Family Guy: Encyclopedia II - Family Guy - Characters

Family Guy - Characters

The show revolves around the adventures of Peter Griffin and his family. Peter is an incompetent blue-collar worker, and a bumbling, drunken father, yet still a dedicated family man.

Peter is Irish-American and is also directly descended from an African-American slave owned by his wife's ancestors. His wife, Lois, a stay-at-home mom and piano teacher, is the daughter of the Pewterschmidts, a wealthy socialite family. Their children are socially awkward: status-conscious Meg Griffin, whose supposed ugliness has driven people to set themselves on fire and jump out of windows upon seeing her for the first time; the mentally slow yet artistically gifted Chris Griffin; and the diabolical, super-intelligent, Napoleonic and potentially matricidal baby, Stewie Griffin. The family also lives with an intelligent, cynical, alcoholic, talking dog named Brian Griffin. Even though Brian has been completely anthropomorphized, several episodes show that the Griffins still consider him a pet. When, in episode S5E09, Brian is hospitalised (after being hit by Peter in the car), he visits a normal, human hospital.

Other common characters include the Griffin family's eccentric neighbors: paraplegic police officer Joe Swanson, his perpetually pregnant wife Bonnie and their teenaged son, Kevin; sex-crazed bachelor Glen Quagmire; mild-mannered deli owner Cleveland Brown; Brown's ex-wife, Loretta and their hyper-active son, Cleveland Jr.; the local mayor, Adam West, (modeled after and voiced by the actor of "Batman" fame) who is portrayed as paranoid and slightly mentally ill, as well as other various coworkers and town personalities. Unlike The Simpsons, Family Guy does not have an especially large cast of recurring minor characters (though this has changed in season 4, with many one-shot characters from prior episodes making appearances in new episodes), and most of the episode plotlines center chiefly around the exploits of the Griffin family.

There are also some semi-regular characters whose appearances basically tell the same joke over and over; examples include the Evil Monkey in Chris' closet; Herbert, the old man who enjoys watching Chris; The greased-up deaf guy, and the Giant Chicken, Peter's nemesis, whose fights usually end up causing huge amounts of damage to the city.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Characters", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki