Dethroning Moment of Suck (Darth Wiki)/Western Animation/Family Guy

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Seth MacFarlane and his writing team sought to create a show that's so offensive it's funny. In these cases, they probably put too much emphasis on the former.

Keep in mind:

  • Moments only, no "just everything he said," "The entire show," or "This entire season," entries.
  • No contesting entries. This is subjective, the entry is their opinion.
  • No natter. As above, anything contesting an entry will be cut, and anything that's just contributing more can be made its own entry.
  • Explain why it's a Dethroning Moment of Suck.
  • No ASSCAPS, no bold, and no italics unless it's the title of a work. We are not yelling the DMoSs out loud.

Seasons 1-3 (Pre-Revival)

  • To prove not everything pre-revival was a classic, we have the Season 1 episode Brian: Portrait of A Dog, which shows the dog's Black Hole Sue tendencies went as far back as the first season. Why? Well, at first, the episode starts out great with Brian feeling Peter doesn't respect him and Peter also feeling Brian doesn't appreciate him causing the former to run away. But, then it goes completely downhill after Brian runs away and we are subjected to many many parallels to the 1960s "Civil Rights" movements. No, just, no. It's a bad comparison for many reasons. First, equating a dog's (albeit a human-level intelligent one) problems with "leash laws" to the "Jim Crow" laws is just insulting on so many levels I don't know where to begin. Second, the indignities that minorities had to endure were far worse than Brian not being allowed to drink at a fountain or having to wear a leash for his own protection. And, finally, the parallel just doesn't work because most dogs in the series are realistic animal-minded dogs (About the only dogs in Family Guy that are of human level intelligence are Brian, New Brian (Deceased), Jasper, and the Griffin's old dog before they got Brian (I can't remember his name)). This isn't Brian asking for equal rights for his species. This is Brian complaining about not being treated "special" because he's a talking dog.
  • I don't know if I'll be courting controversy by saying this, but I really and truly did not care for Season Two's(Or whatever season it was, due to network shuffling)"Let's Go To The Hop". The reason why, is well, rather simple, I thought it was an extremely boring episode, that somehow managed to irritate me at the same time. That cringe-inducing song in the middle, the unfunny cutaways(Keep in mind the first three seasons had the highest standard of humor and writing, in my opinion)and how whiny Meg was throughout. Peter's neglect didn't help much either, nor that damn Connie character. I can see why the writing staff don't like writing for Meg, because that episode was inoffensive to the point of well, being offensive, and when you're writing for "Family Guy", that should be your number one priority:make us laugh and make us give a damn. Seth once said "Fore Father" was the weakest episode of the first three seasons, but I'm inclined to disagree.


Season 4

  • The very first thing the show did on returning - having Peter list off every canceled Fox show since Family Guy went off the air. The sheer arrogance of the moment is staggering. It's Seth waving his dick around and yelling, "Suck it, FOX! I'm the only chance you have!" And it's also illogical - what, they all got canceled because they're not Family Guy? The scene might have worked if they listed every show that was in Family Guy's time slot, but listing every canceled Fox show takes it to the point of masturbation.
  • In Don't Make Me Over, the writers finally seemed to give Meg the love she deserved. So much for that. They could have give her a little more respect since that episode, but no, She had to go back to herself by the end. Because Status Quo Is God. And before you say "but that episode had An Aesop with Be Yourself!" remember that it becomes a Family-Unfriendly Aesop if this is just a lame excuse to put the character through shit.
  • "Patriot Games"—the home of the infamous "Where's my money?" and "Shipoopi" scenes. The former scene was just unnecessary violence and is uncomfortable to watch. The sheer unnecessary-ness of the latter scene was parodied five years later in a clip show, when Stewie cringes at the fact that they have to play "Shipoopi" again.
    • Don't have a problem with something being uncomfortable to watch, but musical numbers are usually the DEW line for a show having jumped the shark. Mostly averted in Family Guy's case, as they're there due to MacFarlane's fanhood, but "Shipoopi" was some of the most overlong, unfunny, obnoxious filler I've seen, and it was compounded by giving the London Sillynannies a musical number of their own. Its only funny moment was showing John Madden dancing along in the broadcast booth. IIRC, that episode was tied in with FOX's Super Bowl broadcast that particular season. Talk about putting your worst foot forward.
    • In the episode with the infamous Shipoopi scene (while being pretty horrendous, is not the DMOS), Lois tells Peter that, if he got handicapped, she would just drop him. Y'know, because that's what love is all about!
  • "You May Now Kiss the... Uh... Guy Who Receives". This episode was basically the start of the whole "Brian is the Author Avatar thing." Basically, Brian's cousin comes to visit and brings a Filipino boyfriend. They say that they are getting married and Lois is the only one not impressed by it. Mayor West then bans Gay Marriage in order to get around him building a solid gold statue of the Kellogg's cereal mascot Dig 'Em. Brian, in a complete wreckage of anything canon before it, automatically goes to try to help his cousin, trying to get signatures to repeal it. He gets the signatures and West disregards the signatures. In yet another wreckage of character, Brian holds West at gunpoint and takes him hostage. It is only then that Lois decides to go along with it and accept gay marriage. Brian immediately, after hearing Lois tell him to stop, ends up stopping... to which West tears up the gay marriage ban. So, a person (well, dog) holds you up at gunpoint unless you sign some idiotic paper repealing a gay marriage ban, so you... help him? Instead of arresting him? The episode ends on the gay marriage itself. The subplot wasn't much better at bashing Republicans, as Chris joins a Young Republicans group and burns Brian's original petition, and then it's never resolved.
    • Oh, you're missing half of the problems! For one, how is the mayor "banning" gay marriage? At the time this episode aired, gay marriage wasn't legal in Rhode Island yet—an inaccuracy that exists just to subtly make his side more "villainous." Secondly, Jasper and his boyfriends are the biggest stereotypes ever, and the most "romantic" thing about their relationship is Jasper making a sex joke. They don't even talk to each other (because the Fillipino can't speak English and Jasper makes no sign of speaking Spanish)--their relationship is as shallow as a puddle, so cares whether or not they can get a tax break for their zoophilia? And third, Lois is convinced to support gay marriage because Brian holds somebody at gunpoint. ...WHAT?! What sense does that make?! Her logic is that "he feels really strongly about this" so he must be right—that's idiotic! Brian is committing an act of terrorism right now! If gay marriage is right, it's right; if it's wrong, it's wrong. The fact that somebody (particularly somebody who's not even gay) "feels really strongly" about it does not prove their side is right! (Put another way—if the mayor was trying to legalize gay marriage and Brian put a gun to his head to stop it, would he be right then?) And then there was a "joke" about Elizabeth Smart, the real-life girl who was kidnapped by a crazy cultist for more than a year. The punchline is that she's horribly traumatized from repeatedly being raped. ...Fuck you in hell, writers. Seriously. (N.B.: the real Elizabeth Smart seems to have, thankfully, recovered from her ordeal quite well.)
    • While I agree with the above posts, there is one part in that episode that left a bad taste in my mouth and that is the scene where Stewie, Brian, and Jasper were watching the film The Sound of Music. In this movie parodied, after the nuns sabotaged the Nazis' pursuit of the Von Trapp family, one of the nuns confessed to the Reverend Mother Superior that she committed a sin and revealed that she decapitated Rolfe, much to the other nuns' horror. That said nun then shouted, "Hey, I didn't start this war, but it's on!" Yes, Family Guy writers, we get it! Rolfe was turned into a Nazi, and anybody who were Nazis shall burn in hell! But what the FG writers did to Rolfe was just uncalled for and pointlessly dark. I'm pretty sure Liesl's not going to be happy that her lover, who suffered a Face Heel Turn, had been killed off by one of the nuns. And I'm pretty sure the older Sound of Music movie fans who viewed this dreadful parody weren't happy with the FG writers interpreting how Rolfe's fate probably ended after he was brainwashed by the notorious dictator.
  • From Stewie Griffin The Untold Story, which would become a three-parter in season 4: The cut-away gag in which we have Elmer Fudd repeatedly shoot Bugs Bunny and then snap his neck before dragging the bleeding carcass away. Seriously, that's the entire 'joke', Elmer Fudd violently and bloodily killing Bugs Bunny. Graphically murdering a beloved childhood icon isn't Black Comedy, it's just sick.
  • I have a couple issues with the episode Petarded. It's odd since I find the episode itself funny, but I think the decline of the show (or at least Peter's character) can be traced to this episode. By making Peter technically retarded, it now gave the writers free reign to make him do even the stupidest of acts. If anyone calls them out on it, they can just say, "Well... he's retarded." Of course, this just makes every one of Peter's stupid and/or jackassy actions a slap in the face to actual retarded people. The other thing that bugs me is the scene where Peter is told he's retarded. The doctor shows an intelligence chart and it lists Creationists below retarded people. To make it worse, Seth himself starts to defend the joke on the DVD commentary, essentially stating that if people are too stupid to not accept evolution since nearly every scientist does, then they're all brainless. Get off your anti-religious soapbox already!


