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Peter Griffin

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This article is about the animated character. For the blackjack scholar and mathematician, please see Peter A. Griffin.

Template:Family Guy character

Peter Löwenbräu Griffin is the protagonist in the American animated television series Family Guy. His middle name, established in the episode Peter, Peter, Caviar Eater, could be a reference to the Löwenbräu brewery or a fancy way of saying "low-brow." His voice, which has a thick Rhode Island accent, is produced by the show's creator and lead writer, Seth MacFarlane. He is based on the character Larry. Peter is the head of the Griffin household and the central character in the show. He has an evil twin named Thaddeus Griffin. He is married to Lois, and is the father of Meg (although a throwaway joke in the episode Screwed the Pooch suggests that her biological father is a man named Stan Thompson), Chris, Stewie, and Bertram. He and the family (with the exception of Stewie and possibly Brian) are unaware of Bertram's existence, because he was the result of one of several "donations" Peter made to a sperm bank. There was a daughter whom Meg supposedly strangled, during Chris's lifetime, and a brother who was buried alive, if Meg was telling the truth. His best friends include his talking dog Brian, African American Cleveland, sex obsessed Quagmire, paraplegic Joe, and pharmacist Mort Goldman.

, BULLSHIT he was born in July. In The Tan Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Lois states that he is 43 and he also plays guitar left handed (although he played the song "Rock Lobster" to Cleveland right-handed).

As established in Peter, Peter, Caviar Eater and Death Lives, Peter worked at a country club/resort in Newport, RI, as a towel boy, where he met Lois Pewterschmidt (his future wife), the daughter of Carter, a wealthy industrialist, and Barbara Pewtershmidt, a blue blood housewife.

Lois's father, Carter, objected to Peter because he considered him to be of a lower social class, while Peter's step-father objected to Lois because of her religion. Carter tried to keep Lois and Peter apart by having his servants toss Peter into the ocean. Unfortunately for Carter, Peter was rescued by a nearby Navy ship, aboard which Peter met his future neighbor, Ensign Glenn Quagmire. Quagmire helped Peter pull into a port in Florida, where he met Cleveland Brown, another future neighbor, who gave him a ride back to Newport. Once there, Carter Pewterschmidt offered Peter a check for $1 million not to see Lois again, but Peter turned it down stating "To you she may be worth a million dollars, but to me she's worthless."

Peter worked as a production line worker at the Happy-Go-Lucky Toy Factory from at least 1977 until the plant was torn down a couple of decades later, after owner Mr. Weed died. Before his death, Peter was promoted to Assistant Regional Manager, but never had the opportunity to serve in this elite position.

When Lois ran for School Board President in Running Mates, Peter ran against her because Lois was not planning on giving Peter's favorite teacher, Mr. Fargus, his job back when he was fired. In a landslide, Peter won, but decided to resign after it was revealed that Peter gave Chris a pornographic magazine. When a toad-licking drug trend started at Meg's school, Peter went "undercover" as a Fonzie-inspired high school student under the name Lando Griffin (in part an homage to Lando Calrissian from Star Wars). Meg was at first mortified, but when Lando became cool by single-handedly turning the entire school off drugs, Meg asked him to the dance. Lando took Connie D'Amico to the dance instead, but declared that he had been rejected by Meg, and promised to kill himself by driving his motorcycle off a cliff. Peter has himself tried a number of drugs, including LSD (which he was told was a cheeseburger), marijuana, anabolic steroids, crack, cocaine, ecstasy, and opium (He also pretended to be on smack to get into rehab).

After being laid off from the toy factory, Peter bought a boat and became a fisherman. When his boat sank during a trip to Pelican's Reef, Peter and his drinking buddies were stranded on an island for a number of months. After being lonely for a long time, Peter and his friends decided to have a gay sex orgy, which was found very uncomfortable and unsatisfying by all involved; none were aroused by it. (It was witnessed by a cruise ship.) Upon their rescue by the, Peter returned to Quahog to find that Lois had married Brian following his disappearance. Showing up naked at the Spooner Street house one day, he managed to win back the affections of Lois, who reached a mutual agreement to divorce Brian and remarry Peter.

