PETER GRIFFIN

: ''This article is about the animated character. For the blackjack scholar and mathematician, please see Peter A. Griffin.''
'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 New England accent, is produced by the show's creator and lead writer, Seth MacFarlane. Peter is the head of the Griffin household and the central character in the show. He is married to Lois, and is the father of Chris, Stewie, and Bertram. In the episode Screwed the Pooch it is hinted that a man named Stan Thompson, not Peter is the biological father of Meg, however Meg is not paying attention to the possible revelation. His friends include his talking dog Brian, African American deli owner Cleveland, sex-obsessed airline pilot Quagmire and paraplegic police officer Joe. He is based on the human character in the Larry shorts.

Contents

History

Personality

Health

Ancestry

Appearances outside ''Family Guy''

Footnotes

References

History

Peter worked at a country club/resort in Newport, RI, as a towel boy, where he met Lois Pewterschmidt, whom he had sex with in the changerooms. 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 servant drop Peter into 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 (while being "followed" by a van with Ku Klux Klan members). Ultimately, Carter offers Peter one million dollars to forever stay away from Lois, which Peter rejects. Lois and Peter eventually get married and have three children, settling down in the community of Quahog, Rhode Island.
Peter currently works at the Pawtucket Patriot brewery; his official job title is "That Guy Who Fishes Out The Dead Rats." 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. Upon Francis Griffin's death, it is revealed he was 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.

Personality

Peter's favorite pastime is watching TV. Peter is otherwise very crude and lowbrow: A running gag on the show is Peter's preference for Pauly Shore movies over such classic films as The Godfather and Citizen Kane. When not watching TV, Peter enjoys other activities such as going to up-market tailors and farting inside the suits. He is also a huge Kiss fan and followed them during the Kiss Stock shows and bought a copy of Kiss Saves Santa for christmas. Peter also has a knack for having trouble communicating, and for saying the wrong thing. After taking an I.Q. test, he finds out that he is mentally challenged. He has also shown exceptional skill in playing the guitar, and at least a passing familiarity with the trombone and is an exceptional pianist when drunk. 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 seasons. However, in the episode Road to Rupert Peter confessed that he and Meg would be "secret best friends" after she beat up a man that called her a "stupid bimbo".

Health

Physically, Peter is in ''very'' good health, despite being overweight, alcoholic, and accident-prone. 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. In the episode Petarded, he was officially declared to be mentally retarded. It is apparent that Peter is also able to heal rather quickly. This is shown in the several episodes in which Peter has long (and very strange) fight sequences with a giant chicken (since in an episode the chicken gave him an expirated discount coupon). Peter always emerges victorious in these fights having sustained dozens of cuts, bruises, and broken bones along the way, but at the end of every battle, the chicken remains alive. Also, famously, he once ingested a half-bottle of syrup of ipecac and even after spectacularly vomiting for several minutes on-screen, retained his stomach intact.

Ancestry

In the episode , Peter discovered that he had a pre-Civil War era black ancestor named Nate Griffin, making him at least 1/64th black. Furthermore, Nate invented the DMV later in life to get back at whites and was a slave owned by a Pewterschmidt (Lois' family) ancestor. After learning this, Peter very briefly went by the name 'Kichwa-Tembo' until his , Carter Pewterschmidt, wrote him a $20,000 reparations check. However, 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. Certain fans got over this by claiming that Peter's maternal grandmother's name could have possibly also been 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, which leads to the conclusion that Meg is his daughter, and Lois and Peter are related. In the same episode, we find out that one of his uncles is Peter Hitler, brother of Adolf Hitler. Another ancestor is Moses Griffin, who led the Jews out of Egypt. His ancestors also include a caveman that invented the wheel. His great-grandfather was Willy "Black Eye" Griffin, a silent movie star that always got hit in the eye in the movies. He was rich, but his voice just wasn't right for the talking pictures. In the episode , we find that his other great-grandfather was Osias Griffin, who was also rich and owned one of the first dozen telephones. Peter's great-great-great-great-grandfather was a great philospher named Thomas Griffin, who used pondering as an excuse to his wife to remain unemployed.

Appearances outside ''Family Guy''

Peter has sometimes made appearances outside of Family Guy; these include:

#Treehouse of Horror XIII (a ''Simpsons'' Episode), where one of Homer's clones was Peter Griffin.
#In the ''South Park'' episodes Cartoon Wars Part I and II, Peter Griffin was parodied.
#In another episode of ''The Simpsons'' (The Italian Bob) Peter is in a book of suspects owned by Italian guards, described as "plagiarismo" (followed by Stan Smith with the title "plagiarismo di plagiarismo.")
#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.
#In Episode 51 of the "Ask a Ninja" Podcast a character (unnamed but clearly designed to be Peter Griffin) who proceeds to have his neck broken and refer to all the members of the Griffin family besides Meg.

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