Family Guy is an American animated comedy show, centering on the lives of the Griffin family and their neighbors on Spooner Street in Quahog, Rhode Island. It started in 1999, and has since run for 12 seasons. It has managed to draw huge amounts of fans thanks to its amazing star cast, though it has also managed to attract equal amounts of haters due to its edgy content. Its polarizing humor relies heavily on the particular traits of each character. The trio of Peter, Brian, and Stewie Griffin, in particular, has become exceptionally popular. Here's a brief rundown on the prime characters of this epic animation masterpiece. * Click on the names to know more about the characters. Voiced By: Seth MacFarlane The patriarch of the Griffin family, Peter Löwenbräu Griffin is the central character and the titular 'family guy' of the series. He discovers he is mentally retarded in the episode 'Petarded'. He is obese, immature, and often behaves in a childish way. He is obsessed with the song "Surfin' Bird". He is a heavy drinker, and plays the piano extremely well as long as he's drunk. He has worked numerous jobs, the most notable among them at the Happy-Go-Lucky Toy Factory at the beginning of the series, as a fisherman, and at the Pawtucket Patriot Brewery. He is friends with Glenn Quagmire, Joe Swanson, and Cleveland Brown, his neighbors, but his best friend is his anthropomorphic dog Brian. He is also friendly with Death, the Grim Reaper of the Family Guy-world, who helps Peter out on a number of occasions. Voiced By: Alex Borstein Lois is Peter's wife and the mother of the three Griffin children. She was born into an extremely rich family, but grew up as a rebel, and has a shady past that included hard drug use and pornography, among other things. She is quite promiscuous, and though she loves Peter, she has had several affairs during her marriage with Peter (including one that led to the birth of her first child Meg) in addition to numerous boyfriends before. She is also regularly shown to be masochistic, and it has been hinted that she may be bisexual. She is frequently exasperated by Peter's antics, but sticks with him through thick and thin. Voiced By: Seth MacFarlane Brian is the Griffins' intelligent, well-read anthropomorphic dog. He is often the voice of reason in contrast with Peter's mindless shenanigans. He is a liberal atheist, though he has been shown to lack integrity to either position; he once converted to conservatism after reading Rush Limbaugh's book and getting to know Limbaugh, and secretly prayed when he thought the world was about to end. He is a failed writer, heavy drinker, and regular marijuana smoker. He has also been addicted to cocaine, though he got rid of the habit. Due to his brother Jasper's homosexuality, he has also shown very strong support for gay rights. He has had several human girlfriends and has one human son, Dylan Flannigan, and is deeply in love with Lois, thinking he would be a better fit for her than Peter. He is the only adult cast member who is always able to understand what Stewie is saying; the ability of other characters to understand Stewie is modified to suit the particular situation. Seth MacFarlane uses his normal speaking voice when voicing Brian; he shares most of MacFarlane's philosophical, social, and political views, and he has said that Brian is his favorite character. Voiced By: Seth MacFarlane Without doubt the cutest villain in the history of television, Stewie Griffin is Peter and Lois's infant son. He is shown to be about 1-1.5 years old at the time of writing. He is unnaturally intelligent and crafty, and has devised several highly advanced machines, such as mind control devices, time machines, and once a teleportation device. He is shown to have caused the big bang, creating the universe while outside the spacetime continuum. He has plans of world domination and matricide, though both these tendencies have been softened as the series progressed. It is very strongly hinted that he is secretly gay, though he has fallen in love with several female characters, usually toddlers. He and Brian have a very close bond, and Brian is the only character to whom Stewie regularly exposes his emotional side, though he is also ruthless when making fun of him. When Brian is killed in an accident, Stewie goes back in time to prevent Brian's death. Later, when Brian tells Stewie that he keeps a gun in his locker so that he can end his life if the absence of a purpose for his life becomes too much to handle, Stewie convinces him that he needs Brian in his life to be happy, and that was purpose enough. Voiced By: Seth Green The middle child (eldest child of Peter and Lois, since Peter is not Meg's biological father) of the Griffins, Chris is in many ways a younger version of Peter, obese and dimwitted. He is a good artist, and has extremely detailed knowledge about movies, TV shows, and actors. Voice actor Seth Green's career is often humorously referenced through Chris, with characters voiced by MacFarlane mocking Chris about Green's other works and Chris retorting angrily. This was reversed in the closing scene of the episode 'It's a Trap!', with MacFarlane's characters sticking up for him against the