Season 5

  • Since someone already mentioned the infamous Brian And Stewie episode, I'll go with "Stewie Loves Lois" which I hated because it was just extremely unfunny and lazily written, the episode is essentially an Overly Long Unfunny Gag stretched out to 22 minutes (with the exception of the lame subplot where Stewie actually begins to like Lois, how is that supposed to be funny or entertaining?) the gag being Peter mistaking a prostate exam for an attempted rape and complaining about how he was "raped" for almost the whole episode, it's not funny the first time and it gets even more annoying every other time, how anyone can possibly find that funny is beyond me.
    • What's more is that, when Peter first tells Lois "I was raped," her reaction is to laugh. If it was after he said that the prostate exam he had was the "rape", it'd be understandable, but this was before! Remember, men can never be raped!
  • This troper can't think of a single episode, since the series as a whole usually makes him go "that-couldn't-make-me-laugh-in-a-million-years", but a nice example that could be picked is the Italian dub of the episode, "No Meals On Wheels". I'm not talking about "The crippletron"; I'm talking about the ending. You know, Peter begins to understand what being crippled means and feels like... until the last line of the episode is said by Peter: "Grey's Anatomy? [which Joe was planning to watch with the Griffins] Come on, that series doesn't stand on its feet!" (the expression means, "it's pointless"). It was all a setup for a lame joke. Seriously, they Played for Laughs Character Development to pull a lame Take That at both Grey's Anatomy and all of the crippled. The thing that "couldn't stand on its feet" is the punchline itself.
  • The one where they go to Texas. Like that one guy above said, you can't mix preachiness with over-the-top parody, and this episode shows why perfectly: The people they meet there are deliberately exaggerated for comedic effect, yet then you have Brian taking it totally seriously, which makes it seem like the writers did too (even though, unless you're incredibly cynical, it's obvious that they aren't and cannot possibly be that stupid). It's also an example of why a character like Brian does not work on this show: He's essentially a real person (namely the writer) living on Planet Eris, and for the most part they're stuck making him ignore the sort of behavior someone like him shouldn't be tolerating. It's only when that behavior offends his political sensibilities, apparently, that he can't stand silently by. Of course, "Not All Dogs Go to Heaven" would end up taking this problem even further; I just lost patience sooner than most people apparently.
    • That episode lost me for a while (I was briefly won back until "Not All Dogs Go To Heaven") but another reason I hate it was for wasting Gilbert Gottfried in a nothing cameo. Still not as bad a waste as the TNG cast, and as it's Gilbert YMMV.
    • I hated this episode simply because I am tired of the stereotype that those from my state are ignorant, racist, sexist, dogmatic assholes who would attempt en masse to lynch people because they are gay or atheist. I recognize parody when I see it, but as the first troper noted, when you mix preachiness with over-the-top parody and include extremely mean-spirited stereotyping, the result is you sounding like an asshole.
    • The big problem I had with this episode was the entire setup to get them to Texas just so the show could make all the "Texans are backwards-ass jerkwad rednecks" jokes. Stewie throws up in church after ingesting too many crackers and too much wine—which is a completely understandable reaction—and just because the crackers and wine are part of Communion, he's immediately assumed to be possessed and sought after by the entire town of Quahog, as well as the authorities, for an exorcism. First: it makes religious people look like complete Jerkasses for wanting to deliver an exorcism to a child who threw up in church (I know, big shock, Family Guy hating on religion). Second: actual church-sanctioned exorcisms are few and far between, and even then, they're done by highly-trained members of the clergy (and only after the church has deemed an exorcism to be truly necessary), not some random priest and a bunch of pissed-off civilians. Third: the whole "the police are looking for a possessed child" bit makes no sense because, last I checked, the police aren't called on to arrest people just because they're accused of being possessed by the devil. Fourth: Even if the Griffins had to run from the entire population of Quahog, that's no reason to make everyone else on the Griffins' trip to Texas (including non-Quahog police officers) as dumb as the rest of Quahog. If the rest of the episode had been worth the intelligence-insulting setup, then maybe I could forgive the attack on religion and the general absurdity of the setup; too bad that, as the others have pointed out above me, the episode was nowhere near worth the setup.
    • I believe this was the episode in which Stewie competed (in drag) in a beauty pagaent. Stewie makes a snarky joke about ending up like Jonbenet Ramsey. For those not privy, Jonbenet was a 6 year old beauty pageant contestant who was brutally murdered in her home on Christmas Day nearly sixteen years ago, whose murder still remains unsolved. That was utterly tasteless and disrespect to the victim and her family. What the hell are they thinking? I know it has been a while seen it happened that is no excuse. And it losing sane viewers because the writers making light of seriously tragic events worth making a few possible weirdos laugh at poorly thought out jokes.
    • This was the episode that made me lose all hope in the series. Up to this point, I was able to tolerate the Dead Baby Comedy and the Dude, Not Funny nature of the post-cancellation seasons. Hell even this episode I liked... up until Stewie vomits the communion wine. And that's when when it all came crumbling down as religious propaganda and racism that makes even American Dad seem tame. Texans are not all stupid, self-minded people. And really? Why the fuck did they have to include two Chuck Norris jokes that weren't even remotely entertaining (punching another child? Really?) Having Dubya in the episode was promising as they did make him into a nice guy, but severely wasted largely in part of the Author Tract going on. This episode is the reason why I only watch the first three seasons on an occasional basis (If I bother watching the series).
  • The one scene that cemented Carter's status as a Jerkass: The scene on "No Chris Left Behind" where he went to a local orphanage, picked out a kid, filled out all the paperwork, and then didn't took him home. While taunting the orphan kid from inside the car packed with toys and a puppy. Just for fun. And to add insult to injury, he stated just before that scene that he does it every month. That's just cruel. Nothing else, just cruel. Any wonders on why Lois became such a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing recently (Besides all the crap she has to put up with regarding Peter)?
  • "Hell Comes to Quahog" was overall a pretty decent episode, but it had quite possibly the most tasteless and unfunny cutaway gag in the history of the series. When Brian complains about Quahog's new Superstore USA, Stewie claims that he just hates department stores because of that one time a "special" boy pet him too hard in front of a K- Mart. We then cut to a mentally retarded child continually petting Brian really hard (to the point where he finds it difficult to keep his balance) until Brian snaps and bites him. Then the child starts crying, and we cut back to the story. That's it. The scene doesn't have a punchline; we're just supposed to laugh at the retarded kid simply because he's retarded. It wasn't quite enough to ruin the episode for me, but it certainly didn't help.
  • I have only seen one episode of Family Guy in my life, and it was bad enough that I'm unlikely to watch any in the future. The episode in question was "Whistle While Your Wife Works". For starters, it opens with Peter blowing his fingers off with a firework, scattering them around the neighborhood in a sequence that was uncomfortable and unfunny. Due to his injuries, Peter has Lois become his secretary and wants to have sex with her in his office. Meanwhile, Brian is dating a hot, but incredibly dumb, girl, and wants to break up with her. Neither storyline is very funny, and neither has an adequate ending: Peter and Lois have sex, but she's still working as his secretary; Brian tries to break up with the girl, but winds up having sex with her instead. Sex is not a valid substitute for resolutions. But what stands out for me the worst is a manatee gag where Peter mentions having lots of hiding places for his porn. The resulting gag is about a minute showing Peter going into an elaborate underground vault, and, at the end, takes out a porn magazine; it's an overly-long setup to a joke to which we already know the punchline.


Season 6

  • The moments in "Blue Harvest" where they just ripped gags off wholesale from Airplane. They don't make sense if you haven't seen Airplane, and if you have, it's nothing more than "Yep, that sure is a reference to Airplane". That's Seltzer and Friedberg-style humor right there. I hated the episode as a whole, but that just cemented it as the worst episode I've seen.
  • The cutaway where Quagmire rapes Marge Simpson and murders her family. Many Family Guy fans (including myself) are also fans of The Simpsons, so naturally we do not find this the least bit amusing.
    • Agreed. Even Matt Groening (a friend of Seth and a fan of the show) was so disgusted by this it almost ended the friendship between the two of them.
    • The worst part is that it honestly could have been a pretty funny visual gag if the writers had the sense to end it before Quagmire murders the entire Simpson family.
  • For me, it was one of the Cutaway Gags in "Padre de Familia". Brian reminds Peter that he (Peter) didn't even know about 9/11 until years later. Okay, fine... but then we cut to Lois, watching the coverage with tears in her eyes and a tissue in hand... and Peter walks in, glances at the TV, laughs and says "Must be a woman-pilot," before walking off. That's not fucking funny!
    • In "Padre de Familia", the scene where Peter gets a job as a nanny, crashes through the window, on top of two children, killing them. He gets up, vomits, shoves them under the bed, vomits again, cries, then jumps out the window to escape the scene of the crime. Who the hell thought something like this would be funny?!
  • As a whole, I find Family Guy kind of tasteless, but one episode just stands out with me. The one where Peter switches lives with James Woods and goes on Letterman to promote "his" new movie. A comedy about 9/11with David Spade as the airplane. That's when I stopped watching the show completely.
  • How many of their writers were influenced by Monty Python? Influenced enough to include a scene where Brian's long-lost son subjects Meg to "the 178 hours of Monty Python that are neither funny nor memorable"? In the episode "The Former Life of Brian", which ironically references a Python film that is both funny AND memorable? As a Python fan, this so-called joke rubbed me so hard the wrong way that it took some skin off. I haven't watched the show since. Sorry, Seth. Come back when you've got a bunch of feature films and a cult following longer than your arm.