Peter currently works at the Pawtucket Patriot brewery. On his first day there, he drank himself into a stupor in his first five minutes of work and was relegated to the shipping department, away from the free beer.

Peter has had a wide variety of jobs. See List of Peter Griffin's jobs.

Peter was supposedly related to an African American man, named Nate Griffin, who was a slave to the Pewterschmidt family. This is shown in season 3, in an episode called Peter Griffin: Husband, Father...Brother?, during which Peter was briefly known as "Kichwa Tembo", claiming that Peter is his "slave name". However, he soon changes back to Peter when he is given twenty thousand dollars in reparation money, by Lois's father. However since Peter is not a Griffin, his biological father being Mickey McFinnigan, he is not actually biologically related to Nate Griffin (despite having all the same characteristics as each other).

Upon Francis' death, it is revealed that Peter's father (Francis Griffin) is not his biological father. His father is actually an Irish man named Mickey McFinnigan, who only believes Peter is his son when the latter beats his father in a drinking contest. This seems to contradict the continuity established by previous episodes, where we see Peter descended from many other Griffins who look largely identical to him (see "Nate Griffin" above), although since these were cutaway gags, and hence only meant for comedic effect, they are probably not meant to be taken seriously, especially since these relatives often have wildly contradicting ethnicities, ranging from Scottish to Mexican.

Personality

Peter's favorite pastime is watching TV. Although he considers Mark Harmon to be the world's greatest actor, his favorite shows include the following:

Notably, one of his favorite episodes of Diff'rent Strokes is the "episode where Arnold and Dudley get sexually molested by the guy who owns the bike shop." In North by North Quahog, he also watches The Passion of the Christ, but does not like it. Because of his obsession with television, Peter often has trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality, and will often assert that events that took place in television or films were his own, for example he banged his head and thought he was a member of "Three's Company". When television broadcasts were knocked off the air in Quahog, he resorted to building a cardboard frame around his head, viewing his surroundings as TV shows. Peter is otherwise very crude and lowbrow: He enjoys Pauly Shore movies and the Ricki Lake Show, and enjoys other activities such as going to up-market tailors and farting inside the suits.

Peter also has a knack for having trouble communicating, and for saying the wrong thing. In Peter Peter Caviar Eater, Peter and his family get kicked out of a club because Peter tells a story about an extremely large and smelly rat. In "I Am Peter, Hear Me Roar", he sexually harasses a female worker at The Happy Go Lucky Toy Factory by continually making a joke about cleavage in front of her, despite her shocked expression. In another cutaway in that episode, Peter is caught by the inhabitants of Planet of the Apes and makes an insulting feces joke in front of them, prompting them to cock rifles they have pointed at him. In a cutaway in Road to Rhode Island, Lois says to Peter, "I love you". Peter responds by looking at his watch and saying, "Yeah, about a quarter past five." Also, in Jungle Love, when Chris talks about how Peter chose to live in the village to escape problems at home, Peter responds by saying, "What do you mean? Meg's right there!" while Meg is standing next to him.

Peter is insanely jealous of Lois' ex-boyfriends, and he will attack any man who expresses the slightest interest in her; he even punched an orca at Sea World after it "kissed" Lois, and his own reflection after Lois said, "Well, look at that handsome man!" He was also heartbroken after Lois had sex with former president Bill Clinton, until he had sex with him himself. Two notable exceptions to this include: upon learning that Lois had been sexually involved with Gene Simmons, a member of his favorite band, KISS, he was proud of her, even boasting, "my wife did KISS!" and that he "feels like I [he] did KISS too". Also, when the Griffin's neighbor Quagmire was caught peeping at Lois, Peter sided with Quagmire and told Lois she should take peeping as a compliment and to forgive him. Another possible exception is his dog Brian, who is deeply in love with Lois. In the episode Sibling Rivalry Brian mentions to Peter that Lois has gotten fat since they stopped having sex and tells him that he should start again, Peter then says that it was first about his vasectomy, but says now it was about how fat she is, and then questions Brian if he would have sex with her. He is surprised to hear that Brian would have sex with Lois and when Brian says that he "would do everything to her" and he "would wreck that chick" Peter doesn't attack him and even compliments him saying that he was a trooper. In Deep Throats he laughed with Lois about how much Brian wants to have sex with her and how she'll never let him while they are both high on weed, so he may just not care because he knows it doesn't matter.

