher ups confirm Stewie as?
    • In the early sessions, Stewie would often build some large device to get rid of something highly trivial or petty as the B plot. This would more often then not solve the A plot the Peter and other family members found themselves in.
    • Remember Meg and the hot dogs in Stewie Kills Lois? How might that play out with Jeremy Lin?
    • In a precancellation episode Brian comes home depressed because his date was an idiot. A few years later, his girlfriend for an entire season was Jillian, a female ditzy Man Child.
    • Kevin Smith took a swing at Seth in Clerks the Animated Series, where it was suggested that Seth's idea of comedy is "Let's put them on Gilligan's Island and make gay jokes!" Five years later we get "The Perfect Castaway", where Peter and co. are stranded on a desert island and have a gay orgy (and a passing cruise ship calls them "fanny bandits").
  • Ho Yay: Has its own page.
  • Hannibal Lecture: "Christmas Time is Killing Us!" from Road to the North Pole appears to be this in musical form, combined with Ear Worm.
  • Incest Subtext: Done mostly for laughs. Mostly. At last count, Peter/Meg, Peter/Chris, Lois/Chris, Lois/Meg, Mr. Pewterschmidt/Lois, Chris/Meg, and Stewie/Chris, the last one doubling as Darth Vader/Luke.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: In one episode Stewie abducts the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation after he's unable to get his questions about the show answered at a convention. After he kills Denise Crosby to make sure they don't try anything funny, he spends the day with them, only they turn out to be totally annoying and demanding. By the end of his time with them, he's announced that they've ruined Next Generation for him and he hopes they all die.
    • Alternative Character Interpretation: One could argue that the cast were acting this way on purpose, seeing as how he killed Denise, they probably figured that by acting utterly annoying he'd grow sick of them and send them home. Counts as either a Batman Gambit or Thanatos Gambit, because if such was the case, there was just as much chance he'd kill them if they annoyed him too much.
  • Magnificent Bitch: Diane Simmons in the Season 9 opening.
  • Memetic Mutation: Mostly spawned by those mocking the show, most famously South Park and its supposition that the show is written by manatees with words scrawled on balls; the idea caught on enough that the Family Guy writers, in DVD commentaries, refer to weak jokes with comments such as "The manatees were kinda off that day".
    • In the episode "Mother Tucker", Peter dies from watching a video from Mannequin, a parody of The Ring. This clip became popular on YouTube, with the uploader replacing the Mannequin video with something unpopular.
    • "Stewie just said that" is quickly becoming this, though it may just be a Forced Meme.
    • IRAQ LOBSTER!
  • Nausea Fuel: Stewie asking (and finally convincing) Brian to clean out Stewie's diaper when they are trapped together in the bank vault...by eating Stewie's shit. Which causes Stewie to puke, and then he asks and convinces Brian to eat that, too. Be right back, throwing up.
  • Nightmare Retardant: Said clones melting, then Brian eating their remains.
  • Parody Sue/Purity Sue: In the episode "The Man With Two Brians", Peter buys a new dog under the name of New Brian after Lois says that Brian is getting old. New Brian is polite, perfect, multi-talented and instantly befriends everyone (sans Stewie, who sees him as a Replacement Scrappy), who rightly realizes that he's Brian's "replacement". New Brian goes on to improve everyone's lives and supplant Brian completely. However makes his fatal mistake when he... gets a little intimate with Rupert the teddy bear.
  • Real Women Never Wear Dresses: The reason of why Straw Feminist Gloria Ironbox disliked Lois was because she seemed to be happy as a housewife, and not having a "real" job. Lois then replied saying that feminism is about women being free to choose what they want to be.
  • Recycled Script: The Life of Larry pilot (first one) had many gags that would later be used in Family Guy.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Later episodes have been trying to show to us that Brian isn't this perfect Author Avatar that everyone agrees with, but is actually the most flawed character on this show and not as smart or important as he believes.
  • Ron the Death Eater: Glenn Quagmire. Sure, he's really far from being a saint, but he's extremely demonized by Brian fans after his feud with the latter started. Although there are genuinely good reasons to dislike him, such as the fact that he's a potential rapist or that he's willing to do anything to get in some girl's pants, nobody minded this until Season 8, when the eponymous feud started.
    • Interestingly later episodes such as "Tiegs For Two" seem to be trying to remedy this by making Brian equally vindictive towards Quagmire, in contrast to early on where Quagmire frequently lashed at him for a completely inadvertant offense.
