"Everything I say is a lie. Except that. And that. And that. And that. And that. And that. And that. And that." - Peter Griffin

Peter Griffin is the father and central protagonist on TV's Family Guy. Voiced by series creator Seth MacFarlane, Peter is the stereotypical New England overweight loudmouth. Clad in his dark pants, white shirt, and glasses (which he only wears to fool the man from the draft board), Peter stumbles his way from one situation to the next as the plot dictates. His immediate family consists of his wife Lois, his three children Meg (who is not his biological child), Chris (who was an accident), and Stewie (who is just plain evil), plus dog Brian and seldom-seen religious father Francis Griffin. His extended family includes a number of famous people, including Juarez Griffin the cockfighter and Angus Griffin, the man who invented golf. During Seasons 1 and 2 of the series he was employed as a quality control inspector at Happy Go Lucky Toys, Inc., although in Season 3 his boss, Mr. Weed, died, leading to the closing of the toy factory. After being out of work briefly, Peter became a fisherman. The writers had intended for Peter to change jobs every few years (much like average Americans do), but the series was canceled before this plot thread could be fully explored.

Due to the rapid fire cutaways and flashbacks on Family Guy, much of Peter's past is defined through a series of throwaway jokes and gags. Family Guy was more about jokes than it was about character development, so Peter and his family did not receive such detailed characterizations as, say, Philip Fry and Turanga Leela of Futurama fame. Here's some of what we do know...

  • Peter met his future wife, Lois Pewterschmidt, when he was working as a towel boy at the Cherrywood Manor swimming pool. He was taken with her beauty and she was attracted to his averageness. The Pewterschmidts resent Peter for "taking" Lois into a life of middle class living.
  • Aside from his position at the toy factory and as a fisherman, Peter has served as president of various organizations: school board president, the president of Petoria, and the president of the toy factory during the period when it was a subsidiary of a tobacco company. He's also served as the "magic clam" during the Quahog Clam Festival and the producer of a local theater production of Peter Griffin Presents Peter Griffin's "The King And I" (A Peter Griffin Production). Peter rewrote the classic The King and I to feature talking penguins, a tribute to Flashdance, partial nudity, explosions, kung-fu fighting, and an Atomic Nuclear Neohuman Android armed with a gamma-powered ray gun.
  • At some point after marrying Lois he was replaced by his evil robot double. Lois, forced to choose which Peter was the real one, shot the man she believed was the evil robot. She chose incorrectly, but is unaware of this fact.
  • Peter has few talents. Most of his free time is spent on the couch while watching television, but he has been known to go drinking at the local bar (The Drunken Clam), play golf, play piano (but only while drunk), and tend bar (he built his own bar in the basement in "Mind Over Murder" and dreamed of his own television show in which he played a retired baseball player who tended bar at the center of the Earth in "Fifteen Minutes Of Shame").
  • Most every idea and plan that Peter has is filtered through 1970s and 1980s television and pop culture, making most of his thoughts quite esoteric. For example, Peter's parade theme suggestion in "Love Thy Trophy" is a loving tribute to the episode of Who's The Boss? where Tony sees Angela naked in the shower.

While Peter was the central character for much of the series, the writers eventually saw Stewie Griffin's breakout potential and the baby with his eyes on world domination took the focus of many episodes. Peter remained a strong #2 man, however, and still saw his share of the limelight and controversy; case in point: Peter's statements and actions towards Judaism in the episode "When You Wish Upon A Weinstein" resulted in the episode being banned from the air until November 2003. Despite his crude nature (or perhaps even because of it) Peter Griffin is one of television's most memorable figures.

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