Season 7

  • "Horton Hears Domestic Abuse In The Next Apartment, But Doesn't Call The Police". That's the Manatee Gag that cost the show what little respect it had from me. It was probably the most uncalled for, idiotic joke in the history of the show, because not only is it in really poor taste because it has a basis in reality, but the woman's screaming and there was a baby watching. No. Just... no.
  • The "Nazis would support McCain and Palin" joke. I'm not a conservative, and even agree with a lot of the show's politics, but that kind of joke is the crap people like Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter would pull, and I don't take it from them, so I won't take it from this show.
  • If you want a dose of Jerk Sueness and Character Derailment, look no further then "Baby Not On Board". Main plot: Stewie is left at home. In the early seasons, this would have led to world domination. But, now, he can't do the basics without having to get a job, and fails at a job badly. No evil schemes (except maybe kidnapping Quagmire and Joe) that once made this character appealing. Now, for the subplot, which I really hate. Peter wins gas money, so he takes the family out on a trip. He manages to not know what 9/11 is, jump out of a car to watch a movie, and gamble away all of their money. Lois rightfully tells him off by saying that his mind is completely fucked up, and what does Peter do? He quotes, verbatim, the famous rebuttal from Planes, Trains and Automobiles (ruining that scene forever AND proving that Peter's an egotistical douchebag).... and Lois instantly feels remorse. Use that one scene to refer to a Mary Sue: you can act as huge a jerk as you want, but if you rip off a famous scene from a John Hughes movie (which did not even fit the context of Lois's rant), you fix everything! It also proves the laziness of the FG crew, as they can't even write their own material. Add to that the overabundance of Cutaway gags (which ranged from "fell flat" to "downright offensive") and more Meg bashing then usual, and you have possibly the worst episode of the series.
  • "Family Gay". How the "being gay is not a choice, and we should accept them the way they are" intended aesop was warped into "gays are amoral assholes that find partners easily replaceable and care for nothing but sex, and we should accept them the way they are". Because that's exactly what Peter says with his actions after becoming gay: he ditches his wife and family for a random guy named Scott, leaving them ravaged. Let's not forget that, apparently, being gay makes you want to bang ten guys at once. This shows how bad it is to preach in a comedy show, you simply can't be serious and funny at the same time. Oh, and the frosting of the cake was Lois saying, "I can't change your orientation, and I'd be wrong for me to try", when Peter's orientation was changed by the doctors through artificial means.
    • Also, the "not a choice" bit gets combined with Peter having willingly chosen (with full knowledge it is what would happen) to have drugs that make him gay used on him.
    • I thought this episode was shocking because it gives the off the assumption that all gay men are attracted to every guy on earth. I'm a straight woman, and I know every guy I see at the store isn't checking me out. One of my best friends is a lesbian, and I know she doesn't like me in that way, she's admitted it. When Peter goes ahead and has a 13-way or whatever, it just sealed the deal for me that the writers aren't in the business for shock value, but something a lot more sinister.
    • Actually, come to think of it, pretty much all the gay characters in Family Guy are Camp Gay stereotypes.
  • "The Juice is Loose" is an OJ episode. Hey, remember back in 1995 when that would've been funny? The episode was written to probably coincide with the rumors of the OJ "What if I Did Do It?" book. But it seems in bad taste and a joke way too late to be really funny. Any episode after that is just awful.
    • The extended Conway Twitty cutaway was the moment for me. That's when I realized that Seth and Co. knew they didn't even have to fill airtime with their own animation. That along with the pointless Stewie dancing with Gene Kelly for an entire sequence (which was just Stewie rotoscoped over Jerry Mouse) convinced me what a lazy crew the Family Guy team is.
    • For me, it was the stupid throwaway ending in which OJ randomly stabs three people and runs off, with Peter saying "I guess he did do it." That was the exclamation point for an unfunny tactless episode.
  • FOX-y Lady. The ending where they just stop trying. Seriously, she revealed that the icon of the right wing was a fraud. Even if she also revealed the icon of the left was too, that'd still be a pretty decent reason for Fox News to fire her.
  • The episode "Not All Dogs Go To Heaven", which can basically be described as an anti-theist Chick Tract, was the most jarring Dethroning Moment of Suck I have ever seen. There were so many Chick parallels; the old man in the sky "disproof" was similar to anti-evolutionist "I've never seen a monkey give birth to a human" sentiment, and after telling Meg her very existence proves no benevolent force exists, Brian tells her the physical universe is better than God, mirroring Chick tracts ending with "God is going to send you and everyone you know to hell for existing (one minute later) God loves you so much." I watched most of Moral Orel without getting offended (meaning I didn't see all of it, not that any of it offended me), so that should give some scope on how ridiculously hateful the episode was.
    • The horrific icing on the moldy, smelly cake to the above is that the same episode had a wonderfully silly sub-plot featuring Stewie's antics with the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation. So not only was the main plot godawful (no pun etc), but they had an excellent opportunity for an episode of hilarious TNG gags that the audience would have loved, but they just wasted it.
      • If that isn't enough to get your blood-boiling, here's the kicker: Apparently the sub-story, not the atheism/Christianity "debate", was the one to be advertised on commercials, meaning FOX and/or the writers of the show, intentionally or otherwise, lured viewers with a somewhat interesting story and switched it with a Straw Man argument on religion. As Confused Matthew once said, "Surprise! You're being preached at!"
    • The really worst part about it though, is that they could have given Brian an actual reason to be an atheist. But no, we get the Hubble Telescope and man in the clouds debunk. Seriously? That's the only reason to be an Atheist? This atheist troper thinks the episode is more insulting to Atheists than it is to Theists. The worst part though, was that even though they already threw canon out the window just to put this episode in, they all the sudden want to retain the fact that Brian is an atheist (and of "Jerome Is The New Black", itself a DMoS, the fact that Quagmire hates Brian irrationally).
      • I agree that it's pretty demeaning to atheists too, but I don't think atheists had it worse. The worst atheists got in this episode was being portrayed as having silly arguments for their beliefs, theists on the other hand were painted as uncontrollably violent psychopaths that needed to burn/lynch everything that opposed their worldview and are so sheeplike that a few seconds of preaching from a theist can flame them into a riot and a few seconds of preaching from an atheist can turn them back in to civilized people. It's hard to argue that atheists had it worse when the episode actively tried to conflate theists with Nazis.
    • Brian being shunned for his atheism was a bit funny as a Take That at religious intolerance (although the intent was probably to establish Brian as a Sympathetic Sue); as was Meg being portrayed as a typical zealous but misguided Christian teen (too bad the The Fundamentalist stereotype is clearly how Family Guy's writers view all Christians). Initially, the episode's overall premise seemed decent, but I lost hope right around the "Worse than Hitler!" bit. Gah, lame. The peak of the episode's awfulness, though, was when Brian tried to explain why Meg's stab at religion was misguided and atheism is more logical. Sweet baby Jebus, worst argument for atheism I've ever heard. A loving God would've created Meg beautiful, and that disproves His existence? Not only did Brian objectify Meg by not for a moment entertaining the thought that her character could be more important than and compensate for her ugliness, but how is it God's fault that Meg is fat? And blaming God for her genetics, too? Fuck, this Christian troper could've come up with a way better argument for atheism. Also, as Grimace noted, the subplot with Stewie meeting the cast from Star Trek: The Next Generation was easily funnier than anything else in the episode. I especially liked Picard's lines. If only they'd scrapped the shitty main plot and stuck with that.
      • I concur. I especially hate the "Worse than Hitler!" chyron. This has to be the worst "Family Guy" episode I have ever seen. I'm a liberal who doesn't go to church and I am literally offended by this. It is offensive to Christians, Atheists, all other religions, and Trekkies combined. At least South Park did better with the "Trapped in the Closet" Scientology episode. This episode sucks! I have actually credited Rowdy C's "TV Trash" review for why I hate this. It really is what this would be like if Jack Chick was an atheist. I could rant about the other argued DMoS instances, but this one is the absolute worse I've seen personally.
    • Another awful part of Brian's ending sentiment is that he says "Your mom looks like Lois. Do you think a benevolent God would make you look like Peter instead?" Even though 1) this isn't enough to convert the pavement you're standing on to a different religion, and second, Meg looks a lot more like Lois than Peter anyway. The only real physical similarity between Peter and Meg is Meg's hair color and need for glasses. They basically debunked and dismantled an entire town's religious belief system by playing into a teenage girl's informed ugly compared to her mother's Informed Attractiveness.
  • Peter accidentally killing Quagmire's cat. Not only does he try to shave a cat, which is pretty mean to begin with, (which Joe and Cleveland are on board with) he keeps trying long after he's killed it and caused blood to splatter all over the place in an Overly Long Gag that doubles as a gross-out moment, and a real uncomfortable one for cat-lovers (Myself included). Then at the end of the episode, Quagmire is offering a reward for information about what happened to his cat, and Peter tells him he killed the cat and takes the money. That was what ultimately got me to stop watching the show.
    • Agreed big time. This troper gave up on Family Guy after that. As someone who loves animals, especially cats, I found absolutely nothing funny about this. Animal cruelty is a real problem, not something that should be used for a joke. Especially at the end, when Quagmire is distraught over the loss of his pet, just for that unfunny and downright unfunny joke. I'm sure anyone with a pet that they care about would see that situation was not funny.
  • Of the Flanderization and Character Derailment among the cast, the one that angers this long time Family Guy viewer the most is Lois. Whatever happened to the caring mother who went so far to give her daughter a decent spring break? The one who sicced Quagmire on the popular kids at that party? The episode that really pulls this to it's peak is "Stew-Roids" where Meg's lunch consists of an orange peel, the crusts from Chris' sandwich, and a photo of Lois eating a turkey leg with the most disgustingly smug smile on her face. Later that same episode in a rather cold tone of voice, she hands her daughter a bottle of pills and a Sylvia Plath book and says "I'm gonna look away, and whatever happens, happens." I know Meg's the Butt Monkey, but this is going too far.
  • The episode "Three Kings" was pretty tolerable, but one part in particular bothered this troper. In the segment that parodies Stand by Me, the narrator (Peter) introduces the three male protagonists. It was bad enough that he mentioned that Quagmire's character lost his virginity at the age of five and committed his first rape and the age of ten, but he then goes on to say that rape was still legal in the 50's. Uh... I know the 50's had different attitudes towards gender, but even they had standards.