Peter is often transformed by traumatic experiences, and then restored to "normal" by a simple, almost trivial experience. For example, after shock therapy administered by Brian, Peter became like a wealthy, snobbish socialite and bid too much money at an auction. To snap Peter back to reality and his "normal" self, Brian broke one of Peter's Star Wars collectibles. Another example of Peter's malleable persona is in the episode I Am Peter, Hear Me Roar. After experiencing a pain as great as that of childbirth ("stretching your bottom lip to the back of your neck," a reference to a Bill Cosby joke) at a women's retreat, Peter became extremely sensitive and effeminate, and tries to breastfeed Stewie. To bring him back, Lois accidentally got in a homoerotic fight with another woman, the same one who sent Peter on the women's retreat. Peter also reverted to childlike behavior in the episode Mother Tucker; learning to ride a kiddy bike, using a training toilet, and being carried around by surrogate father figure Tom Tucker.

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Peter's nemesis: The Giant Chicken

Peter's arch-nemesis is a man-sized chicken who gave him an expired coupon. He fought him throughout Rhode Island in the episode "Da Boom"(although this conflict took place in flashback), in "Blind Ambition", and again in "No Chris Left Behind". He also bumped into him in 1984, although no fighting took place because the chicken's friend held him back.

The most minuscule of achievements can inflate his ego. For instance, in Petarded, he barely wins a game of "Trivial Pursuit" (in which he was unknowingly given questions from the Preschool Edition) and it makes him think that he is a genius, so he begins to talk down to everyone. He views a news program about the Middle East and observes one man commenting: "I find the President's plan for peace in the Middle East to be shallow and pedantic." He later tells Lois he finds her meatloaf shallow and pedantic. After taking an I.Q. test, he finds out that he is mentally retarded.

His mental shortcomings and clumsiness have resulted in several human and animal deaths, such as in the episode Blind Ambition, where Peter falls off the roof of the Drunken Clam and lands on Joan Cusack, inevitably killing her. (Incidentally, Cleveland had told Peter he would be famous if he landed on Joan Cusack earlier in the episode.) He was also known to have run over the Road Runner in I Never Met the Dead Man while being given driving lessons by Wile E. Coyote. His latest accomplishment was becoming inebriated, riding a unicycle down the stairs at Meg's birthday, falling off the stairs, and landing on his step-father Francis Griffin, puncturing his lung, breaking most of his ribs, and inevitably killing him.

Peter is apparently a very capable musician in several different areas. In the episode "Fast Times at Buddy Cianci, Jr. High," he plays a trombone and Lois remarks that he took lessons in junior college. Also, in the episode Wasted Talent, he was revealed to be a concert-level pianist, but only when inebriated and only when playing the theme music to television shows (e.g. The "Lonely Man" theme from The Incredible Hulk, the main theme from The X-Files, and "Love is All Around" from The Mary Tyler Moore Show). It is also shown that Peter and Lois played in a Hippy Love Band, Hand Full of Peter. In the episode Deep Throats, they enter a talent show as the band, but fail to perform because they did marijuana before the performance. Peter was also part of a barbershop quartet which sang at hospitals, delivering bad news to terminally ill patients. He also sings solo in numerous other Family Guy episodes, and plays other instruments like the guitar. Music in general is a major part of the series. While Stewie was watching Mr. Belvedere, Peter demonstrated that he has perfect pitch by tuning his guitar to B with no external reference. It is shown in one episode that he was incapable of conducting a Tusken Raiders choir, though he was delighted when Obi-Wan informed him they would soon return in greater numbers. He also performed as part of The Four Peters in one episode singing William Tell.