other three members of the Griffin family. Voiced By: Lacey Chabert (Season 1), Mila Kunis The unappreciated, troubled eldest Griffin child, Megan aka 'Megatron' is constantly picked on by virtually everyone in Quahog. She is unattractive, which Lois is only too happy to keep reminding her, and has attempted suicide on multiple occasions. Though she occasionally finds romance, her relationships tend not to last, and she has been shown to invent a boyfriend as well as 'date' a corpse to make up for the absence of a relationship. Her desperate behavior has made her be obsessed with Joe Swanson and Brian, but both let her down gently despite her behavior. Meg is Peter's least favorite child, though their relationship has been shown to improve in recent seasons. Voiced By: Seth MacFarlane Perverted and sex-crazed, Glenn Quagmire is Peter's closest friend apart from Brian. He is an airline pilot by profession, and is more than 60 years old, though still retaining his youthful vitality thanks to, in his words, "carrots ... as long as I get 'em into my body somehow"! He is probably a registered sex offender, and has countless fetishes. Though he is normally successful with any woman he wants, he hankers for Lois. He constantly uses his catchphrase, 'giggity', in some form. He has a fondness for cats, and, perhaps as a consequence, is openly hostile towards Brian. Voiced By: Patrick Warburton A paraplegic cop who is just about the most macho man in the world. Despite being paralyzed from the waist down and depending on his wife Bonnie for basic day-to-day tasks, Joe is an excellent policeman and is usually the most moral and upright of the four friends. He cheats on Bonnie with an intern after he thinks Bonnie had an affair and has grown distant, but is forgiven by Bonnie. Voiced By: Mike Henry A former deli owner, Cleveland Brown is an exceedingly calm and peaceful (except when it comes to racial matters) African-American neighbor of the Griffins. He left Quahog when his spin-off show, The Cleveland Show, was finalized, but returned to the Family Guy storylines when it got canceled. He is the subject of a long-running gag where one of Peter's antics causes the front of Cleveland's house to be destroyed and his bathroom on the second floor to be exposed with him in the bathtub. The bathtub then slowly slides forward with Cleveland exclaiming "What the hell? No, no, no, no, no, no!" and crashes into his front yard. This gag was mocked in one instance, with Cleveland saying, "I gotta stop taking my baths during Peter's shenanigans". It was even referenced once after Cleveland left the show, with an empty bathtub crashing to the ground and Peter noting, "Oh that's right, Cleveland moved". Voiced By: Jennifer Tilly Bonnie is Joe's wife and the mother of his two children. Thanks to the show's floating timeline, Bonnie was depicted as being pregnant for several seasons before finally giving birth to her daughter Susie. This gaffe was referenced by Peter in the fourth season ("Bonnie, you've been pregnant for like, six years, all right? Either have the baby or don't."). She is shown to be supportive of Joe's handicap at first, but became increasingly distant and cold as the show progressed, to the point of coldly ignoring Joe's achievements as a police officer and unabashedly pointing out his shortcomings. Voiced By: Jon Cryer, Seth MacFarlane, Scott Grimes Kevin is Joe and Bonnie's eldest son, and joins the army. He is thought to have died in Iraq, but he returns and tells them that he survived an IED blast, only to later confess that he deserted the army by faking his own death. He has been described to be suffering from night terrors and has suicidal tendencies due to his traumatic wartime experiences. Voiced By: Patrick Stewart While not particularly important or notable as a character, the infant Susie Swanson's thoughts―she can't speak yet―are voiced by Patrick Stewart. Stewie falls in love with Susie soon after she is born, even composing a song for her and making a video of himself set to Bryan Adams' 'Everything I Do', but gets over the affection fairly soon. She is shown to be stronger than Stewie and comprehensively beats him up in a fight over their dolls. Voiced By: Alex Borstein Loretta is Cleveland's late ex-wife, separating from him after cheating on him with Quagmire, and eventually dying in The Cleveland Show after she couldn't survive the fall from Peter's bathtub gag. She is the mother of Cleveland's son, Cleveland Brown Jr. Voiced By: John G. Brennan Mort is Peter's stereotypically Jewish neighbor and runs a pharmacy. He conforms to popular Jewish stereotypes, once going two weeks without having to open his wallet, and being extremely neurotic and weak. He bowls a perfect game in a bowling match by rolling the ball very slowly with both arms. Voiced By: Nicole Sullivan Muriel is Mort's wife and is very similar to him in both appearance and personality. She runs the Goldman pharmacy along with her husband. She is stabbed by Diane Simmons in 'And Then There Were Fewer'. Voiced By: Seth Green Neil is Mort and Muriel's son, and is a typical bespectacled, weak nerd. He is madly in love with Meg Griffin, though she always rejects his advances. He