Season 8

  • The Road to the Multiverse episode. Specifically the part where Stewie and Brian traveled to the universe where Christianity never existed. By now I am used to Family Guy's constant and relentless gabs at religion, but this one goes beyond just bashing Christianity. In that particular universe Stewie and Brian observed that universe's Meg, looking more like a Playboy model than the supposedly unattractive teen we all know. She was dressed provocatively in a micromini skirt and tube top with her 36D breasts hanging out. Since I sincerely doubt that just not having a religion would make people be automatically born more conventionally 'attractive', that would imply that women in that universe routinely alter their bodies to me more attractive to men. If "making women walking sex objects is the supposedly 'perfect' universe" is not a Family-Unfriendly Aesop, I don't know what is.
      • What made it worse for this troper was that the size of her breasts was the only physical difference other than her haircut. Her overall body type and facial structure were exactly the same. So even if a woman is otherwise pretty hot, if she has small breasts she can only be seen as physically repulsive and no one will ever want her. But a boob job will make her acceptable. Yeah. Thanks for that.
    • I hadn't watched FG for a while, until that episode came on, and I figured it'd be a lighthearted Stewie-Brian musical episode. Nonetheless, I said to myself that I'd see how long it was before the writer's views on religion and politics were shoehorned in. Four minutes. I haven't watched any of the new episodes since.
    • This was also the point where Family Guy pretty much completely messed up in it's dedication to anti-religiousness. Lots of people who don't know their history like to say "religion caused the Dark Ages," but the real reasons are much, much more complex than that and, in fact, the only people hanging on to knowledge, science, and literacy in the Dark Ages were the religious in the first place. So not only is it a tired assumption, completely transparent, and more than a little subtly hateful besides, it's also completely inaccurate. Good job giving us irreligious folk a good name, MacFarlane.
    • This Troper has a pretty high tolerance for Family Guy's particular brand of gutter humour, possibly because he shares roughly the same spoken sense of humour as Seth MacFarlane displays in his standup and live action appearances. However, even I had to perform a facepalm when this episode wasted an entire segment, and special animation... Only to make the punchline of the Disney Universe the tired, untrue joke about Walt Disney being an anti-semite (For those keeping score, Walt worked happily with numerous Jewish people and there is literally no actual evidence of anti-semitism in his history.) What makes this worse is they've made this joke before (In tandem with the myth about him being cryogenically frozen) and it wasn't funny the first time.
    • The skit where Brian and Stewie go to the universe where Japan won WWII. They have the family as racist characters that would make Jar Jar look politically correct. First, he tells Japanese!Meg to commit seppuku for being ugly, which she does, and then beats Lois for something stupid. This is why I'm convinced the writers hate Asians.
  • Family Goy, the anti-semitism of this episode is just so... ugghhhh. Adding to this is Brian's Black Hole Sue moment of him and Jesus agreeing that 'all religions are crap'. And also...Peter mimicking Amon Goeth from Schindler's List.
    • I am Jewish. I am almost certainly descended from Schindlerjuden (I've never researched it, but all things considered, it wouldn't be surprising). To see this episode was the equivalent of being punched in the face. Repeatedly. It's bad enough that they are playing one of the worst genocides in history for laughs (is there anything about that statement that seems all right to you?), but to have one of the characters emulate one of the worst monsters in history, and attempt to kill his wife just because she's Jewish, as a fucking joke?? It is an affront, an abomination, an insult of the worst kind. Seth MacFarlane should be ashamed of himself for even thinking this might be funny.
    • My problem with this episode is how fucking stupid Peter is being. Yes, I know Peter's stupid as hell but this is a new low, he goes gung-ho into being Jewish, then he goes into full on imitating a Nazi.
    • For me, the episode "Family Goy" made me stop watching the show. The Broken Aesop at the end was bad enough on its own, but what really made me stop liking the show was Peter's attempts to kill Lois because of her newly discovered Jewish ancestry. Especially the tasteless homage to Schindler's List. I'm not going to mince words: Peter has officially become as insane as the Joker. And not the cool Joker from Batman: The Animated Series; the creepy Joker as portrayed by Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger.
  • "Brian's Got A Brand New Bag". I. Hate. This. Episode. The second half anyway. I do find the Roadhouse gag slightly amusing (Don't judge me). So Brian starts dating a woman named Rita. A smart, nice, reasonably attractive woman. When the family finds out, they all take a massive level in jerkass, especially Lois, because Rita is an older chick (50. Less than a decade older than Lois if I remember correctly), and eventually drive her out of the house crying because of it. Brian goes after her, and proposes to her. A little rushed if you ask me, but its Brian, annoying liberal mouthpiece, being a genuinely nice guy. But this being Family Guy, something has to derail this. When he says she isn't an old lady, and I mean the very instant he says it, she calls him, asking about dinner...at 4:30 PM. From there, Rita starts acting like a stereotypical old lady, even though she didn't do this at all before. And Brian loses all character progress by fucking a bar skank, while she is laid up with a broken hip. Seriously, I hate this episode.
    • The DMOS for this troper in this episode has to be Peter beating up Lucy Van Pelt. I know Lucy is always a bitch for always pulling the football away from Charlie Brown, but, aside from the fact that Lucy is my favorite Peanuts character, she doesn't deserve such a harsh punishment from a grown-up who has to resolve certain situations with unnecessary violence, even when they have to sink to child abuse.
    • Not to mention they did this once before. Remember when Lois was training in Karate in Lethal Weapons? She had the ball gag done on her there, which resulted in her kicking her in the face. I will admit - I got a laugh out of it there. But then they pulled that stunt with Peter kicking the crap out of her. Too far.
  • All these moments are very bad, but for me, the absolute worst moment was the very end of the episode where Quagmire gets a new adoptive daughter. Throughout the whole episode, Quagmire had shown compassion for his daughter, and made many sacrifices to keep her happy, particularly near the end. Real heartwarming material... until the very end. After giving up his daughter to another family so she could be happy, he then says something along the lines of "I'll see her again when she's 18", obviously going to have sex with his own daughter when she's of legal age. While everyone reacts with shock, he simply says "You didn't think I'd changed that much did you? Gigitty Gigitty Goo!". That was probably the stupidest and most unfunny thing ever on this show. That totally and completely ruined the entire episode. All of the heartwarming moments and all of Quagmire's character development was killed by that one line, and he was turned back into a smug and callous rapist like usual. That one line killed the entire episode for me.
    • I agree with you. Really, that episode was being so heart warmer, Quagmire was starting to be a decent character... Until he deliberately implies that he can't change and that he'll have sex with his own daughter. Yes, we all know that Quagmire is a pervert. But come on, this is too much.
  • I think, like many, my DMOS would be "Not All Dogs Go to Heaven," but I actually watched a few FG episodes after that and even found some humor in "Road to the Multiverse." No, the moment that really tore it for me was a subplot at the beginning of that one episode where Brian runs over a dog and joins PETA. At the start of the episode, Brain learns he is to receive a "Special Reward" for his book. He goes to the location to find out that his book is beloved by mentally retarded adults because of the "simplistic" nature of the writing. While this was meant to poke fun at his "I'm the best writer ever!" attitude, the fact that he whined about it endlessly and decided his life had no meaning really ground my gears. I mean, I've been trying to get original work published for years to no avail. I'd be happy just to get published. I'd be overjoyed if my work found a small audience - even an audience I did not expect. I'd feel privileged if my work helped the mentally challenged even though it wasn't written "for" them! I'm freakin' overjoyed that people like my fan fiction! The fact that Brian was being such a douchenozzle about his work having an audience that was apparently "beneath" him to the point of feeling his life was utterly meaningless solidified him as a complete Jerkass for me (yes, even beyond taking away the one thing that made Meg feel worthwhile because he thinks she's ugly).
  • The episode where Peter loses his memory. The worst part was when Meg makes a joke about wanting to have sex with Peter. A weird joke, yes, but the DMoS comes from the family's reaction. They treat this as though it's the worst kind of joke you can make, and repeatedly make it out to be a sick and awful thing to say. This troper hated it the most when Chris throws her out of the kitchen, because Chris has shown sexual emotions towards Lois, his own mother, on more than one occasion.
  • Regu14: The episode Dial Meg for Murder has one. Though this troper thoroughly enjoyed watching Meg kick Peter's ass twice, and all, a joke early in the episode nearly made me miss it. I don't remember the lead in, but the punchline was that Goofy, the kindest, most sweet hearted of Disney's characters is in hell for plotting 9/11. Because in his own words "That's what they get for supporting Israel." Speaking as someone who grew up loving the character, this was just sickening. FG really needs to learn that 9/11 wasn't, and will never be funny.
    • Boredman: Not to mention that it's once again another "Disney hates Jews" joke. Not. Funny.
