Top Ten Family Guy
Episodes
With Seth MacFarlane
bringing his brand of humour back to the big screen with A Million Ways to Die
in the West this weekend, I’m counting down the ten best episodes of the show created
by MacFarlane which launched him to celebrity status. It’s brash, it’s rude,
it’s everything that makes us laugh and cry, it’s Family Guy! Featuring the
unusual Griffin family, consisting of alcoholic fat man Peter, loving wife
Lois, anthropomorphic dog Brian, socially awkward teen Chris, evil genius baby
Stewie, and Meg, Family Guy has had some crazy and hilarious episodes in its
231 episode run (and counting!)
Because I don’t watch
the show as consistently any more, many of my favourite episodes are from
earlier seasons, so I may miss some of the newer ones that have been considered
good, but I still stand by the opinion that the show ceased to be as funny
after about season 8.
10. “Death Has a shadow”, season 1 episode 1
The pilot episode for the series and the first episode ever
to air on TV, “Death Has a Shadow” still remains one of the best of all time.
We get a hilarious first look at the dysfunctional family, including Stewie’s
diabolical obsession for world domination and killing his mother and Peter’s
alcoholic tendencies. Peter attends a stag party, where he hangs out with Glenn
Quagmire and plays “Drink the beer”, leading to a severe hangover the next day
which puts his job in jeopardy after he fails to eliminate dangerous toys from
the toy line at his job at, you guessed it, the toy factory. It has all the
hallmarks that would make Family Guy a hit in the episodes to come, such as
several hilarious cutaway gags and even the premiere appearance of The Kool Aid
Man, who would return for cameos in future episodes. Although not as hilarious
throughout as the other episodes on this list, I still really enjoy the pilot
episode and still think it was a successful start for the long running series.
9. “Fox-y Lady”,
season 7 episode 10
The central plot event for this episode isn’t what makes it
so hilarious, though it does offer some amusement. Lois gets a job at FOX news
as a reporter, even though Brian warns against it for their methods of
obtaining news and getting it to the public. She investigates allegations that
filmmaker Michael Moore is gay, which isn’t really funny or great, but what
Peter and Chris do is hilarious. Now that they have a foot in the door with FOX
thanks to Lois’ position, Peter proposes they create a cartoon series. After
brainstorming and developing ideas and constantly disregarding Meg’s input,
they come up with Handi-Quacks: a
show about three physically handicapped ducks, all drawn with crayons and
voiced by neighbours Joe, Quagmire, and Cleveland. The brief pilot episode
shown is absurdly hilarious, but when FOX CEO Peter Chernin reacts positively
with only minor suggestions, Peter decides not to pursue the show for pretty
much no reason, which is even funnier.
8. “Stew Roids”,
season 7 episode 13
Season seven was actually one of the best seasons of Family Guy, as is evident because two
other episodes from that season, of the 200+ total episodes for the series,
appear on this list. In this episode which I’m sure stirred more than a few
controversies (I can think of dozens of episodes that would do so more severely
than even this one), Stewie gets beat up at a family barbeque, so Peter tries
to get him fit, but instead of doing it the right way, he does it the easy way
by giving baby Stewie injections of steroids. Of course Stewie gets pumped
(“You look like Lou Ferrigno’s poop”, says a dismayed Brian) and becomes
badass. The funniest moment is when he won’t let Brian walk past him on the
stairs, and the joke is taken in typical Family Guy fashion: as far as it can
be taken. I still crack up even after having seen it half a dozen times. When
Stewie loses the muscle, he’s left with thick flaps of skin, which allow him to
fly to safety and make a reference to Rocky & Bullwinkle. The other part of
the episode, which follows Chris going out with popular high school girl Connie
D’Amico, isn’t as funny, but strongman Stewie more than makes the episode
memorable and gut busting.
7. “Back to the Pilot”, season 10 episode 5
This episode was well received by critics, and in my
opinion, it’s the funniest episode of the most recent three seasons. When Brian
wishes he could find out where he buried a tennis ball, Stewie takes them back
to the day he lost it, which just so happened to be the premiere day of the
pilot episode (January 31st, 1999). From here, the insanity and hilarity
ensue, as the present day Stewie and Brian are forced to clash with their retro
counterparts after Brian averts the 9/11 disaster from happening. Much like
other science-themed episodes involving Stewie, Brian, and Stewie’s time
machine, this one gets points for making the most of a creative and original
plot and being extremely funny because of it. Their presence in the past starts
changing things. The best change of all is when they talk to The Kool Aid Man,
making him miss his queue to jump through the wall during the courtroom scene.
He does it late, making it even more awkward and causing him to slip and fall
and smash into pieces. They also affect the future, which proves to be equally
as funny. With a joke a minute and an unexpectedly clever premise, this has to
be one of the most original episodes of any cartoon in recent years.
6. “Family Guy viewer
mail #1”, season 3 episode 21
Believe it or not, this was the final episode to air before
Family Guy was cancelled the first time, and it didn’t return for close to
three years. I say believe it or not because this particular episode features
an inventive concept to show three short stories, none of them related, but all
of them suggested by fans. The first shows what would happen if Peter got three
wishes from a genie (which comes out of his beer). After finding out what Kelly
Ripa is like off-camera and gaining his own theme music for everyday life, a
man on a bus gets upset with him and prepares to break every bone in his body.
Peter wishes he had no bones, and the tragic yet comedic events go from there.