eventually gets his wish when Peter sells Meg to the Goldmans to settle his tab in Mort's pharmacy, though he lets her walk out of the contract when he realizes she doesn't love him back. Voiced By: Mike Henry John Herbert, commonly referred to as Herbert, is a very old pederast living on Spooner Street. He has loved Chris Griffin since the start of the series, but becomes disillusioned with him when, due to a strange quirk of circumstance, Chris comes to live with him. Stewie, in particular, is very disdainful towards him, which just makes him think that Stewie is being feisty. In the episode 'German Guy' it is revealed that Herbert was a fighter pilot in the Second World War. Voiced By: Seth MacFarlane Carter is the father of Lois and her two siblings, Carol and Patrick, and is an extremely money-centric man. He is implied to have abused Lois when she was young, and tried his best to get Peter to not marry her, hoping she would get married to a more suitable, richer candidate. Though he loves Lois, he openly despises Peter, though he came to like him when he lost all his money for a while and had to 'learn' living like the masses. Voiced By: Alex Borstein Barbara, or Babs, is the wife of Carter and the mother of his three children. She is a Holocaust survivor, a fact that she concealed for a very long time so that her Jewish heritage wouldn't hinder her husband's social standing. Her original surname is Hebrewberg, which was changed from Hebrewbergmoneygrabber to escape the Nazis. She only married Carter for his money, though in one episode, it is stated that they fell in love. She is more open, and more affectionate towards her son-in-law, than her husband, though she too thinks Lois should have made a better choice. Voiced By: Charles Durning Francis is Peter's late adoptive father (though this nearly remains a secret), and is a strict Roman Catholic, to the extent of calling the Pope 'soft'. He is killed during one of Peter's misguided antics on Meg's 17^th birthday. Voiced By: Florence Stanley, Phyllis Diller Thelma is Peter's late mother. Though the Griffins usually do their best to avoid her in her later years, she is much more agreeable than her ex-husband, and gets on great with Lois as well as the children. She reveals the name of Peter's true father as well as the fact that he was born in Mexico and is actually an illegal immigrant, when Peter probes into each matter. She dies from a stroke in a retirement home. Voiced By: Seth MacFarlane Mickey is Peter's biological father. He is Irish, and looks just like Peter. He is also a heavy drinker like Peter, and has a pet sheep called O'Brien, who is extremely similar to Brian. Despite initially ignoring Peter's claim that he is his father, he agrees when Peter beats him in a drinking contest. Voiced By: Wallace Shawn Bertram is Stewie's late half-brother, born from one of Peter's donated sperm samples. The two first encounter each other in Peter's testicles, when Stewie is trying to prevent his parents from having another baby by destroying Peter's sperms in a microscopic craft. Realizing that Bertram shares many of his tendencies, including the desire for matricide and world domination, Stewie befriends him. They meet again in a battle over the control of their accidentally common playground, which Stewie wins and forces Bertram to leave. In 'The Big Bang Theory', Bertram tries to prevent Stewie's birth by using Stewie's time machine to go back into the past and killing Leonardo da Vinci, who is Stewie's ancestor but not Bertram's. His plan is foiled when Stewie follows him into the past and kills him. Voiced By: Seth MacFarlane Tom Tucker is Channel 5's most experienced news anchor. He has a baritone that he is proud of, and is very arrogant and narcissistic. He has a son from his first marriage, Jake Tucker, who has an upside-down head. He had a brief relationship with Thelma Griffin, and became a temporary father figure for Peter. Voiced By: Lori Alan Diane is Tom Tucker's late former colleague. She and Tom frequently traded insults during news broadcasts, a running gag in the early seasons. She is killed by Stewie in 'And Then There Were Fewer', where she tries to implicate Tom in the murder of James Woods, whom she murders as revenge for dumping her. Tom is arrested for the murder, but Lois realizes the truth, and confronts Diane, who tries to kill Lois by shooting her on the edge of a cliff. Stewie intervenes by shooting Diane through a sniper (thus remaining incognito), because he intends to kill Lois himself and he won't let anyone else do it instead. Voiced By: Christine Lakin Joyce Kinney, originally Joyce Chevapravatdumrong (named after a producer of Family Guy), is Diane's replacement on Channel 5. She went to the same college as Lois, and was frequently bullied by the more popular Lois. As revenge for the bullying, she tries to defame Lois by revealing a porn film in which Lois starred, but Lois convinces everyone at her church congregation to forgive her. Voiced By: Alex Borstein Often referred to as 'Asian reporter Tricia Takanawa', Tricia is seemingly Channel 5's only reporter. Voiced By: Phil LaMarr Ollie Williams is the African-American weather guy of Channel 5, and occasional