  • For a while I was struggling to decide whether to keep going with Family Guy or drop it. I decided to drop it when I saw the episode "Extra Large Medium". Why? The end of the episode was incredibly grim and not at all funny. A missing man has an armed bomb strapped to him, and Joe wants Peter to use his (non-existent) psychic abilities to locate him. Peter stalls for time, and even tries to get Joe to let him feel the missing man's daughters breasts. When the bomb goes off, Peter bluntly admits to not really being a medium. They expect us to laugh at Peter's arrogance and idiocy costing an innocent man his life, and nearly getting his daughter molested mere moments before that. Sorry, Seth, but I don't find that funny.
    • In the same episode, Chris dates a girl with Down's syndrome. I found it was not the plot but the way they handled it pretty offensive and I'm not that easily offended. Okay, a lot of it was very much tongue-in-cheek but still...
    • To add to that, lets not forget that after Joe informed Peter that the man's daughter was twelve., Peter then asks if she was a "little girl" or one of those 12 year olds who "got big boobs early from drinking milk" (!), and he appears fully intent on molesting her. What. The. Fuck. That's not funny, especially for me: I knew quite a few early bloomers back in 7th grade; they went to my middle school and got taken advantage of (and usually pregnant) by random adult drop-outs from the neighborhood. So, yeah, Seth shouldn't make making humor out of serious subjects a habit, or else he'll find those Nielsen ratings dropping sooner than later.
  • From the episode where Meg dates "A completely normal boy!", when Lois, who in the past has always tried to be a good mother who looks out for her children, undergoes the final step of her Jerkass Character Derailment by seducing her daughters' boyfriend, and then, when caught, claiming that he was raping her.
  • Forgot the name, but there was an episode where Peter gets sexually harassed by his boss, and Lois responds by saying women can't sexually harass men. This may just be a case of the writers making her ignorant on purpose, but it still gives the wrong message.
    • 'Terri Schiavo: The Musical'. Here's one of the lyrics: "Terri Schaivo is kind of alive-oh. What a lively little bugger ... Terri Schiavo is kind of alive-oh, the most expensive plant you'll ever see." Yes, because mocking a person who died slowly by dehydration is just hilarious.
  • The episode where Stewie cracks his head open and spends the entire episode with a coma and his brains falling out. Ok, people, there's Dead Baby Comedy, and then there's this. It's not funny, it's just cruel and disgusting. Remember, Dead Baby Comedy only works when it's so ridiculously over-the-top that it becomes hilarious. Stewie being seriously injured and/or dying is NOT ridiculously over the top and therefore is NOT hilarious. It'd be like someone stabbing a puppy and ripping out its intestines. That's just sick, man.
  • The Brian and Stewie episode. You know the one. Brian gets locked in a vault with Stewie and what follows are the most unwatchable "humor scenes" in history. The only humor in that episode appears to be quite a few minutes of Stewie telling Brian to eat his poop and then Brian actual doing it. There were no laughs to be found in the entire first half of the episode. However, the serious scenes should have saved it, right? It should have, but it felt too much like Character Derailment. Brian has been occasionally unhappy but never showed signs of depression or suicidal thinking. And the last part, where Brian and Stewie admit they love each other after having spent the entire first half of the episode abusing each other, just felt forced. Bottom line: no humor and a very hollow emotional theme. Please Family Guy, stick to what you do best: raunchy offensive humor, not mediocre poop jokes and soap opera dramatics.
  • 'Quagmire's Dad' seems to completely destroy the whole supposed 'liberal and open-minded' views of the show. The whole family acts disgusted by Ida being a transwoman. I know it's not completely out of character for the family to be complete jerkasses but it was really shitty of the writers to do that just for the sake of some cheap jokes. It's made even worse when Brian (who is the most liberal and open-minded and Author Avatar for Seth MacFarlane who views himself as a gay, lesbian, and transgendered activist) is so disgusted that he slept with Ida he pukes to an unrealistic extent. You know something's seriously fucked up when it's homophobic Quagmire who accepts Ida first being who she is. This again may be a personal thing for me (considering that I think transgendered people are severely abused by society) but it definitely proof that the show is complete crap. I can't think of why I was still watching the show.
    • As someone who knows the very real discrimination that most transsexuals still face by even the most enlightened societies, this episode was made all the more horrific to me when I realized the people who put their names on it. These are people who created the ridiculously-Aesoped "Family Gay", which created the most bizarre reasoning for supporting gay couples and the gay gene theory I've ever heard, yet their opinions on transsexuals amounts to what? "Don't ever have sex with one or Glenn Quagmire will beat your head in"? "Transsexuals are only worth mentioning to create fodder for jokes"? And, perhaps the worst assertion that the episode never gives any clear answer for, "gay people are all transgendered on the inside"? This episode's complete idiocy transcends political bounds - it's downright cruel, thoroughly wrong about transsexuals and their motives, and a hypocritical slide away from the liberal ideals that other FG episodes were content with shoving down our throats.
    • 45xxx: "Quagmire's Dad". I cannot, for the life of me, pinpoint one moment in this episode that was the worst of that piece of shit. The unfunny way it talked about sex change, the fact that Peter and Lois find it funny that Brain slept with Quagmire's "mom", even the end where Quagmire beats up Brian within an inch of his life. All of it was horrid, tasteless, and made me entirely give up on the series, especially Quagmire.
    • "Quagmire's Dad". I didn't really like the episode. Not from a Trans-bashing standpoint (that message was pretty clear too.), but the writing. Is there a writer on the staff who hates Quagmire? It didn't really make sense from a story-telling standpoint. As per the character reactions, I wasn't surprised. I live in Rhode Island, where the show is set, and people's reaction's vary. Even pro gay rights people are uncomfortable with transpeople where I come from.
  • There was an episode where Peter and company embark on a journey to find the source of the world's dirty jokes. It was a decent enough episode, still littered with plot holes, but still moderately enjoyable. That is, until the gang travels to Washington DC, and to the Vietnam War Memorial. There was a poor caricature of a Vietnamese man bragging to the mourners there about 'winning' The Vietnam War. Now I know that these writers are the kind that pride themselves on the amount of hate mail they get, but this sincerely broke my heart. I thought, how dare they? How dare you! Vietnamese people are barely represented in the media as it is, and the few depictions are the sort of exotic smuggler gang of the week or as a Vietnam War retrospective (think generic flashback into combat in a jungle). How dare you propagate blatant racism on national television? Why cannot you look to us as ordinary humans and not some inane gimmick plot device? Plus it doesn't even make sense in context. The Vietnamese guy is just randomly at the war memorial? Why? Just to brag? And why does he look like he's 30 when he apparently fought in the Vietnam War?
    • What made that joke the final DMoS for this troper was the disgusting disrespect Hentemann made toward our servicemen and women. Why Hentemann didn't then show the two veterans beating the living shit out of that man is beyond this troper, but...really, Hentemann? That's the best "Vietnam" joke you could come up with? I mean, seriously, you made Hitler's final days during World War 2 into some of the funniest jokes in Western Animation, and the Simpsons knew how to exploit Skinner's traumatic stint in 'Nam to a laugh every time...and that is the best you could come up with!?
    • I didn't like that joke either, but the Dethroning Moment of Suck in that episode was the ending. A random old man says that he finally got down the perfect dirty joke, and then he suddenly dies due to a heart attack or something like that. Peter then steals his dirty joke and bargains with the Dirty Joke Club or whatever its name was where Peter and his friends leave and in exchange, they hand the group the perfect dirty joke. Peter then burns down the club, killing thousands of people in the process... and the perfect joke was "Guess what? Chicken butt!" That was not only a poor joke that King of the Hill's Buckley did about ten or so years earlier, but also yet another completely pointless ending where even I could come up with a better naughty joke! Hell, I bet you that even the Dirty Joke Club or whatever wouldn't like it.
      • I found that the true DMoS was right after that. Paraphrased, Peter said, "Well, you sat through all this, so as a reward, here's a monkey scratching itself. Some charity for cancer kids or something wanted this airtime, but we said screw you." It's like the creators are saying, "We know this episode sucks, but we can't think of a half-decent joke to end it on, so here's some immature stock footage."
  • The episode "Brian's House of Payne" wasn't my favorite episode but I still need to bash it.First of all, this was one of the few episodes where Brian wasn't a complete douch bag that was constantly trying to be a author type smart ass.It starts with Brian getting approval from Lois about a script, so naturally Brian decides to take the idea to a studio and it works.It nearly went perfectly, BUT James Woods had to come in and turn Brians original and fairly good script into an immature sitcom while Brian tries to stop him from taking over his script.Once everyone gets to see his "pilot" they blame Brian for every thing and leave after insulting him for the awful episode.Okay, this annoys me because Brian nearly got character development but James Woods obliterates all chances of it and further Flanderizes Brian.And what is with that sub plot?Okay, so Stewie gets a head injury after Chris and Meg idiotically knock him down the stairs while fighting.Guess what?They hide the whole up and the sub plot quickly develops into Nausea Fuel as Stewie's head injury get infected.Its "resolved" by Peter throwing the unconscious Stewie under the car while Lois drive it.No...just no.If you want to make something dark and disgusting funny, don't make the audience want to stop watching because its to disturbing.