Peter occasionally displays homosexual and bisexual tendencies. In "One If by Clam, Two If by Sea", Peter dreams of Richard Jeni giving sitcoms, even remarking that he has "a sweet ass". During the episode "PTV", it is implied that Peter engaged in sexual activity with another male at his 16th birthday party, though it was against Peter's will (a parody of the ending of the John Hughes film Sixteen Candles). In the episode "The Story on Page One", Peter expresses a willingness to have sex with Luke Perry in an attempt to prove that Perry is gay. Also, in the episode Peterotica, Peter attempts to have sex, and later tries to forcefully do so with his father-in-law, Carter Pewterschmidt, while trying to re-enact "Dawson's Creek". Peter has also engaged in homosexual activity against his will. In "The Father, the Son, and the Holy Fonz", it is revealed that he lost his virginity after being tackled by an opposing player during a football game. The other player, while lying on Peter's back, asks Peter, "Want to get some breakfast?", implying that sexual intercourse took place. He also had willing sex with Bill Clinton in Bill and Peter's Bogus Journey. During the same episode, it's revealed that Peter's sexual fantasies also extend to his mother in law, as he openly discusses his sexual attraction to Lois' mother, Babs. Peter nearly has sex with Babs to get revenge on Lois for sleeping with President Clinton, but eventually opts against it. Peter has also initiated an all-male orgy in The Perfect Castaway (though they all were disappointed and didn't actually do anything), and in Airport '07 announces that he was raped in a federal prison after serving jail time for hijacking a flight. In Airport '07 he also makes sexual advances towards Meg, while acting the role of a stereotypical redneck.

Peter sometimes seems to show that he hates Meg, similar to the rest of the family. As with the other family members, Peter's abuse has become more common in later season, as the running gag has become more popular.

  • In Chitty Chitty Death Bang, Meg returns home saying that she failed at cheerleading. Upon hearing this, Peter says, "Yay!"
  • In Model Misbehavior, Peter assertively kicks Meg out of the house when she said she would pleasure herself to Lois' modeling photos with Peter and Chris. Then, later, she says, "How could you be okay with Mom parading herself around like this? I mean, she's half naked! It makes all women look bad!" Peter's only response to that is, "Meg ... who let you back in the house?"
  • In Breaking out Is Hard to Do, while escaping in a van, Meg calmly says "I wonder where we are going?" which results in Peter hitting her and yelling "Calm down!"
  • In Peter's Got Woods, Peter spits milk at Meg twice: when Brian tells Peter that he has a date and can't go to the Clam to play darts, and when Lois finds out that Brian's crush is Meg's teacher. Also, later on in the episode he treats Meg like a dog when Brian's out on a date, and Meg replies, "I'm not a dog, you fat bastard!"
  • In Jungle Love, when Chris says that Peter has just chosen to live in the village to escape his problems at home, to which Peter replies: "What do you mean? Meg's right there!"
  • In PTV, when Lois tells Peter that he must see Meg's play instead of seeing the Emmys, he says, "But Lois, Meg sucks! Everything she does is so freakin' terrible and depressing!" and a cutaway shows Meg in a 1st grade play portraying Robin Hood, and Peter saying, "Uh, just so you know, you guys are not sucking me into the story at all. I, I'm very aware that I'm watching a play right now."
  • In The Fat Guy Strangler, after Peter tells his family that he's fat, he continues: "Of course this is nobody's fault—’’Meg’’...”
  • In Petergeist, when the family is in the car ready to escape their haunted house, Lois realizes they forgot Meg. Peter says, "Oh yeah, like I'm going back for Meg!" They argue until she comes into the car and screams, "YOU BASTARD! HOW COULD YOU LEAVE ME IN THERE?!" followed by Peter saying, "Okay, see? It resolved itself." And at the very end of the episode, a parody of "Poltergeist"'s ending sees Lois rolling the TV outside but Peter puts it back in and replaces it with Meg. In the real movie, the family rents a room at a motel and rolls the TV out of the room.
  • In Stewie Loves Lois, Peter sees the Evil monkey and says, "Stop it, Meg!"
  • In Untitled Griffin Family History, while investigating the noise downstairs, Peter hits Meg with a baseball bat after she comes out and over an extended period of time asks many questions. Peter then says "Oh, Meg, you startled me, I'm sorry" Later, after getting everyone to spit on Meg, Peter sends Meg downstairs to go get them food. Peter then tells Meg to use the other mustard on his sandwich over the PA system, alerting the burglars. After Lois tells the burglars that Meg is their daughter, not their son, Peter turns the screen of Meg in the kitchen off, saying it is distracting. At the end of the episode where she is to be arrested, he just waves and says "Have fun at the dance, honey."
  • In Saving Private Brian, a cutaway showing Peter in therapy has him telling Dr. Katz, "Every time my daughter opens her mouth, I just wanna punch her in the face; she's really annoying."
  • In Hell Comes to Quahog, Peter says "I can't believe this is coming out of my mouth..." and says "I love..." but before he can finish, Stewie and Brian use the tank to destroy the Superstore USA. Back at home; Meg says that he was going to say something in the store. Peter doesn't think so until she tells him that he was going to tell her that he loves her, and Peter tells her to not get cocky. He also threw eggs at Meg "for stealing jobs from hard working people", giving her a message: "We're here, we're queer, get used to it!"
  • In The Father, the Son, and the Holy Fonz, a cutaway scene shows Peter having once taken steroids. At dinnertime, when Lois asks him to pass the potatoes, he accidentally flips over his dinner plate. In responsive anger, he shouts: "Dammit, Meg!" and punches Meg despite her having done nothing.
  • In Brian Sings and Swings, Brian is run over by Peter, who says he can't help but feel it's Meg's fault.
  • In a cutaway in It Takes a Village Idiot, and I Married One, where Peter imagines that with Lois as a mayor, he can do cocaine, he breaks into a nervous fit, breaks a picture, and yells at Meg to clean it up.