reporter. He almost always gives very short, most often one-word answers to Tom's questions, very loudly. The only time he spoke in a low voice and slowly was in the episode '420', when he, like most residents of Quahog, had smoked marijuana. Voiced By: Carrie Fisher Peter's boss at the brewery, Angela is a lonely middle-aged woman, who doesn't approve of Peter as an employee, but becomes attracted to him when he shows up to work without his usual spectacles. Voiced By: Butch Hartman, Carlos Alazraqui Mr. Weed is Peter's late former boss at the Happy-Go-Lucky toy factory. He is hinted to be gay or feminine through several references. He dies in the Griffin home when he chokes on a dinner roll moments after promising to promote Peter. Voiced By: Mark Hentemann Opie is a mentally challenged former colleague of Peter in the brewery. Despite being mentally challenged and only talking in usually-incomprehensible gibberish, he is deemed to be more qualified than Peter and is the Employee of the Month for several months on the trot. Voiced By: Marlee Matlin Stella replaces Opie when he is fired. She is deaf, and converses in sign language. Voiced By: Mike Henry Fouad is a recurring, presumably Arab colleague who taught Peter sarcasm. A running gag in the series is Fouad laughing excessively at sarcastic jokes and pointing out the funny bit. Rupert is Stewie's inanimate teddy bear, and is his closest confidant apart from Brian. Rupert is also often the subject of Stewie's homosexual fantasies, where Rupert is depicted as a muscular, tanned man with a teddy bear face. Rupert also forms the crux of a 'Road To...' episode, where Brian accidentally sells Rupert in a yard sale, and then accompanies Stewie to Aspen in order to retrieve him. Voiced By: Adam West Adam West is Quahog's eccentric mayor, and is involved in various loony endeavors, such as engaging in a scream fight with the rest of Quahog, and trying to figure out who steals the water that disappears down a sink. He has an affair with Meg Griffin on two separate occasions, but is now married to her aunt Carol. Voiced By: Mike Henry Bruce, or Bruce the Performance Artist, is a character used in many different roles. He is shown to have held numerous jobs, including a masseur, CPR instructor, boxing referee, and lawyer. His voice is also used for various other one-time gag characters, such as the shark from Jaws and the alien (xenomorph) from Alien. He has an effeminate manner and is very strongly hinted to be gay and together with a man called Jeffrey, who is never seen onscreen. Voiced By: H. Jon Benjamin Carl is the manager of a local convenience store, and is disinterested in almost everything except movies and actors. Like Chris, he has extremely detailed knowledge about movies. He speaks in a monotone voice with minimal inflections, except on one occasion when Chris told him he thought a movie Carl liked was "awesome" and Carl became very excited. He is friends with Chris, who used to work in his store, and regularly discusses movies with him. Voiced By: Seth MacFarlane Elmer Hartman is a doctor at Quahog's hospital. He claims to be Yale-educated, but his medical skill is variable. More often than not, he is shown to be an incompetent doctor, once even telling Meg to carry on an operation without him, because she knew just as much about medicine as him. He is notable for his unintended schtick. He donates one of his kidneys to Peter because the Griffins are his last paying customers, and is responsible for the botched cloning that led to the creation of Ernie the giant chicken. Voiced By: Mike Henry Consuela is a Hispanic maid who is the head of the Maid's Union. She speaks in broken English, and refers to all her employers as 'Mister', regardless of their gender. She is notable for her constant demand for more lemon pledge. When Stewie runs away from home in 'Stewie Goes for a Drive', he ends up in Consuela's home, and though he is well cared for, he eventually has to shoot her in the foot to make her stop claiming that he is her son, and let him go. Voiced By: Fairuza Balk, Lisa Wilhoit Connie D'Amico is the typical popular girl in Meg and Chris's school. She is very mean towards Meg, though she takes her help when she needs to teach Chris a lesson. She dates Chris because she has dated all the popular guys in school and wants to make a loser popular, but dumps him when he starts to ignore her. She has been kissed by all three Griffin children: Chris when they were dating, Meg when she came back from prison and whacked Connie with a bag full of cola cans before forcibly kissing her, and Stewie when he posed as a student. Voiced By: James Woods Played by the real James Woods, the Family Guy James Woods is a nemesis for both Peter and Brian, both of whom he has affected adversely. He once evicted Peter from his own home after stealing his wallet and proving to Joe that Peter was, in fact, an imposter. He successfully auditioned for Brian's TV series, completely destroying Brian's idea behind the show. He is killed by Diane Simmons in 'And Then There Were Fewer', but returns thanks to a 'life force transplant' operation. Voiced By: John G. Brennan Horace is the late owner and bartender of The