Season 9

  • for me it's "Brian writes a Bestseller"; for one, the week before it aired, it was billed as an episode full of Bill Maher (witch if you have ever seen how funny Seth can be with Bill Maher, you'd be pissed too), but insted the guest star got less then 30 seconds. Bonus: We're supposed to be enraged at Brian because he wrote a pro-religion book that he doesn't believe in, even though he has behaved far worse than that on a regular basis.
  • The Halloween episode became proof that the writers have completely forgotten about the characters. If Stewie from season 1 got his bag of candy stolen, he would have probably just whipped out his ray gun and incinerated those kids. This Stewie, a.k.a Gay Stewie, acts completely helpless and goes to Brian for help—and actually considers killing those boys to be too much. The same character who once kidnapped and tortured a seven year old for stealing his bike acts like that over this? Come the fuck on!
    • Mo: At first, I was pretty neutral with the Halloween episode due to liking a few parts of the plot of Quagmire being pranked, but that is pretty much ruined by how Meg's subplot ended. To elaborate, She was playing "spin the bottle" at a party and she got into the closet with a guy in an Optimus Prime suit. Normally, I would expect either the guy being ugly or running out screaming, but nope! It was Chris, in the closet with her! That resulted into the most painful scene I had to sit through because it was a blatantly disgusting joke even by the show's own standards.
  • The "Guy in a coma" gag from Brian Writes a Bestseller. It wasn't funny, it was overly long, and it was just uncomfortable to watch. I don't even know what the hell they thought they were going for, but neither the premise nor the material was funny and two wrongs do not make a joke. I mean seriously.
  • Road to The North Pole had a good Space Whale Aesop by the end but the sheer uncomfortableness of it ruined it for me. But the absolute worst part of it was Brian and Stewie breaking into someone's house to deliver presents. Word to the Family Guy writers: It is not funny to kill some random person, show his wife's panicked reaction, then kill her in front of their daughter and tie her to a chair. This is just sick and horrifying.
    • The whole episode was a DMOS for me. First of all, there was yet another "Brian VS Quagmire" fight, yet this one was completely unnecessary (Seriously, Brian made an honest mistake that anyone could've made. No need to get pissed at him, Glenn). Second, it was way too dark to the point where watching Hitler shooting puppies would've been an improvement. Finally, the message was far too preachy and rivals the infamous "Not All Dogs Go To Heaven" in terms of preachiness. Santa Claus is dying and the North Pole is in ruin because people are greedy? Really? Really? Way to make people feel good about the holidays, Seth. I'm sure people wanting to see a funny episode really enjoyed hearing Brian preach to them about how "greedy" and "selfish" they're being.
    • Honestly, none of the above examples have ever made me disown Family Guy. Maybe that just makes me one of the biggest idiots out there, but that mall scene... my God, that mall scene. I know they established that Quagmire hates Brian... but for the love of God. Quagmire could have told Brian all this to begin with, but he didn't. It's like he intentionally let Brian play with the Idiot Ball long enough to give him enough ammo to unload on Brian with. And when poor Brian tried to dig himself out of the hole, Quagmire forces him back in.
    • The episode "Road to the North Pole." Pretty much: Santa's elves are inbreeding, Santa is suicidal, the reindeer eat Santa's elves, and Santa has a massive factory that produces tons of toxic waste. Fuck you MacFarlane, this is not dark humor, or any sort of comedy: this is just being shocking for the sake of shocking people.
    • This Troper has a deep loathing of Brian in this episode, namely from him nonchalantly raiding that family's house for food and promptly killing the father and leaving his wife and child to rot. And the ending, where he convinces everyone they only need one gift. Assuming they literally get only ONE from any person it eliminates the "giving" part of the holiday and leaves behind the ugly "receiving" part. This Troper now wants a real life Dartboard of Hate of Brian.
    • Okay, we can all agree that Quagmire chewing out Brian that one time was pretty damn cool, if not very subtle, but did we really need to see a repeat performance of that crap in Road to the North Pole? We get it, Quagmire hates Brian. But watching him shit on an obviously repentant person who made an honest mistake was just painful and stupid.
  • "New Kidney In Town": After Peter drinks a Red Bull replacement concocted with kerosene after Lois got rid of his supply of the real thing, he has kidney failure and has to go on dialysis treatments to stay alive. He skips an appointment one day, and now he's gonna die if they can't find a donor. Guess who offers Peter one of his kidneys. Yes Brian. The episode is such a giant Rescued from the Scrappy Heap attempt it's sickening. Peter, who is one more episode like Family Gay or Family Goy from becoming a Complete Monster is going to be saved by Brian, who would willing lay down his life to save him. Hmm, wonder where they got the idea? Yep, they tried to make Brian, the worst thing to happen to Atheism since Stalin, into the Jesus of Atheists. Except the Son of Athe would still be likable! The rest of the episode has the family talking to Brian like his loss (he's a seven year old dog who smokes and drinks by the by) is gonna be like the death of Mother Teresa..and in the end... it doesn't f$$king matter. A hobo dies and the Doctor says, "Oh, we couldn't use your kidneys anyway because you're a dog".
      • This troper stopped watching "Family Guy" some time ago, but to be honest, I'm not a big fan of Mother Teresa (due to her refusal to medicate her patients, allow secular knowledge to reach her patients and fellow nuns, and her habit of punishing her patients for doing things she didn't like), so this didn't really bother me. That being said, I hated this episode; like the above troper said, Brian is one of the worst things to happen to atheists in a long time, and the writers are so desperate to make him likable again that it's painful.
        • Replace Stalin with Ayn Rand and you can count me in as well. While still thinking that Road To The North Pole is the worst overall episode, I must say this episode contains the biggest singular DMoS ever in the end, which makes every attempt to save the episode vane, along with turning the doctor into a big Jerkass after portraying him as sympathetic and professional during the episode.
  • In "And I'm Joyce Kinney," there's a news segment about a boy named Angus Reed, who has cerebral palsy. Tom Tucker says that he looks weird, and asks his co-anchor Joyce about the life expectancy of people with cerebral palsy. Her response? "You never see a gray-haired one." The only thing to offend me on this show in twelve years. A lot of people with disabilities live long, meaningful lives. This kind of thing doesn't help them get any further. All of the battles with the Justice Department and local municipalities, and then this? Just...ugh.
    • Personally, I just thought the entire episode sucked! For an episode that has an interesting premise (a Christian mother revealing that she was a porno actress to a news anchor, who soon reveals the secret to all of Quahog), the jokes just fell flat on their ass, the Breaking the Fourth Wall joke just makes me want to groan in pure disappointment, and, wouldn't you believe it, the Black Hole Sue Brian helps out someone in the family once again. Oh, but wait, turns out another Author Avatar in Peter gives his two cents on his shit as well. Can we just say that Peter's freakin' Mary Sue 2.0 of Family Guy here?
  • The biggest DMOS for this troper is in Friends of Peter G. After Brian makes a passing comment about how people 'were fine for thousands of years without religion,' we see a few peaceful BC-era characters suddenly begin killing each other at the announcement of Jesus' birth. Although the show has got plenty of biased / hateful / generalizing attempts at humor such as this, this in particular is a DMOS because it suggests MacFarlane's vast ignorance (or else, inexcusable carelessness) on not one but two ideas. First, it implies that there was no war before Christianity. I would say you could read the Bible to find out that's false, only I thought it was completely common knowledge that war has existed since practically the beginning of humanity. Secondly, it's almost as if the show is actually saying there was no religion before Jesus. If MacFarlane has ever so much as heard of the Ancient Egyptians, Greek mythology, and mainly, Judaism, he should know far better than to assert Jesus' birth as the beginning of religion. Despite the many cheap shots at religion on this show, this one felt the most pitifully ignorant and/or misinformed - far beyond justification.
    • "No religion before the birth of Christ?" Geez, not since Superman: At Earth's End said Hitler was the reason wars exist.
    • Out of all the times FG has done something somewhat stupid in regards to religion, this one of the worst. I mean, the guy just suggested to Peter(who is Catholic) to take the religious route to solve his issues and Brian flips the fuck out! Not to mention the cutaway gag didn't make a lick of sense in pertaining to what was going on; it's like a drive by middle finger at Christians. Oh, and let's not get started on Brian's solution which was "Hey, if our loved ones don't know we drink, everything will be ok"! Hiding your issues makes anyone who goes along a liar to their family. On top of that, you are still putting yourself and others in danger! And guess what! Peter (for a short time) dies in this episode because of this idiotic solution!
    • Like what the other 3 tropers said, this has gone too far. Back in Season 1-3, Brian was the more reasonable person while Lois was more caring, now, we are stuck with the screed-spouting, bias-barfing, ego-driven douchebag he has become. Does that fucking dog need another beatdown, maybe from Lois? This troper thinks so after claiming everyone was doing fine before religion (by the way, I can name a good amount of wars in which religion wasn't involved), and suggesting that they drink beer in A.A, while fooling their friend into thinking they are being cured (there is something wrong with playing a piano while there is a picture or a cross in the same room isn't there), yeah, deserves another beatdown.
    • For this troper, it was "Friends of Peter G", where Brian (As if I couldn't hate him enough already) says that there was no war or violence until Jesus was born. Cut to a gag taking place in Biblical times: Two men are talking to each other about how peaceful the world is, and another man comes up to them telling them about the recent birth of a newborn infant named Jesus. The two men immediately stab and kill each other violently, because as we all know there has never been any sin,or violence,or murder before the birth of Jesus. Have these writers even so much as looked in a fucking history book?! I've seen a lot of shows that do something offensive to tell a joke, but that was not a joke! That was just plain religious intolerance! Family Guy has done a lot of terrible "jokes" over the years, but this has got to be, without a doubt in my mind, one of the absolute worst things they've ever done. It's like they weren't even trying to tell a joke. It was just the writers showing complete hatred towards another religion.
      • The stupidest part of this 'joke' is that it implies that, prior to the birth of Jesus, religion didn't exist. So not only is the joke unfunny and stupid, but it literally does not make any kind of historical or logical sense.
      • I never took this episode as evidence that the writers were actually being serious about "religion causing all of the world's problems." I just saw this gag as an exaggeration of that rationale. Either way, still not very funny.
    • For me, this episode had a moment of Fridge Horror. Namely, I realized that the whole episode was one long Blame the Victim on addicts. Think about it: Brian calls out everyone in AA as being weak willed and trading one addiction for another. They all start drinking again (which kills Peter). Then, they present the solution as being moderation. Oh, so it's not that the person is suffering a potentially crippling addiction, they just lack the ability to moderate! Brilliant. Knowing people who have been through AA and now live nicely adjusted lives as well as people who are serious alcoholics, I have to say this was where I just stopped. I agree with moderation, but for alcoholics, the solution usually isn't to moderate. They call that bargaining.
    • In addition to the complete failure to understand addiction and alcoholism, there was another bit that bothered me. When Death takes Peter on a "this is your life!" journey, he shows an alcoholic Peter turning into a Complete Monster, leading him to swear off alcohol completely. Death says (paraphrased) "Wait a minute; before you go that far, let's see what that would be like," and we see a flash-foward: He comes home and the family lines up for hugs, with each one of them happy to see him. After a minute, Peter says something to the effect of "Wow, what a douche." Wait, so being a pleasant person is "douchey", and it's better to be an irresponsible and abusive manchild who routinely harms and endangers his friends and family, instead of a kind and friendly (if slightly boring) father whose family loves to be around him? I know it's part of Status Quo Is God and I'm sure it was supposed to be a We Want Our Jerk Back plot, but it still comes across like Family Guy is set in Bizarro World, where common sense and decency are punishable by death.
  • I officially felt like turning off the TV and never using FOX again when an evil Stewie clone tore a woman in half for no reason.
    • That episode was an entire mess. But the main plot with Meg liking Joe was a bigger turnoff for me because not only did I find it rather creepy, but it just got ridiculous when Meg drives all the way to the airport after dark to get Bonnie arrested by smuggling a gun into her bag. Then, because she finds out she and Joe have nothing in common, what does she do? She throws herself in front of a car to get crippled. It's one thing to be a Butt Monkey, but to cripple yourself and get your neighbor's wife arrested just had an unpleasant message to it.
  • You know... as a rule, if a comedy doesn't make you laugh, it should at least bring a smile to your face, and maybe alleviate your bad mood. Anymore? This show actually takes my good moods and makes them bad. Trading Places was just horrible. A "Carter smashing things" side-joke which had several directions that it could have gone in and been hilarious turned into another drawn-out non-joke, yet another member of the Griffin family Took a Level in Jerkass, and overly real reactions to cartoonish gags were liberally applied, while somehow miraculously avoiding any thread of logic in the main plot (the Griffins should be happy; after the lawsuit they have on their hands against Pawtucket Brewery, no one will have to be the breadwinner anymore). Not even getting into the police sketch cutaway. It's time for someone to be responsible with this mess. And by the by? That buck does stop with Seth MacFarlane. While I am glad to see that a lot of the venom is starting to be deflected from Seth to the writers, let's not go overboard with it: Remember, Seth could have vetoed any of the more offensive/unfunny jokes of the writers at any time.
  • A relatively mild one when you compare it to the rest of the entries on this page, but I was sickened by the ending of "Tiegs for Two". The basic premise is that Brian joins Quagmires class on picking up women in the hopes it'll help him get with a girl he likes. It doesn't. Blaming Quagmire, he STEALS the woman of Glenn's dreams, Cheryl Tiegs. In revenge, Quagmire steals Jillian from Brian. Long story short, they end up with neither, and they seem to bury the hatchet. As Brian realizes that he needs a ride home, he asks Quagmire for one, who smiles, and then drives off without Brian. This I was expecting, but Quagmire reverses full speed into Brian and then drives off. I was just sickened at the sight of it.
  • Maybe not as bad as some other instances on this page, but Foreign Affairs, just well and truely sucked. I laughed two times the entire episode, and they were the same joke both times ("This is how my classroom shall run!"). Other than that we had unfunny nationality jokes, unfunny jokes compairing crippled people to animals, Lois trying to take the moral highground over Bonnie and, once again, proving herself a hypocrite (What's that? It's bad to cheat on your husband? Well thanks for your input, Miss tries-to-sleep-with-your-daughters-boyfriend). And one joke which was just awful...a joke which took Overly Long Gag to new levels of bad... a joke I can only describe one way. Ladies and Gentlemen, the new Conway Twitty gag.
    • Agreed. Never did I imagine the writers would be lazy enough to insert the whole damn "Dancing in the Street" music video just to tell us that it's gay. And a flash-quality video on top of that. That's not how you tell a joke, that's just an excuse for getting my mom to watch your show.
    • Besides the pointless "Dancing in the Street" music video, which killed time that could have been used for funnier jokes, I'd like to also add that "Muppet-Style Sightseeing" scene. YMMV on this but really they couldn't have animated a short little montage so they had to use puppets for it instead? Even if it was part of the joke, I can't help but wonder...to be honest the whole plot itself is kind of off putting. Going to Paris so you can have a affair? Couldn't they think of a better reason to go and then somehow work in the affair?
  • Next up in the neverending chronicle of how massively the show fails: "It's a Trap." I somewhat enjoyed the first two parodies, but aside from the pillow fight and Planes, Trains and Automobiles gags, this was just painful. Where do I start? The general mood that the creators phoned it in? The unfunny tangent in the opening crawl? The nodding gag that goes on for a full minute and a half? The Seth Green bashing? And, of course, the lack of jokes aside from tired references and beating the "we phoned this in, we didn't want to do this" schtick to death. To quote Peter, "For crying out loud, somebody throw a pie!" Seth MacFarlane, you may not like Robot Chicken, but they actually try with their parodies. Somebody tell him to put the show on hiatus for a while until he remembers how to be entertaining.
    • I enjoyed the parody of Return of the Jedi except for two things. The first the death of Darth Vader which was for awhile faithful to the movie, but then they made Chris/Luke kill him by snapping his neck! Damnit that's just not funny especially considering Return of the Jedi was my favorite of the saga and that scene was moving originally. Also the cutaway gags sucked. Fantastic episode otherwise, really enjoyed the big Take That to Seth MacFarlane himself and how he ripped off The Simpsons, although it was also a missed moment of awesome because time could've been used to mention Brian Scully, producer of this episode and writer of some Mike Scully era Simpsons episodes. [Scully era is generally considered Dork Age].
    • I tolerated the pot shots at the Ewoks and the general phoning-it-in of one of my favourite movies, but what broke the camel's back was the part where Peter/Han freaks out and forces those troopers to dig their own graves, all the while they are crying for their lives. Just too dark, it kills the mood.