However, in Road to Rupert, Peter loses his drivers license and must resort to hitching a ride with Meg. During one trip, Meg has to chauffeur Peter, Quagmire, Cleveland, and Joe after a night at the bar. Peter and the gang begin to taunt Meg until Peter deliberately sets Meg's hat on fire. Quagmire extinguishes the flame with his beer leaving Meg drenched. Meg immediately puts on the brakes and is rear-ended by a man who confronts her by calling her various obscenities. To Peter and the gang's astonishment, Meg explodes by punching the man in the face and pummeling him to the ground. Peter is so impressed by this that he begins to enjoy Meg's company and he tells her that he realizes that she is a really wonderful daughter. Eventually, however, Peter has his license given back to him. Meg expresses her worry that Peter will go back to treating her with disrespect, Peter tells Meg that he will pretend to treat her badly in front of the family because of "peer pressure" but from now on he will secretly consider Meg as his best friend.

Peter's need for television can be extreme to the point of near physical dependency. When the broadcasting dish supplying TV to Quahog was accidentally destroyed, resulting in a town-wide television blackout, Peter constructed a cardboard cutout of the front of a TV screen, held up at eye-level with a brace around his waist, to simulate looking at a TV screen (mistaking James Woods High School for Beverly Hills, 90210). Despite his obsession with TV, he doesn't seem to grasp several concepts. Whilst the family were the subject a reality TV show, he complained that the replacement Meg was taking all the screen time so he wouldn't be able to get his spin-off where he's a retired baseball umpire running a bar... at the center of the Earth. Not only is the idea utterly ridiculous and something Peter would no doubt complain about being on air, but he doesn't seem to grasp what the concept of a "spin-off" is.

Peter can be sentimental at times, and also worried. For example, he cries when hearing the song "Up Where We Belong". After he reluctantly agrees to take Lois to a chick flick, he cries and becomes obsessed with chick flicks to the point of trying to make one himself, appropriately named Steel Vaginas. He also believes that only women are capable of becoming fat; a quote from "Sibling Rivalry": "Men aren't fat; only fat women are fat."