Drunken Clam, the favorite pub of Peter and his friends. He is accidentally killed during a baseball match by Jerome in 'Save the Clam'. Voiced By: Kevin Michael Richardson Jerome is an African-American former boyfriend of Lois, and becomes friends with Peter when he moves to Quahog. Voiced By: Drew Barrymore Jillian is Brian's extremely attractive but stupid former girlfriend. She is the typical dumb blonde, and commits gaffes such as pronouncing 'people' as 'pee-yauple' and thinking 'Eastern and Pacific Time' is actually 'Eastern and Specific Time'. She gets on well with Peter due to him being much dumber than Brian. She eventually breaks up with Brian when she realizes he is not ready for commitment. She eventually marries Derek Wilcox, who is one of the people killed by Diane Simmons in 'And Then There Were Fewer'. Voiced By: Seth MacFarlane Seamus is a brash sailor with an entirely wooden body apart from his head. He gives two explanations for his condition: that his father was a tree, and that James Woods wished for him to become a real boy, like Pinocchio, but didn't wish hard enough. He usually appears to give Peter warnings of some sort. Voiced By: Danny Smith Jim, referred to as Doug in his first appearance, is a conman who has managed to sell Peter numerous worthless items, such as a car with a picture of an engine instead of an engine, a tank instead of a car, and insurance against damage from volcanic eruptions. Voiced By: Tony Sirico Vinny is the Griffins' dog between Brian's death in 'Life of Brian' and the prevention of his death by Stewie in 'Christmas Guy'. Everyone in the family loves Vinny, though Stewie takes a lot more time than the others due to his close connection with Brian. He eventually helps Stewie build a time machine, knowing that the prevention of Brian's death will mean that he won't get to be with the Griffins. Voiced By: Danny Smith Ernie is a giant (human-sized) anthropomorphic chicken that engages Peter in irrelevant and highly destructive fights out of the blue. The rivalry has begun a long time in the past, when Death lets Peter travel back into time, and he accidentally punches Ernie while dancing with a young and unmarried Lois. He usually interrupts Peter during some scene from the main story and the fight carries on for a long time, with Peter always winning the fight and walking away, after which, the chicken is shown to still be alive. Peter then resumes the main story as if the fight hadn't happened, though he is bleeding and his clothes are torn. During one of the fight scenes, the two stop fighting because neither can remember why they were fighting, and the chicken takes Peter out to a restaurant to settle their scores, only to resume their fighting over their reluctance to let the other pay the bill. Voiced By: Danny Smith The evil monkey is a monkey that lives in Chris' closet and frequently scares him by making a scary face and pointing at him while shaking. Though Peter and Lois thinks Chris is making up this story, Chris manages to capture the monkey, upon which he reveals he can talk and explains that him pointing at Chris was an invitation to have a chat, his 'scary' face is the face he makes when he is thinking, and the shaking is due to a copper deficiency. The monkey then helps Chris in his schoolwork and helps repair his relationship with Peter, before leaving for the Tucker house, where, like Chris, Jake is in need of attention from his father. Voiced By: Danny Smith Obviously named after the term 'buzzkill', Buzz Killington is an old-fashioned British gentleman who arrives at a scene of frivolity and makes everyone bored by harping on about boring activities or reciting uninteresting facts about the activity in progress. His gags usually end with Peter removing his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose in frustration. Voiced By: Archived footage of Conway Twitty Used as a distraction when a character, usually Peter, has got into a jam, the character announces Twitty's name, upon which archived footage of Twitty singing one of his songs is shown. Notable gags include 'Darth Twitty', where a Darth Vader helmet was digitally superimposed upon Twitty's head in a Star Wars-themed episode, and 'Conway Beiber', when Justin Beiber's hairstyle was superimposed on him. Voiced By: Seth MacFarlane The Kool-Aid Man is seen in courtroom scenes. When the judge gives a verdict, characters successively exclaim "Oh, no!", upon which the Kool-Aid Man jumps into the room, breaking the wall and giving his famous shout, "Oh, yeah!". After he realizes the gravity of the situation, he awkwardly backs out of the room through the smashed wall. After his third appearance, the Judge requested people in the courtroom not to keep saying "Oh, no!". Voiced By: Mike Henry The greased-up deaf guy, who shows the symptoms of someone who is prelingually deaf, is infrequently used in various gags. He is shown to have been a lawyer before he was caught in the explosion of a grease truck. Voiced By: Mark Hentemann Though unnamed in any of his appearances, this character is called 'Holden Caulfield', after the hero in the J. D. Salinger novel The Catcher in the Rye, thanks to his habit of calling people 'phony'.