Season 10

  • For me, it would be the episode, "Lottery Fever". There's one particular scene in the bar where Peter asks for some beer and "has his favorite Russian waiter do it." What do we get: The freaking Trololo song. Seth MacFarlane not only ran out of jokes, but had to resort in using various overused and recent memes.
  • "Seahorse Seashell Party" turned out to be one! I was excited for it since Meg finally stands up to her family. She does, but guess what happens? Brian convinces Meg that she's the only thing keeping the family together. That's right, apparently constantly abusing Meg is the only thing that keeps the Griffin family from killing each other! So what happens next? Meg apologizes and says she was just taking her problems out on everyone, she returns to being a chew toy, and nothing fucking changes! Meg, you had nothing to apologize for! Between that, and Brian's mushroom induced acid trips, this became the worst of the 3 hurricane episodes aired!
    • I agree completely. We finally have an episode where Meg tells off everyone, (which they deserved, by the way) and in the end, it's all back to normal? Giving Meg the justice she so very much deserves, then having it taken away again is nothing short of a dick move.
    • I agree as well, especially the ending of it. Why is it that anytime Brian tries to "help" Meg, her life seems to get worse because of it. Plus it ruined the one chance that Meg had to finally get some respect from her family and actually have her life improve beyond the sad, lonely existence of the resident punching bag but no, we can't have her too happy or else we lose a large percentage of our jokes. Of course the family going back to hating Meg and blaming her for their problems just by existing was of course just there to add insult to injury.
    • Agreed. So, the family needs to abuse Meg to stay together? Then it shouldn't stay together! It's basically saying that a bunch of horrible, selfish bastards need to abuse a nice person, because otherwise, they abuse each other. So what? Screw them!
    • It's difficult to choose just one DMOS in this show, since it's been mostly meanspiritedness and political/bigoted diatribes since the revival, but every so often it draws me back in—only to push me away again, which is why I chose "Seahorse Seashell Party." Family Guy is at its best when it deconstructs itself, which Meg does gloriously when she calls out her abusive family. Yes, in a sane world, these people would be branded lunatics, and Meg articulately enunciates every one of those arguements against the Griffins (along with a great performance by Mila Kunis while doing so). This episode could have been a neat way to write Meg out of the show (the writers have repeatedly stated that Meg became the designated Butt Monkey because they don't know how to write a teenage girl), but instead it shifted back to Status Quo Is God[2] as a way to try and justify nonstop character abuse. It was bad writing, frankly. (Also, I'll add a nitpick by saying that the "fingerbang" joke was already done on South Park, and it was better there.)
    • Wait, wasn't it Meg who came up with the idea, and not Brian? Anyways, the Silent Scapegoat approach reminded me of the Zero Requiem ending of Code Geass, in that it was utterly preposterous. Not for the reasons aforementioned. No. Lois was actually brought down to tears in a moment of realization, leading her too subsequently call Peter out on his abuse of Meg in response to being berated by him for crying. It was Peter's subsequent Jerkass Man Child tendencies alone that made things spiral downward, yet that wasn't addressed for a single moment. Yep, once again Peter is a Jerkass Karma Houdini.
    • This was initially my favorite episode, right up until the end. It's also my only complaint, seeing how I forgive the show because I too have the same kind of humor it does. As for Brian, he was actually proud of Meg. Seeing how he's probably the second Butt Monkey in the family, it fit that he understood where she was coming from. I wanted her to basically just leave and find her own way without her family. Instead, they took a sea-change moment and nullified her epic Reason You Suck Speech.
    • Seriously, fuck this episode. I stopped watching Family Guy a long time ago (It was the no war before religion/no religion before Christianity one that got me originally), and was in the same room as my sister—who still watches it—when this episode was on. For once, I thought it would actually have an engaging plot and legitimate character development, but then it got Chuck Testa'd. I wasn't pleased. I have henceforth banned the viewing of Family Guy in my house.
    • This troper didn't think the epsiode was too bad but still he just wishes that the writers didn't choose this episode for Meg to stand up for herself. I don't hate Meg and I believe the family needed a wake up call but still in the same epsidoe Brian was on drugs and he was off his rocker. They could had stuck with that but they used this episode to deliver the speeches. I'll agree with Meg on this, every member of this family even Brian needs to grow up and stop acting like morons.
    • I know that everybody else made the same argument, but screw it, I'll say it anyway. What the writers believed that the message was was that Meg is a hero for letting her family abuse her so that they do not take it out on each other. What the message really says is that someone might as well stay in the abusive relationship because if they aren't taking their anger out on you, then they are taking it out on someone else. That's bull**** and no one should have to put up with that crap. Every person in that family should be convicted of emotional and physical abuse and have their family dissolve. Even Brian who sees it and does nothing should suffer some sort of karma backlash.
  • "Screams of Silence", which in my opinion is a new candidate for "Worst Family Guy Episode Ever". Not sure if it was supposed to be a parody of a Very Special Episode or taken as a serious one, but it was done poorly in both ways. Abuse is rarely funny and this was no exception, the jokes got progressively worse as the episode went on and the ending just distasteful. Oh by the way, did you know Quagmire chokes himself every morning and it somehow let him save the day? Yes Seahorse Seashell Party was bad but at least it wasn't...this.
    • Agreed, what especially got to me was the way they Did Not Do the Research with regards to police complaints and domestic abuse. Joe-a cop-says that the police can't do anything unless Brenda registers a complaint. While it's true that in most domestic abuse cases there's little that can be done unless the victim is willing to testify, that's because most abuse happens entirely behind closed doors, with no one to witness it besides the victim. Without the victim's testimony there's no way Prosecutors could begin building a case so charges can't be pressed. In this case, Jeff has been abusive in full view of at least four people, one a cop, all of whom could testify that they saw him assault Brenda and thus build a case. At the very least, Joe could arrest Jeff for assault and detain him while they did the intervention for Brenda. I realize this would be less dramatic, but if you're going to do a dramatic episode about a serious issue, you get your facts right.
      • The main problem with the episodes is that the Family Guy writing staff, to be blunt, are lazy. For the majority of the episodes they can just end a plot with a gag as opposed to having any sort of reasonable conclusion. So, when they try to make an episode focusing on an actual issue that doesn't boil down to 'Republicans bad!' or 'Big corporations bad!' they think that they can get away with the same thing and not do any research at all because they never had to before. The even bigger problem with this is the misconception that victims of abuse are 'stupid' or 'don't care about themselves' or 'are naturally weak-willed.' No. Even though I've never done any research I can still point out everything that's wrong with that sort of thinking. First of all intelligence doesn't factor into it at all and the reason why people become abuse victims is because they are with someone they love. When you love someone it's very possible to be emotionally manipulated. If this manipulation continues for a long-ass time then you'll eventually find yourself in a hole where you think your spouse is blameless. This could happen to literally every single character in the series and the fact that they unironically tried to blame the victim for the crimes of someone else and try and make the victim seem like an anti-feminist (gender has nothing to do with being in an abusive relationship) to justify the shows own overwhelming stupidity is disgusting. Will the episode do any harm in the real world? Of course not. Is it terribly written and offensive for the purpose of being offensive? Abso-fucking-lutely.
    • For me, it was, like O-Zone above said, was how Quagmire choking himself every day saved him. He started off the episode in a coma becuase he choked himself. All of the sudden he just built up a resistance to it. At least have him suddenly fight back, or huh, maybe Joe should've just arrested him. He threatens to arrest Quagmire for suggesting they kill Jeff, yet says there's nothing he can do as he hears Jeff abuse Brenda, unless she says something about it? really? I also don't like how Family Guy is trying to be serious now, if I wanted to watch a soap opera I would. I mean, I respect that they tried to take abuse seriosuly instead of making it a joke, but I watched this show to laugh at cartoon antics, not have them suddenly throw a Very Special Episode at me. Every tiem I see them deal with these soap opera antics, I just groan.
      • For me it was the fact that we're supposed to fell sorry for Quagmire, dispute the fact he didn't think the abuse is wrong untill it disturbed his sleep. So really he killed a guy for selfish reason.
  • "Thanksgiving" was hilarious whenever it wasn't focusing on Quagmire's transgender mom, Ida. Family Guy has managed to go 10 seasons without offending me, but broke that scale when they had Brian and Ida bring up Brian having sex with her in the Quagmire's Dad episode, and then had Stewie tell her something along the lines of, "He liked it before he found out you were a monster." And then when Ida asked where the bathroom was, Lois said "You may use the yard." No. Just no. Do everyone a favor and just never use that character again if you're only going to use her for transphobic "jokes." It's making me think the show is truly running out of jokes now if they must resort to blatantly insensitive tripe like this.
