Peter Griffin
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![]() Peter Griffin | |
| Full Name: | Peter McFinnigan Griffin |
|---|---|
| Voiced by: | Seth MacFarlane |
| Jobs: | *Towel Boy(before series start) *Assembly worker at Happy-Go-Lucky Toy Factory (1.1 - 3.9) *Private fisherman (3.10 - 4.12) *Shipping department of Pawtucket Brewery (4.13 - present) *Maid( Padre de Familia) *Nanny( Padre de Familia) Bartender in (Mind over Murder) Mayor of New Quahog in (Da Boom) Death's substitute during Death's convalescence in (Death Is a Bitch) Theater producer/director in (The King Is Dead ) School board president in (Running Mates ) Reality show actor in (Fifteen Minutes of Shame ) Undercover drug investigator in (Let's Go to the Hop) Petorian President in (E. Peterbus Unum ) Tobacco lobbyist in (Mr. Griffin Goes to Washington ) Renaissance fair jouster in (Mr. Saturday Knight ) Bumblescum sheriff in (To Love and Die in Dixie ) Television producer in (PTV) Church of the Fonz priest in (The Father, the Son, and the Holy Fonz ) A sumo wrestler in (Breaking Out is Hard to Do) Erotic book author in (Peterotica) Channel 5 News special reporter Grind My Gears in (Stewie B. Goode ) Superstore USA employee in (Hell Comes to Quahog) Policeman in (Barely Legal ) Restaurant owner and concierge in (No Meals on Wheels) Football player for the New England Partiots in (Patriot Games) Servant at Carter Pewterschmidt's mansion in (Padre de Familia) Buttscratcher salesman at basball games in (No Chris Left Behind) |
| Quotes: Freakin' sweet! Holy crap! You Bastard! You Son of a bitch! (Clutching injured knee) Fffffffhh, Aaaaahhhh (repeated) | |
| Episodes: all | |
Peter McFinnigan Griffin is the obnoxious, boisterous man who is the protagonist of the show and origin of the title "Family Guy". He's a 43-year-old man of Irish (and partially African American) descent currently residing in Quahog, Rhode Island with his wife Lois Griffin. He was, however, born in Mexico, where his mother had tried unsuccessfully to abort him. They have three children, Chris, Meg, and baby Stewie. Out of pity he also adopted an intellectual talking dog named Brian who formerly lived on the street as a stray.
Contents |
[edit] Employment History
Peter first met Lois while he was working as a towel boy for Marguerite Pewterschmidt. He worked at the Happy-Go-Lucky Toy Company for the bizarre Mr. Weed. But when Mr. Weed was accidentally killed by choking on a dinner roll on which Brian had originally been choking, Peter was out of a job and had to find work elsewhere.
So far, he has been seen as a knight and a fisherman in two episodes from Season 3. In one episode of Season 4 it is implied that Peter still makes a living from fishing, but has hired two Portuguese men to do most of the work. After losing his boat to a hurricane, Peter is again jobless. In Jungle Love, Peter goes to the unemployment office, and obtains a job at the Pawtucket Patriot Brewery. Initially he is placed on the line, but after over-indulging in the free ale, he is demoted to the shipping department, working with Opie and under Angela.
According to the episode Brian the Bachelor, Peter was not always a man, but this contradicts Running Mates where Peter is shown as a young boy in flashback.
[edit] Friends
Peter has four best friends - his Spooner Street neighbours Glenn Quagmire, Joe Swanson and Cleveland Brown, and Brian. They enjoy hanging out at their local bar, The Drunken Clam, drinking and chewing the fat. The four men (often without Brian, although he has joined them on several occasions) do many things together. Once the four friends entered and won a costume contest at an 80s TV convention, dressing up as the A-Team. On another occasion, their fishing boat was wrecked, and they were stranded together on a desert island. Peter also has other friends such as Mort and Muriel Goldman and nudists Dave and Dotty Campbell, with whom he is seen occasionally.
[edit] Hobbies
- Trombone: Peter took lessons in junior college. He plays the trombone during Chris' open house in Fast Times at Buddy Cianci Jr. High.
- Air travel: Peter managed to obtain his own helicopter (The Petercopter) and an airship (The Hindenpeter). He also once challenged Lois to a race around the World and flew off in a plane.
- Guitar: He played the song "Rock Lobster" on his guitar to cheer up Cleveland when his wife was having an affair and had kicked him out of the house. Together Lois, who played the mandolin, and Peter on guitar formed the duo "Handful of Peter" in their younger days.
- Cup Collecting: According to Peter, Peter, Caviar Eater, Peter collects Star Wars collector cups, confirming Peter as a Star Wars fan.
- Farting very loudly - more of a lifestyle than a hobby. (Peter's are particularly powerful and noxious farts since in Let's Go to the Hop and many other episodes, they make people vomit, and on one occasion caused Peter himself to pass out after he farted whilst in a sealed box).
