Twenty of the highest-rated and most talked-about episodes of the long-running and ever-irreverent adult animated series Family Guy.
Originally debuting in 1999, Family Guy is one of a select few adult-oriented animated series to have lasted for more than two decades. While shows like Bojack Horseman and Rick & Morty have since captured much of the spotlight, Family Guy remains a staple of after-hours television.
Though newer seasons aren't quite as revered as the series' older outings, Family Guy remains an enduring enterprise. Surviving multiple controversies and cancellations, it'll be quite some time before Family Guy is forgotten.
Update Nov. 1, 2021: Seth MacFarlane's outrageously obscene series continues to dominate; renewed through 2023 and closing in on its twenty-fifth anniversary, Family Guy won't be leaving Fox's rotation any time soon.
Fans may have plenty to look forward to, but there's plenty of older material to return to in the interim. From the ever-amazing "Road To" series to cameos from comedians like the late-great Norm Macdonald, there's more than enough reason to re-watch some of Family Guy's now decades-old episodes.
After Chris witnesses a robbery, The Griffins are forced to enter witness protection and must relocate to the American south. A far cry from Quahog, the family has a tough time adjusting to their new surroundings, and much of the episode revolves around a budding romance between Chris and his new friend Sam.
Parodying everything from The Dukes of Hazard to Deliverance, "To Love and Die in Dixie" is a quintessential early Family Guy episode. It may have aged somewhat poorly in twenty years, but hardcore fans of the series will still find it to be hilarious as ever.
Stewie's hatred for his mother grew to be a fairly played-out plot point by Season 5, but the episode "Stewie Loves Lois" turns this on its head. After Lois rescues Rupert from a dog, Stewie fosters a newfound affection for his mother. Meanwhile, Peter attempts to sue his doctor for sexual harassment following a prostate exam.
It's a fairly meat-and-potatoes Family Guy episode that hits all of the regular notes, but its positive reception is a reflection of how well the series was regarded in the mid-2000s.
Much of the comedy in Family Guy involves pop-culture parody, and, though the series' Star Wars skewerings are perhaps more famous, the Season 7 celebration "Three Kings" should not go ignored. It's also one of Family Guy's darkest episodes.
Poking fun at the famous Stephen King stories Stand By Me, Misery, and The Shawshank Redemption, Family Guy pays respect to the works of one of the most famous horror authors of all time while also lampooning some of his stories' sillier elements. The only negative about the episode is that it forgoes well-known properties like The Shining and It.
It's no secret that, despite its popularity, Family Guy was never destined to be an award-winning series, something on which the show comments in the incredibly meta Season 16 premiere "Emmy-Winning Episode."
In a bid to finally win an Emmy for best comedy, the characters of Family Guy rip off other popular series like Modern Family, Cheers, and Transparent. Blatantly critical of the overly-dramatized nature of most modern-day comedy series, "Emmy-Winning Episode" is both wildly irreverent and absurdly funny.
The sixth episode of Season 16, "The D in Apartment 23" sees Brian accosted by Twitter users after posting an insensitive tweet about comedian Kevin Hart. Gone viral for all the wrong reasons, Brian is forced to leave the Griffins' home and go into hiding.
While cancel culture and comedy series don't typically mesh all that well, this was a laugh-a-minute lambasting of both racial insensitivity and the hive-mind mentality often promoted by social media, and "The D in Apartment 23" is easily one of the most memorable episodes in Family Guy's recent history.
Family Guy had a little fun with the popular Star Wars franchise when the sixth season opened with a two-part hilarious recreation of Episode IV: A New Hope. The episode was titled "Blue Harvest" in honor of the working title of the original movie.
While the success of "Blue Harvest" ultimately led to subsequent retellings of the original trilogy that became known as the Laugh It Up, Fuzzball trilogy, the first episode is the highest-rated for a reason and sits high above the rest of the reimagined Star Wars trilogy.
The ninth season of Family Guy featured another adventure for Brian and Stewie in their fan-favorite series of road trip/musical episodes as the pair headed on a quest to kill Santa Claus in "Road To The North Pole."
The episode not only showcased a dark take on Santa's workshop that fans won't soon forget, but also a number of funny but disturbing moments, and Brian and Stewie took over Christmas and attempted to deliver presents around the world with little success.
This fourth season episode may not be the most sensitive, though that aspect of the show has extended far beyond just this one instance and been far less well-received in many other circumstances. The episode sees Peter take an IQ test that reveals he can be classified as intellectually disabled, a fact that he realizes he can use to his advantage to get away with things he wasn't able to before. However, his life is soon thrown into chaos after the children are taken away by Child Protective Services.
The first episode that featured Brian and Stewie's solo adventures was called "Road To Rhode Island" and aired in the second season. Brian volunteers to pick Stewie up from Lois's parents after his therapist suggests taking some time away to deal with abandonment issues from his mother.
Of course, things quickly fall apart, and Brian and Stewie are forced to find their own way back to Quahog while also dealing with Brian's leftover issues surrounding his mother. Peter and Lois's marriage counseling video side story is also a comedic addition to the episode that further elevates it above the rest.