    • For me, one of the worst things of both the transphobia and the Author Tract is when Brian, surprisingly, asks Ida to share her opinion on the situation, at which time Ida says that she feels that Kevin going AWOL because he believed that the war was wrong is unforgivable, since he abandoned his fellow soldiers, the people he fought alongside. Which is a legitimate point, regardless of whether it's right or wrong. But, of course, Family Guy can't have a viewpoint other than Brian's be right, so this is treated with a dimissal of "Oh, that's just some drag queen". And the writers of Family Guy want us to believe that they're supportive of all walks of life...
  • In "Amish Guy", after Meg has been told to stay away from an Amish boy, she bursts into tears. This is immediately followed by her getting pooped on by a horse--in buckets.
    • For me it was the portrayal of the Amish as this backward patriarchal society that disapproved of these new-fangled outsiders, and even seemed to be on the verge of burning the family as witches. Anyone who knows anything about Amish communities knows that they're violence-averse people, who choose to live without modern conveniences, and even encourage their young people to go out into the larger world to see how other people live. Maybe the writers were counting on the fact that they don't have televisions, and won't watch the show?
  • The Blind Side starts of stro-er, godawful with an All Anime Is Naughty Tentacles joke. I was pissed off by the implication that everyone Japanese watches tentacle rape hentai and that it's all they do. This is why a lot of people look down on Japan and anime.
  • Don't get me wrong, I don't mind the later seasons of the show, but "Be Careful What You Fish For" turned out to be the worst Family Guy ever in my opinion. The episode was very boring outside of some of the Ricky Gervais dolphin's gags and the Cutaway Gags (particularly the one referencing The Adventures of Milo and Otis), but the worst thing about this piece of shit was the subplot with Stewie and Brian. The latter ends up hitting a new low by shoving off the former to date his bitch teacher. Granted, he does get her arrested, but only because he found out she had a boyfriend. That's right. He was willing to shun Stewie and ignore his misery (and those of the other preschoolers) just to get a date. It made Stewie, who started this show as a sociopathic Jerkass, more sympathetic than Brian, who's supposed to be the Only Sane Man. It ended up being the only episode of the series that I turned off the TV midway though. I didn't even stay to see the conclusion of the main plot. It sucked that hard.
    • So what that subplot all boiled down to was: Brian tries to have sex with yet another brainless hot woman, who runs a shoddy daycare center and regularly neglects the kids she's supposed to watch. Brian doesn't turn her in or alert anyone about what she's doing just because it would put a damper on any chance he has to get with her. Then he learns she has a boyfriend, so he calls the police. I am just really hoping he gets either a physical or verbal asskicking at some point. But in all honesty, you have to wonder how much leeway Seth Mac Farlene has at this point if he's willing to voice Brian in a story like this.
    • When I saw SSP, I thought, Brian can't get any worse, right? Well, I was somewhat wrong on the Thanksgiving episode (when dismissing a valid reason that Kevin deserting is wrong), and it was confirmed by the dolphin episode. I am not going to tell how horrible it was, I don't know what Gervais thought of this episode, or thought it sucked. But the subplot was worse. I knew what was going to happen, the old Brian sees a hot woman being the "babysitter," ignores the other people to try to have sex with her or see her naked, but later on, she is already taken. Same old, same old. What's worse, the fact that he said there was a special place for Hell for her, or the fact that there was no retribution or punishment for leaving the toddlers to fend for themselves. Or is it both, did he thought that saying a special place for Hell will make everything okay, even though as an atheist, "Hell doesn't exist?" Maybe the family should beat up Brian, or for irony, let Lois do it.
  • Road to the Pilot. If an episode where the obnoxious current versions of Brian and Stewie go back to the first episode of the show and diss everything about it (like apathetic Brian and evil genius Stewie, y'know, their past selves who were actually entertaining) wasn't bad enough, we also get some more tasteless 9/11 jokes and demonization of George W. Bush (well out of office by now!) thrown in, with time getting screwed around so that 9/11 is prevented, Bush loses re-election in 2004, starts a second Civil War which leads to a nuclear holocaust...and the only way for Brian and Stewie to fix it? Go back and cause 9/11. Which they do. And then high-five each other when they do it! Remember when this show cleverly and humorously avoided doing an atomic bomb joke? But now it's totally eager to make a mockery of 9/11 and everyone who died in it. Frankly, Seth, you have no right to make that kind of joke, especially as it's blind luck that kept you from boarding that plane and dying yourself! Seriously! It's not funny, it's just disgusting.
    • You're not alone. Not only does this episode have some extremely unfunny and unneccesary Bush bashing, but it also has some needlessly horrifying things in it, too. Why is it that they had to throw in Brian and Stewie trapped in barber poles? Was that supposed to be funny? Was there even a purpose to it? Probably not. I'm not saying that their current selves don't deserve a few days of that until they get their personalities from Season 1 back, but isn't Family Guy supposed to be funny? Well, it wasn't funny, and neither is this episode.
    • While it's pretty important to remember that Seth isn't on the writing team anymore, it makes it just as vile considering the fact it shows the people in charge of writing Family Guy are at the point they refuse to care about anything that won't give them a good a laugh- even casually joking about and making characters high-five eachother over a tragedy that almost killed Seth to begin with.
  • Now, I can take jokes at the expense of a group I'm part of. When it comes to Jewish jokes, I can laugh at myself and my people, as long as it's in good taste. But when Family Guy made the joke "It's no thrill for a pig to touch a Jew either," that went beyond Dude, Not Funny, it didn't cross the line twice, it just crossed the line and remained solely on the side of incredibly offensive. It wasn't funny, it wasn't clever, it was just rude, insensitive, and offensive beyond belief. That does it. I'm done with Family Guy. I've managed to laugh at their Jewish jokes up until now, I could enjoy them from other shows, but not this one.
  • The Tea Party episode had Tom Tucker point out that Autism is "only an excuse for children to misbehave." Fuck you!
    • I've been made fun of enough because of my autism. I don't need TV shows to make fun of me too.
    • Plus, you know, the whole "Republicans want anarchy!" thing probably wasn't the most sensitive or accurate statement they could have made...oh, who am I kidding?! It was insulting to the intelligence of anyone who's ever studied politics to even the most minute degree! I mean, come on, writers! Obama's already in the White House. He's been there for close to 4 years. You can stop with the "lol, conservatives" bullshit already! Especially since you clearly don't know the first thing about them. Just...find some new material, already! Between this and the aforementioned Bush/Civil War nonsense, I'm starting to think that they keep using these jokes not because they're trying to be funny, but rather, because they simply have some kind of bitter grudge against all non-liberals. It doesn't help that Brian was once again the one to explain the "evils" of the Tea Party to the audience, and EVERY Tea Party supporters portrayed as absolute morons who don't have a clue what they're doing.
  • Viewer mail 2, yay yet another uninspired go at the British (or rather English), after the one where stewie teaches a brit how to talk (yes, an american teaching an english person to speak properly, an american with an english accent no less)and the one where peter joins the football team which is so wimpy and girly cause its british (apparantly no body amour in sports is wimpy)I just couldnt wait for another load of shit tired jokes of the same kind all over again. When the english themselves are better at taking the piss out of themselves, you know that this show is bad.
    • Now I know that one of this shows main source of humor is grossing you out and I'm normally tolerable with it but in the story where we get a first-person view one of Stewie's days, while he riding under Brian's car, Brian chases a squirrel and runs over it, leaving a bloody smear. Now normally this should be enough but then we get to see the squirrels horrifically run over corpse on the wheel right in front of Stewie's (as in your) face. I immediately had to change the channel, this goes beyond disgusting. Not only that but the squirrel got ran over by the other side of the car, so it's like they put this disguisting moment for the sake of being disgusting. I stopped watching the show already but wanted to see how this season would end. Thanks for showing that your humor has gotten more mature.
  • Internal Affairs has Joe meets an attractive woman after becoming famous. Joe is somewhat attracted to her, but decides to leave the woman so he doesn't screw up his marriage with Bonnie. However, he tells his friends about it and they convince him to do it, despite Joe having the only real stable marriage throughout the series. Joe stupidly takes their advice and sleeps with her - ruining his marriage with Bonnie. Oh, and Peter gets in another fight with the chicken for some reason.
  • Killer Queen had a cutaway with Peter talking to scary-looking teen and it seems he gets the teen to start opening up that he wants to be loved and then for no reason Peter just beats up the poor kid to a bloody pulp and takes his shoes! I think the writers just wanna rub it in our faces that Peter do all kinds of horrible things to people and get away with it because he's the star of the show.

  1. If it's actually serious and not just patronization of civil rights, then what is the intended message? People are trying to make dogs do human-like things all the time, so it's illogical to say that we're not treating them human enough. An all-too-easy conclusion is that it's referring to [[spoiler:interspecies romance
  2. in one of the worst uses of that trope ever