- Beating up Giant Chickens
[edit] Ernie the Giant Chicken
In a running gag, storylines are interrupted by unexpected fights between Peter and a giant chicken. These battles feature long strings of action film-style sequences, with explosions, high-speed chases, and excessive colateral damage to both property and innocent bystanders, ending with Peter the victor leaving the giant chicken for dead, only for a sudden movement to show that the chicken is still alive.
In the episode "Da Boom", the feud starts over a trivial incident where the chicken gives Peter an expired coupon at the grocery store. The fight resumes in "Blind Ambition". In "No Chris Left Behind" the chicken is identified as "Ernie", and he has a wife named Nicole, also a giant chicken. Ernie makes a brief, non-fighting appearance in the time travel themed episode "Meet the Quagmires", in which Peter unwittingly assaults the giant chicken at an 80s dance, retroactively providing Ernie with a grudge against Peter. Ernie the chicken is planned to appear in the Star Wars parody episode "Something, Something, Something Dark Side," as the infamous bounty hunter Boba Fett,.
Ernie appears in the video game as the final boss.[citation needed]
[edit] Health
Despite being obese at 335 pounds, a heavy drinker, and accident-prone, Peter appears to be in good health. Periodically, in typical cartoon fashion, Peter is shown recovering quickly from serious injuries, such as losing all the fingers on his right hand while handling M-80 firecrackers. In spite of the injury, he has no visible scarring on his hand. In some episodes he displays enormous strength, such as when singlehandedly challenging a professional football team in "Patriot Games". According to the episode "The Father, the Son, and the Holy Fonz" Peter played high school football as a full back.
He underwent a vasectomy in the episode Sibling Rivalry.
Occasionally Peter soils himself, prominently featured in Death Lives and When You Wish Upon a Weinstein. After these accidents, he never seems to notice that it was a result of his own behavior.
Episodes like "Mr. Saturday Knight", "Model Misbehavior", "Deep Throats", and "Peter's Two Dads" show that Peter has used various drugs such as LSD, Methylenedioxymethamphetamine "ecstasy", marijuana, steroids, cocaine, and crack cocaine, but has managed to avoid incarceration and long-term effects from the use of these drugs.
In the episode "McStroke", after eating thirty hamburgers at once, Peter suffered a stroke that paralyzed the left side of his body. For the next three months he walked with a limp, his arm and leg hung lifelessly from his body, and his eye and part of his mouth had slid down his face, giving him a speech impediment. This damage was reversed completely after a five minute session at a stem cell research facility, after the relitively quick procedure he exclaimed "Why arent we funding this?!".
[edit] Personality
Peter appears to be unintelligent and consistently depicted as crude and lowbrow. He enjoys activities such as going to up-market tailors and farting inside the suits. His favorite pastime is watching TV. A running gag on the show is Peter's preference for Pauly Shore movies over classic films such as The Godfather and Citizen Kane. He is also a huge Kiss fan and followed them during the KissStock shows and even got a copy of Kiss Saves Santa for Christmas. Peter is also a huge fan of Barry Manilow, though this is a fact he has been known to deny in public (to a certain extent, anyway). Peter also mentions that he wears the male deodorant Speed Stick to his wife Lois, saying "Smell my Speed Stick?" while he is standing behind her in the office.
An I.Q. test confirms that his low intellect places him in a category below mentally retarded. His mental shortcomings have resulted in various accidents to other people; most notably the death of his step-father Francis Griffin, and injuries on multiple occasions to his wife Lois Griffin. His attention span is also incredibly short. When he discovers his mental retardation in "Petarded", he closes his eyes while driving, wishing "it would all be over" (hitting Tom Tucker with his car instead).
Peter also has a habit of proving his masculinity [1], not wanting Lois to fall for another man. He is incredibly jealous of other attractions Lois has in her life, an attitude that tends to get out of hand in most cases; in "Stuck Together, Torn Apart", he goes so far as to punch his reflection in the mirror after Lois comments on his reflection being handsome. In "Brian Sings and Swings", he tells Lois, "Remember what I always tell you, if I come home in the middle of the day and catch you having sex with someone, I'll kill you both" (though when he catches her in bed with Bill Clinton in "Bill and Peter's Bogus Journey", he takes no hostile actions whatsoever). However, he seems not to mind the fact that she slept with other men before they met, just so long as she doesn't do so again; he is particularly proud of the fact that she once slept with Gene Simmons of Kiss when he discovers this in "Road to Europe", but forbids any sexual activity between the two now as seen in "Don't Make Me Over".
Peter seems to find it frustrating that he is "wrong" while Lois is "right" about issues all the time, and apparently takes these issues competitively, just waiting for the day she slips up. This day finally comes in the episode "PTV" after settling a conflict with Lois about censorship on television that she appeared sure to win. In an ironic twist that forces Lois to concede defeat, Peter celebrates by opening a secret compartment within the ceiling containing balloons, streamers, confetti, and a banner reading "PETER'S RIGHT!"; Peter then claims that he set this up 15 years ago, suggesting that this hed been a pretty major issue for him for quite some time (there was also a clown in the stall, but he had died after being in there for so long). Curiously, in the non-canon episode "Da Boom", after Lois admits he was right about the end of the world and she was wrong, Peter makes no reference to the compartment, though he had been bragging about his "victory" for two weeks straight. Maybe the compartment had been damaged in the nuclear devastation.