Peter will do anything to get out of paying a bill, and, in this season two episode, he goes as far as claiming that he is dead to get out of a hospital bill. But, like all things in life, there are consequences, and Death shows up at Peter's door in order to reap him. As Death chases Peter, he trips and hurts his ankle. Peter realizes that this means that everyone is immortal and chaos erupts in the Quahog. In order to set things right, Peter has to take over Death's job and kill the cast of Dawson's Creek.
The episode highlights what the show was always able to do best, which is to show the ridiculousness of human nature when given the right motivations. It also features the late great comedian Norm Macdonald.
Just a few days before the start of the new millennium, Family Guy released their own Y2K doomsday episode. After a nuclear Armageddon occurs, the Griffins establish New Quahog around a Twinkie factory.
However, their little paradise is soon ruined by Peter, who soon becomes power-hungry and starts to make guns at the cost of everything else. Genuinely funny and very relevant even today, the episode skyrocketed the show's popularity.
The eleventh season of Family Guy featured a twisted time travel adventure episode "Yug Ylimaf" that reveals Brian has been using Stewie's time machine to impress women he brings home from the bar.
When trying to cover his tracks and rewind a gauge that would alert Stewie to his use of the time machine, he inadvertently caused the timeline to reverse itself. This led to a number of comedic moments in the episode as they struggled to fix the timeline, which included an unforgettable reverse fight between Peter and his long-time rival, Ernie the Giant Chicken.
In another episode with Death, Peter travels back in time to experience his bachelor lifestyle. As with almost all time travel stories, everything very quickly goes wrong, and Peter finds himself in a future where Lois is married to the ever-inappropriate Quagmire, while Peter is married to Molly Ringwald.
Soon, Peter realizes that this isn't the life he wants and goes back to his past to set things right, though it takes several attempts. Overall, the episode is fun, full of '80s references, and made Quagmire weirdly likable for a change.
Family Guy always does really well with its season openers, but few were as memorable as that of season six. "Lois Kills Stewie" is the second part of the season opener and set after Stewie kills Lois and frames Peter. In this episode, Lois returns, and Stewie becomes the tyrannical President of the World. Lois realizes she is the only one who can kill Stewie, and an epic gunfight in the oval office ensues. However, Lois can't kill her son, and he is instead shot by Peter.
At the end of the episode, Stewie reveals that it was only a computer simulation, much to the chagrin of Brian, who argues that any hypothetical viewers may have been angered by this episode. Importantly, Lois really shines in this episode as she is removed from her stereotypical housewife role and becomes an epic action star.
A running gag throughout the show is Stewie's obsession with killing Lois. In the first episode of season six, he finally gets it right and shoots Lois on a crew ship. A year after her death, everyone is seemingly doing just fine.
However, after it is revealed that Lois had a hefty life insurance policy, everyone begins to suspect Peter. Stewie then accidentally incriminates Peter and goes on trial. However, just before he is sentenced to life, Lois shows up in the courtroom, ready to take revenge on Stewie.
For a very long time, The Simpsons and Family Guy were the two most popular animated shows on TV, and there was often a little bit of a rivalry between the two. Therefore, it was a great surprise to fans that the two shows had a crossover episode for the opening of Family Guy's thirteenth season. In the episode, after having their car stolen, the Griffins stay with the Simpsons.
After it is revealed that Pawtucket Beer is an imitation of Duff Beer, drama ensues, and the two companies go to court in a case presided over by the original father of the animated comedy, Fred Flintsone. In the end, Peter and Homer get into a fight which eventually forces the two to amicably split. Highly self-aware about the two shows' unique differences and each of their strengths, the episode was an overall success and easily one of the show's most memorable.
Family Guy's self-referential humor has always helped it to stick out among its competitors, and no episode better exemplifies this as season four's "PTV." After the FCC takes drastic measures against TV shows following a wardrobe malfunction at the Emmy's, Peter decides to make his own uncensored TV network.
However, things quickly go too far, and Lois forces the FCC to shut down the network, but the FCC then starts to censor everyone in Quahog. Easily one of the funniest episodes of the show, "PTV" was also a slight jab at Family Guy's often difficult relationship with the FCC.
Actor James Woods is a recurring antagonist in the series, and, in the season nine premiere, the residents of Quahog are invited to a dinner party at his mansion.
However, soon the episode turns into a compelling mystery as more and more of the dinner guests get murdered. Clearly derived from the Agatha Christie novel And Then There Were None, the episode was a fun take on the "whodunit" genre.
Family Guy has changed dramatically since its first season, and, in season ten, Brian and Stewie travel back in time to the pilot episode in 1999. However, after Brian warns the past Brian about 9/11, the future changes dramatically.
Stewie and Brian are then forced to consistently go back in order to fix the future, which, unsurprisingly, takes multiple attempts. Overall, it was a really solid meta episode that is easily also one of the best time travel TV episodes of all time.
One of the best parts of Family Guy has been Stewie and Brian's "Road to" adventures. In the first episode of season eight, Stewie and Brian travel to a variety of alternate universes, where at least one thing has been changed in their society. They even go to a hilarious and yet controversial Disney version of themselves.
Eventually, they end up in a universe where humans obey dogs and Brian becomes infatuated with the new universe and breaks their universe traveling device. Luckily, they are saved by the other Brian and Stewie. The episode was clever, funny, and strangely insightful for Family Guy, and it is easy to see why it is the show's best.