  • Scapegoat Creator: As can be seen on this very page, Seth MacFarlane is often blamed for just about everything wrong with the later episodes. With a few exceptions, he really hasn't written written or directed an episode in a long time.
    • That would explain a lot of the negative homosexual stereotypes. Family Gay being the prime example.
    • Of course, he is executive producer—he may not come up with a certain script himself, but he has to approve all of them (and voice about half the characters himself), so he's still responsible for deciding what does and does not get into the show.
      • However, there have been numerous jokes that Seth didn't care for that still managedto make it past the final cut.
  • The Scrappy: Brian has become this to a portion of the fanbase after being derailed into becoming the Author Avatar.
    • Jasper is loathed by LGBT fans.
    • Consuela the maid.
  • Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped: "Road to the North Pole".
    • Peter's line in "McStroke" about stem cell research.
    • What Rush Limbaugh tells Brian at the end "Excellence in Broadcasting."
    • "Friends of Peter G." Keep your addictions in moderation and don't let them control your life.
  • Squick: Peter breastfeeding Stewie.
    • The morbid humor of keeping Stewie's severe head injury in secret.
  • True Art Is Incomprehensible: Diane Simmons' short movie Lint.
  • Tear Jerker: Pearl Burton's final moments before she dies. Especially with the matching music, it's one of the few touching moments in the entire show.
    • In "New Kidney In Town", Peter drinks makeshift Red Bull (a key ingredient being kerosene) and must have both of his kidneys taken out. Brian's kidneys are supposedly a match, but because they are dog kidneys, both of them have to be given to Peter. Brian agrees to it, and begins talking about how Peter is his best friend and how Peter always cared for him.
    • Of course, Brian doesn't die and in the end Dr Hartman gives up a kidney instead.
    • Brian revealing what the contents of his safe deposit box are for: A gun and a bottle of expensive scotch, for suicide and his last drink.
    • Some scenes in "Screams of Silence".
  • Unfortunate Implications: If there is a cutaway involving a woman the joke will either be about how "ugly" they look or something far worse. If it's a cutaway involving a man it'll be about everything else.
    • Or the fact that anyone shown to be gay or mentally handicapped is Camp Gay or an exaggerated down-syndrome sufferer.
    • Meg deciding to stay with her abusive family feels uncomfortably like Stockholm Syndrome. That fact that this is treated as a good and heroic thing makes it seem downright creepy.
      • Not to mention "They abuse me because they can't cope without me" is almost exactly how someone with Stockholm's thinks.
  • Unpopular Popular Character: Meg has much more fans than many people think. The most prominent example is Fanfiction.net. Just dare to say anything bad about Meg there.
    • Brian, though recently The Scrappy, is gaining sheds of this due to the overwelming Kafka Komedy he falls victim to.
  • Vocal Minority: Some liberals and atheists despise this show because it makes them look bad.
    • The gay community has also been vocal; a whopping 49.6% of members of gay entertainment site AfterElton.com (and ALL of the regularly contributing writers) dislike the show, with an additional 18.2% being bothered by various episodes.
      • Here are two articles from that site complaining about Family Gay and Quagmire's Dad. Note that the Family Gay article does not complain about the use of gay stereotypes, but about the lack of originality in their execution.
  • Weird Al Effect
  • The Woobie: Some people feel sorry for Meg because of her extreme Butt Monkey status.
    • Brian, to the half of the fanbase that doesn't consider him The Scrappy, due to being the nearest to an Only Sane Man and an endless victim to Kafka Komedy.
      • Jerkass Woobie: But at the same time, he can be self-centered and unsympathetic.
    • Arguably Lois began as such due to being a closer-to-Earth character that put up with the rest of the family's obnoxious antics, whether she retained the role today however is debatable (though the fact she is partially responsible for some of the above Woobie's abuse kinda skews it a bit).
    • Charlie Brown in the "Peanuts Reunion" cutaway.
    • You will feel sorry for Brenda Quagmire.
    • Stewie, as of "Be Careful What You Fish For".
    • Jerkass Woobie: Glenn Quagmire, himself.
    • Strangely enough... Bitch Stewie. He's actually so nice, went to a birthday party in Stewie's place and he was very friendly with the kids there. He's just so helpless and his intelligence, little as it may be, deteriorates. Then he melts.
  1. ↑ If you're curious as to what happened, he ended up hungover the day of the attack, causing him to miss his flight by 15 minutes.
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