Peter is also noted to be a big fan of New England sports teams. As shown in Mr. Griffin Goes to Washington, Peter sneaks his family off to the Red Sox opening game at Fenway Park. Also, when Peter tries to bond with Stewie, Peter and Brian go to see a Red Sox game, but accidentally leave Stewie in the car. Peter claimed that when the New England Patriots drafted him that he always dreamed of playing for the Patriots.

In the episode Boys Do Cry Peter has an "imagination land" where he burps where he farts and farts where he burps.

It also appears that Peter doesn't know how to haggle, which can be seen in the episode Road to Rupert when he tries to haggle with himself for a pair of Evel Knievel driving gloves.

Peter occasionally displays stereotypical misogynistic behavior, like referring to Lois’ strong will as "adorable", continuing "but this is grown up time, and I'm the man".

Health

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Peter after having had extensive cosmetic surgery in the episode He's Too Sexy for His Fat

Physically, Peter is in very good health, despite being overweight, alcoholic, and accident-prone. He successfully played pro football for the New England Patriots, can run down and beat up a mugger, and can sustain a lengthy and destructive fistfight with his nemesis, the giant chicken. He also ran surprisingly well in one episode while trying to catch Max Weinstein. Also, when Death was about to take him away, he told Death he ran two weeks of track when he was younger, and he ran away, though only escaped after Death slipped and twisted his ankle on an ice patch.

In the episode Death Is a Bitch Lois detects a lump on Peter's breast, leading them to believe that Peter had breast cancer. It was later revealed to be a fatty corpuscle (which he at first confused with the late Fatty Arbuckle).

He occasionally suffers from incontinence and flatulence at socially awkward moments and premature ejaculation with his wife. Peter's fertility was lowered (temporarily) when Stewie went in a microscopic ship into Peter's body and destroyed many of Peter's sperm in the episode "Emission Impossible." In Sibling Rivalry he had a vasectomy. Excessive consumption of alcohol has damaged most of his brain cells. (He has one left, whose glasses break in a reference to an episode of The Twilight Zone.) In the episode Petarded he was officially declared to be mentally retarded, although this does not seem to affect his social behavior as much as retardation does. However, intelligence-wise it is very possible he is on a retardation level.

In contrast to his normal behavior, Peter occasionally shows signs of deep inner thought, always while inebriated. In the episode Peter's Two Dads, Peter is questioned by his real father as to why he doesn't look as good as the worldwide perception of Americans. In response, Peter eloquently states that the average American is not the same as foreign perceptions, and that the American public is actually going through an obesity epidemic (claiming himself as part of it). In another episode, Peter is kicked out of a library for "reading while drunk," during which he simultaneously analyzes a portion of the novel Johnny Tremain while running from security (and into a bookcase).

Despite earning the 1965 trophy for Most Ticks, Peter does not appear to have suffered Lyme disease or related ailments. He claims to have been unable to use the toilet until sometime before the episode Brian in Love, not to have passed gas until he was thirty years old, and in the episode The King Is Dead, he ripped the longest fart ever recorded on television. (He later tops himself in PTV). In the episode Death Lives, Peter got struck by lightning and was told by Death that when he was struck by the lightning, he soiled himself. This also occurred in an episode called "When You Wish Upon a Weinstein", where Brian mentions that Peter soiled himself at the dinner party and it shows a flashback when the incident occurred. Later at the temple he does it again, and then later on he doesn't seem to notice it happening because he acts normal.

Peter lacks some very basic general knowledge. For a long time he thought dogs laid eggs, the plural of goose was sheep, and (perhaps only said as a joke) for four years he thought that Meg was a housecat. In Wasted Talent, it took him an entire scientific analysis for him to realize that with Joe having found one of Pawtucket Pat's four silver scrolls, there were only three left. In There's Something About Paulie, he believed his own penis to be a growth. In One If by Clam, Two If by Sea, he didn't realize that the most dangerous crook Joe ever put away was going to kill him, believing that the crook thought they were zombies (due to his threats, "You're all dead!"). However, his knowledge of some topics, including TV shows and KISS, is nearly encyclopedic.