Among the members of his family, he tends to treat Meg with the least respect; in "Peter's Daughter", for example, he reminisces about the various pranks he played on her, including tripping her, flicking her nose with his finger, and even shooting her at one point. He is known to embarrass her at times and with things that mean the most to Meg; the entire family once huddled together to read her diary and continue after Meg catches them. However, later episodes of the series show Peter developing greater respect and unity between himself and his daughter (such as in "Road to Rupert" and the aforementioned "Peter's Daughter"), though these moments tend not to last for very long.
[edit] Memorable Quotes
- (from Mr. Griffin Goes to Washington ) (Peter vouching at Congress and after seeing Stewie smoke) Lois was right! Children under four shouldn't smoke!
- (from Da Boom) People of New Quahog, my vision for our future comes true! A chicken in every pot (and then holds up a pistol) and a cap in every ass!
- Cleveland, sit down. I want to sing you a song that, uh, kept me going when I had troubles. (Peter begins playing guitar and starts to sing) We were at the beach. Everbody had matching towels. Somebody went under a dock and there they saw a rock, but it wasn't a rock, it was a rock lobster. Rock lobster. Rock lobster. Hehehe, yeah, you'll be all right.
- (After being called a fizzle) Nobody calls me a fizzle and gets away with it! Except for that one guy who called me a fizzle and then ran away, he got away with it. But most of the people who call me a fizzle don't get away with it! Actually he was the only guy to ever call me a fizzle, but after today only half the people who have ever called me a fizzle will have gotten away with it!
- Yeah, climb any mountain, rent any video, dial any phone. And not just our phone, Lois, other people's phones! Decent phones, God-fearing phones, phones that everybody else gave up on, but we knew better because we were a team!
- I don't say this often enough, but, uh, I'm gonna die.
- Gays don't vomit. They're a very clean people. And they have been ever since they came to this country from France."
- No, no, Lois, it's time I joined the ranks of great men with beards. Why do you think Jesus Christ was so popular? Cause, uh... cause of all them magic tricks?
- I thought you wanted us to do a good show. I mean if you wanted us to do a bad show, we could've done Rent.
- (On killing the kids from Dawson's Creek) I'm not gonna kill those kids. If they die I'll have nothing to watch on Wednesdays... (looks at the camera) ...other than the fine programs on FOX...
- A degenerate, am I? Well, you are a festeezio! See, I can make up words too, sister.
- What can I say about my beautiful bride except, Milk, Milk, Lemonade, around the corner fudge is made. (laughs)
- (After being told he's fat) Okay, this is news to me. Boy, this is more awkward than having sex with a rhinoceros who doesn't love you anymore.
- Pow! Right in the kisser!
- Wonder twin powers, activate!... to the shape of Jayna's tampon... and now I play the waiting game.
- Lois : Peter, what did you promise me last night?
- Peter : That I wouldn't drink at the stag party.
- Lois : And what did you do?
- Peter : Drank at the stag par - whoa, I almost walked right into that one.
- I would say "Come again?". And then I would laugh 'cause I said "come".
- Peter : Lois, you've got a sick mind!
- Lois : No, Peter, I'm talking about making love.
- Peter: Oh, I thought you wanted us to murder the children and harvest their organs for beer money.
- (Meg is sitting at table in kitchen) Meg, who let you back in the house?
- Lois : Peter, why are we stopped?
- Peter : (Peter is at drive-thru window) Yeah, I'll have three cheeseburgers...
- Lois : Peter, for God's sake, she's having a baby!
- Peter : Oh, that's right... uh, and a kid's meal... and uh, I-I guess I'll have fries... if I have fries, is anyone else gonna have any? Cause, uh, I don't wanna be the only one eating them, I'll feel like a fatty.
- (Peter has to make up a name)
- Woman : I'm keeping an eye on you. What's your name?
- Peter : Um, my name? (sees a pea on a plate) Uh.. Pea... (sees a girl crying)... Tear... (sees a gryphon fly through the window).. uh, gryphon. Y-yeah, Peter Griffin. Ah, crap!
- All right, I'll talk to him, Lois. But, uh, you know when my father wants something, it's like sex with Kobe Bryant. You can kick and scream all you want, but it, uh... it's gonna happen.
- Let's go drink until we can't feel feelings anymore!
- (Upon being found drunk) I'm not drunk, I'm just exhausted 'cause I've been up all night drinking.
- Canada Sucks (while at the Indian casino)
- (After being shot with many tranquilizer darts) But, I don't wanna feed grandma bacon while she's in the bathtub.
- On Tuesdays, you get to wave your penis at traffic.
[edit] Relatives
Main Article: List of Griffin and Pewterschmidt ancestors
- Lois Pewterschmidt Griffin (wife)
- Stewie Griffin (son)
- Chris Griffin (son)
- Meg Griffin (daughter)
- Francis Griffin (step-father)
- Mickey McFinnigan (father)
- Thelma Griffin (mother)
- Bertram (biological son)