The second story shows what would happen if the Griffin family gained
superpowers from nuclear waste. This offers tons of jokes, from Brian getting
super speed, Peter getting shape shifting abilities, and Meg growing her
fingernails longer. The episode ends with Mayor Adam West rolling in
radioactive sludge to gain his own powers, but instead just gets lymphoma. The
final story follows the antics of the “Lil’ Griffins”, and though it’s the weakest
of the three parts, is still very funny. There’s a lot going on in this
episode, which makes for consistent laughs and interesting takes on the
characters.
5. “I Dream of
Jesus”, season 7 episode 2
Here’s one more episode from season 7; this one most
memorable for featuring “Surfin’ Bird” by The Trashmen, Peter’s self proclaimed
“favourite song of all time!” When he obtains the record from a retro diner, he
continues to play it over, and over, and over, and over, and each time he does it
gets funnier and funnier. Eventually Brian and Stewie steal it from him and
destroy it in a slow motion scene that parodies Office Space. When Peter goes
looking for a new copy of “Surfin’ Bird”, he discovers Jesus working at a
record store. This aspect of the episode isn’t as funny or entertaining, but
there are still several laugh-out-loud moments featuring Jesus and his powers,
such as turning everyone’s dinners into sundaes and increasing the size of
Lois’ breasts (which makes Brian’s jaw drop in exaggerated cartoon fashion).
It’s a bit of an uneven episode, but “Surfin’ Bird” makes it a laugh riot
unlike any other.
4. “Da Boom”, season 2 episode 3
This post apocalyptic episode aired less than a week before
Y2K, and follows the Griffin family after the world goes to ruins in a nuclear
holocaust occurring at the turn of the century. It’s chocked full of great
jokes and gags, and is notable for being the first one to feature the now
classic (and much repeated) fight between Peter and the Giant Chicken. Some of
the most memorable moments include Peter consuming all the dehydrated food,
drinking water, inflating to the size of the room, and then telling everyone to
leave because he has to poop, Cleveland and Quagmire becoming fused together,
the family running into Randy Newman who just sings about everything he sees,
Stewie mutating into a half octopus, and lots more. The Griffins find refuge at
a Twinkie factory in Natick, Massachusetts, where they establish New Quahog and
try to rebuild society. Of course it doesn’t go exactly as planned. The end of
the episode is a spoof of the TV show Dallas, something which confused me for
years before I found out about what that show even was. When it first
premiered, this episode was unlike any previous Family Guy episode, and it’s
still one of the funniest and most unique to date.
3. “Petarded”, season
4 episode 6
Showcasing Peter’s lack of mental capacity better than ever,
“Petarded” is consistently funny throughout, but features several moments that
are particularly side splitting. The Griffins host game night at their house
and play Trivial Pursuit. To make
Peter think he’s good at the game, Lois uses questions from the pre-school
edition, which still prove challenging for Peter. When asked what colour a fire
truck is, he tries to think back to a documentary he saw about fire trucks on
National Geographic. The cutaway that follows made me laugh so hard it probably
bruised my spleen. A “wild fire truck” stalks a gazelle, kills it by beating it
with its ladder, and then defends its kill from wild ambulances, which will
have to wait until the fire truck has eaten its fill. It’s absurd and severely
comical. Other great moments follow as Peter is deemed mentally retarded and
believes he can get away with anything because of his condition. Including
driving a bulldozer through their living room and starting a bible fight in
church, Peter delivers signature over the top physical comedy while also
offering a couple good cutaways, pop culture references, and pretty much
everything else we’ve come to expect from the fat man.
2. “Road to the Multiverse”,
season 8 episode 1
There’s so much to laugh at in this episode, it literally is
a laugh a minute. Stewie reveals to Brian that he has created a device which
allows for travel to other universes. Brian and Stewie go on an outrageous and
hilarious adventure through all sorts of parallel worlds. There are some that
aren’t too dissimilar from the usual, such as the universe where everyone has two
heads, one sad and one happy, and the universe where “...everyone has to take a
poop right just now...”, but then there are others that are wildly different,
including the robot chicken universe rendered in stop motion animation, the
Disney universe with Disney-style animation and glee oozing out of every frame,
and the freakiest (and possibly funniest) of all : the one where Brian and
Stewie portrayed by a real baby and dog. The second half of the episode follows
Brian and Stewie trying to escape a universe where humans are pets to dogs,
which allows viewers to see more than just a few aspects of this parallel world
and what the characters are like here. Definitely the funniest “Road to...”
episode of all, this one makes the most of its clever plot.
1. “Let’s Go to the Hop”, season 2 episode 14
This is my personal favourite episode for a few reasons. First
off, it has every Family Guy trademark. There are some great cutaway gags, there’s
a clever musical sequence, lots of pop culture references, and many other
elements common throughout all the other episodes I’ve examined. The musical
sequence in particular is not only well done, it’s actually catchy, memorable,
and not overbearing or annoying like many Family Guy musical moments tend to
be. The plot is, though not significantly original, quite well crafted and even
delivers a good message for younger viewers. An outbreak of Toad, a new drug,
is sweeping the local High School which Chris and Meg attend, so Peter goes
undercover in a very 21 Jump Street-esque role to eliminate the drugs and
restore the school to a safer environment for his kids and the other
students. The end of the episode is more
a tribute than reference to the end of The Breakfast Club, and It’s also the
first episode to show Spider-Man save Peter with his web and claim, “Everybody
gets one.” “Let’s Go to the Hop” is the Family Guy episode that stands out to
me the most.
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