Although he is capable of deductive reasoning, it sometimes takes Peter a long time to draw simple conclusions. For example, after watching an advertisement for the KISS-Stock tour passing through New England, as seen in the episode Road to Europe, it wasn't until later at the dentist that he figured out that he could go to KISS-Stock. He also, inexplicably, believes that he lives in French Polynesia during this segment. In the episode Brian in Love, Peter suddenly realized that Brian could talk as he was telling Peter that he was in love with a girl (who was in fact Lois). On another occasion, it took him three days to figure out a single-panel cartoon in The New Yorker. On another occasion, Peter was taking a long time to decide between two Ernest movies where Ernest goes to the beach and one in which he doesn't go to the beach and panicked when it was announced that the video store was closing soon.

Peter seems to have a hard time making reasonable decisions as well as simple ones. In I Am Peter, Hear Me Roar, when given the choice to choose receiving a free boat or prize from the mystery box, he picks the mystery box (which turns out to be free tickets to a night club), thinking he could get a free boat from it, instead of taking the actual boat itself. In Petarded, he finds simple trivia questions (i.e. "What color is a fire truck?") to be extremely difficult.

In the episode Blind Ambition, Peter went blind after eating nickels and suffering nickel poisoning; he said he was aiming for the world record of the most nickels swallowed. After unwittingly saving Horace from a fire, a dead hobo's eyes were transplanted into him (ironically, Peter himself had accidentally killed the hobo).

He denied several times that his prostate was tested in Stewie Loves Lois, believing Dr. Hartman to have raped him when he tried to reach into his rectum. His stupidity may have been contagious, because later at the Drunken Clam, Quagmire, Cleveland, and Joe cried as they believed Dr.Hartman raped them too. Also, at court, the judge got a flashback and ruled Dr. Hartman guilty after Peter asked about his experience.

After handling several M80s strung together, Peter lost all the fingers of his right hand (in the episode Whistle While Your Wife Works). He was able to retrieve all his fingers and get them all re-attached, and appeared through the rest of the episode with his right hand bandaged.

In Peter's Two Dads, he was able to hold his own in a drinking contest with his father Mickey McFinnegan, actually winning the contest, though becoming extremely incomprehensible and fainting seconds after his father.

In Bill and Peter's Bogus Journey, Peter broke his back and got a hernia trying to lift former President Bill Clinton's car to repair a flat tire. From there he spent a small amount of time in the hospital healing and sulking over the fact that he was apparently aging. Clinton later decides to take him out for an adventure to ameliorate these feelings.

In No Meals on Wheels, Peter broke his foot trying to keep Joe and his crippled friends from eating at the restaurant he had created in that episode. He was wheelchair-bound for the rest of the episode and endured all the hardships that a paraplegic would face. Although he angered Joe prior to breaking his foot because of his dislike of paraplegics, the two eventually patched things up when they realized what they had both been through.

Peter is 5‘10“ according to his ID in Meet the Quagmires (Seen when he shows the picture of Meg, Chris, and Stewie when saying who he can party with).

Ancestry

In the episode Peter Griffin: Husband, Father...Brother?, Peter discovered that he had a pre-Civil War era black ancestor named Nate Griffin, making him at least 1/64th black. Furthermore, Nate was a slave owned by a Pewterschmidt (Lois' family) ancestor. After learning this, Peter very briefly went by the name Kichwa-Tembo until his father-in-law, Carter Pewterschmidt, wrote him a $20,000 reparations check. But in the episode Peter's Two Dads, Peter discovers that his real father is a guy in Ireland named Mickey McFinnigan. He resembles his son in every aspect save his red hair and facial hair and his aged face. This, of course, means that all of Peter's Griffin ancestors are not actually blood relations despite family resemblance.

Peter has an evil twin brother named Thaddeus, who is basically a pantomime-villain version of Peter who dresses, acts, and talks like Snidely Whiplash. However, after a preview of Thaddeus' death, it reveals that the Peter in the present is Thaddeus.

In the episode The Son Also Draws, Peter falsely claimed to be Native American, with an ancestor named Chief Grand Cherokee, in order to regain Lois' gambling losses at a casino. The casino managers told Peter to go on a vision quest to prove his claim. He did, and his spirit guide turned out to be Fonzie.

In Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story, he seems to be the descendant of an African American singer, Ella Fitzgriffin, who performed with young Ray Charles. Her high notes caused glass to shatter and become embedded in Charles' eyes, resulting in his blindness.

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Things get "too real" for Peter. From the episode Let's Go to the Hop

Peter has many strange ancestors, some of whom were involved in important historical events and who usually show up in throwaway gags. Osias Griffin, one of Peter's ancestors, owned one of the first dozen telephones (the third telephone, to be specific). Also, in one episode Peter says most of his family is husky because they are descended from Jabba the Griffin, who resembles Jabba the Hutt from Star Wars, but with Peter's likeness. Peter also mentioned once, that he has two indirect ancestors who were Siamese twins, and both fought on opposite sides of the American Civil War. In E. Peterbus Unum, he claimed that "Ulysses S. Griffin" was an ancestor of his, implying that if he was telling the truth, he was somehow related to Ulysses S. Grant, because a cutaway shows that Ulysses Griffin won the Civil War (in a drinking contest). He also mentions he's related to Adolf Hitler's brother, Peter Hitler (which would make him also related to Adolf Hitler as well). In one episode Peter says he had a relative who was one of the inventors of golf, going to a flashback of a Scottish man of Peter's likeness, saying "So we're all clear on the rules, no Jews and no blacks". Peter is also related to Moses, or "Moses Griffin".

In Running Mates, Peter describes himself as a "self described Huguenot". A Huguenot was a member of the Protestant Reformed Church of France during the 16th and 17th centuries. However Peter is a Catholic so this is likely to be a very obscure in-joke. Many Hollywood stars claim to have Huguenot ancestry. However it is implied that Peter simply doesn't know what the word means.

In one episode, Peter's cousin is actress/comedian Kathy Griffin.

Peter also seems to be related to his wife’s family in many ways. In the episode Untitled Griffin Family History, many of his ancestor's girlfriend/wives have a great resemblance to Lois. Even his African/American ancestor, Nate Griffin, had a wife with the last name Pewterschmidt, the same last name as his wife’s family. They had children together as well, who looked awfully like African/American versions of Meg, Chris, and Stewie.

Appearance outside Family Guy

Peter had some appearance outside Family Guy, these include:

File:P griffin.jpg
Peter Griffin as seen in Treehouse of Horror XIII.
  1. Treehouse of Horror XIII One of Homer's clones was Peter Griffin. (a The Simpsons Episode)
  2. In the South Park episodes Cartoon Wars I and II, Peter Griffin was parodied.
  3. In another episode of The Simpsons (The Italian Bob) Peter is in a book of suspect owned by Italian guards, described as "plagiarismo". (Followed by Stan Smith with the title "plagiarismo di plagiarismo.").
  4. In the first episode of the second season of Robot Chicken, "Suck It", Peter is shown alongside Space Ghost and Master Shake to determine whether or not Seth Green (creator of Robot Chicken, who also voices Chris in Family Guy), the chicken, and the mad scientist should be sentenced to the Phantom Zone (in a parody of Superman II). His only line in the episode is "Guilty!", and was voiced by Seth MacFarlane as usual.

Footnotes

References

  • S. Callaghan Family Guy: The Official Episode Guide : Seasons 1 - 3 New York: Harper Paperbacks, 2005
  • A. Delarte, "Nitpicking Family Guy: Season 4" in Bob's Poetry Magazine, 3.January 2006: 10 - 26 http://bobspoetry.com/Bobs03Ja.pdf
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