Family Guy/Tropes J to P

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


J

K

L

  • Lampshade Hanging: Lots of it:
    • In "Dog Gone," Peter and Lois get into a pronunciation argument, just like Brian and Stewie often do. Stewie asks "Are we really doing this?"
    • When Brian found his long lost son, Stewie asked what we were all thinking:

Stewie: How can you have a 13-year-old son when you're only 7?
Brian: Those are dog years.
Stewie: That doesn't make any sense.
Brian: You know what, Stewie? If you don't like it, go on the Internet and complain.

    • From "The Big Bang Theory", when Stewie is explaining how he and Brian have traveled outside of the space-time continuum. Doubles as Medium Awareness:

Stewie: Non-existence. No past, no present, no future. No universe. (a promo logo for The Cleveland Show appears) But still, somehow, a large, brightly-colored promo for The Cleveland Show.

    • In Back to the Pilot we get this bit:

Stewie: (flies in with a jetpack) Brian, are you alright?
Brian: Yeah, I'm fine. Where'd you get that?
Stewie: Well, the Stewie from the past has a lot more gadgets and things than I do, I've kinda slacked off a little bit.

  • The Last Horse Crosses the Finish Line- The Trope Namer. Several people have fallen victim to it over the years, namely every single adult male (save for Brian) on Spooner Street, and several of the adult women, including Lois, who provides this quote through a dream she has about accidentally stumbling upon Stewie's lair while cleaning, and Stewie killing her upon uttering that line and a rather scathing dialogue.
  • Laugh Track: Parodied in a few episodes:
    • "A Hero Sits Next Door": Brian delivers a one-liner and Peter begins to respond, but waits until the laugh track finishes.
    • "Running Mates": An entire studio audience has moved in next door, and Peter gets irriated that they laugh at everything he does.
    • "Viewer Mail No. 1": Stewie swiped a laugh box from the set of Dharma and Greg. Brian is surprised there's anything left in it.
    • "PTV": Stewie supplies his own exaggerated laughter (and applause) for the low budget sitcom "Cheeky Bastards".
    • "Airport '07": Peter doesn't want to kick Quagmire out of their house, until Quagmire mentions that Stewie should never use a pacifier that he's holding again. Peter says to Lois,the "OK, so I'll talk to him tomorrow?", followed by a laugh track and a parody of the Will and Grace eyecatch.
    • "Chick Cancer": A cutaway gag features "The Mayor of Comedy" pitching a Time-Life Music-type compilation called "Sitcom Punchlines of the '80s," with one of the volumes titled "Sounds of the '80s: Studio Audience," that volume being various canned studio and "laugh track" responses to stock jokes and cliches. (The albums were also a parody of various Time-Life Music series, one of which was "Sounds of the Eighties.")
  • Lead In: Almost every episode.
  • Left It In: When Brian joins The Bachelorette, he makes some comments about Chevy Chase to the Confession Cam and then asks if they can cut that part out...and then goes on to say even more things about Chevy.
  • Left the Background Music On
    • "That's classic travelin' music."
  • Let's Have Another Baby: After assisting his sister-in-law in giving birth, Peter first suggests stealing her baby, but then says this to Lois who agrees. That is, until they realize that they're too busy with Stewie to take care of another baby.
  • Let's See You Do Better: In "Brian Griffin's House of Payne," at the premiere party of Brian's new sitcom, the cast of Two and A Half Men are also at the party, much to Brian's surprise. When asked why they're here, Charlie Sheen responds, "Well you're always ripping on our show, let's see yours."
  • Limited Animation: Taken to extremes post-cancelation. Lampshaded like almost everything else at one point.
  • Lint Value: Implied when the family is stranded in another country without money -- they go to the black market to be smuggled back into America, where there's a sign already posted that they do not except lint or bits of string as payment.
  • Littlest Cancer Patient: Poor, poor Abbie, Quagmire's five-year-old niece. She makes an appearance in "Road to the North Pole", and Brian mistakes her for a boy because she lost her hair from chemo.
  • Living Motion Detector: Parodied in an episode where Peter and Lois encounter a prostitute like this.
  • Locked in a Room: "Brian & Stewie", where the duo is stuck in a bank vault all night.
  • Logic Bomb: Peter does this to a robotic office suck-up that agrees with everything he says to try to make him stop:

Peter: ...And I hate myself.
Suck-up: I hate you, too. You make me sick, you fat sack of crap!
Peter: But I'm the president.
Suck-up: The best there is!
Peter: But you just said you hated me...
Suck-up: (malfunctioning) But--not you the president--that you who said you hated--you, you who love--hate... Yankees... Clouds... (head explodes)

  • Lolicon: Peter in "Extra Large Medium" says he needs to touch something that belongs to the buried guy with a bomb strapped to his chest so he can find him (he thinks he's psychic), and asks if the guy's 12-year-old daughter is just a kid, or the type of 12-year-old who drinks a lot of milk and had her breasts come in early. Then again, Peter was declared mentally retarded in one episode. He still needs a psychiatrist, though. One with a sledgehammer.
  • Long List: most famously, after the series is brought back, Peter recites a long list of FOX programs that bombed while Family Guy was off the air, sarcastically calling them great shows. He then goes on to say that maybe Family Guy can come back on the air when they fail.
    • A similiar gag was used again (Family Gay) with race horses named after cancelled Fox shows with the announcer telling their positions.
    • Also on "Episode 420," Peter gets so high that, instead of setting up one of his flashback moments, he shows the viewers a list of celebrities he hates, including Stephen Dorff, Justin Timberlake, Dane Cook, Chris O'Donnell, Geoffrey Chaucer, Kathy Griffin, Andy Samberg, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Andrew McCarthy, Rita Coolidge, David Arquette, Carlos Mencia, Amy Winehouse, every rapper, Ethan Hawke, Dax Sheppard, Toby Keith, Joe Francis, Princess Diana, Chris Martin, Chris Martin again, Chris Martin's parents, Eve Plumb, Bonnie Franklin, Kate Bekinsale, Freddie Prinze Jr., Suri Cruise, The forehead guy from The Office, Garry Marshal, Paul Tsongas, and Chris Martin's ancestors.
    • In "Ocean's Three and a Half" Brian recites a list of songs named after a girl, when Stewie challenges him to do so
    • Quagmire's "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Brian. Supporters call it a long overdue callout to Brian that outlines exactly why he's considered a Creator's Pet, while the detractors claim it's pure hypocrisy given that Quagmire...isn't exactly a pillar of morality himself (which he slightly acknowledges in it...).
  • Longest Pregnancy Ever: Bonnie
  • Loud of War: In the Star Wars spoof "Laugh It Up, Fuzzbal"', the torture scene from Empire is recreated with Han (Peter) being tormented by "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?"
  • Lyrical Dissonance: "The life of the wife is ended by the knife!"

M

  • Made of Explodium: The Amish buggy... and the Amish horse, from "I Never Met the Dead Man".
  • Made of Iron: During their fights, Peter and Ernie the Giant Chicken suffer horrific injuries that should by all rights kill them, but Peter is never more than just breathless after the battle ends.
  • The Makeover: Meg in "Don't Make Me Over".
  • Malignant Plot Tumor: Stewie, in that episode where he was an octopus.
  • Mama Bear: Lois
    • Still a Mama Bear when it comes to Stewie. Willing to fight a vicious dog to get his teddy bear back. Making the mother of the older bully kid who stole Stewie's Halloween candy give it back plus the bully's candy plus forty dollars! (At 100% interest, compounded daily; when the woman nervously tells Lois she doesn't have forty dollars, Lois tells her that she'll be back the next day for eighty dollars. God only knows what Lois will do to her if she doesn't eventually cough it up. She even scares Stewie with that.)
    • Subverted at first and then ultimately fulfilled when she tries to save Joe from falling down a sewer waterfall.

Lois: I can't hold on, Joe!
Joe: Pretend I'm your child, Lois! (Lois starts to let go) Not Meg, not Meg! (Lois finds the strength to pull him to safety).

  • Man of a Thousand Voices: Seth MacFarlane, and to a lesser extent Mike Henry.
  • Marshmallow Dream: Played with. Peter wakes up to find a half-eaten sheep in his room trying to crawl to safety.
  • Mass Hypnosis: Stewie tries to do this on Kids Say the Darndest Things, but gets hypnotized himself.
  • Me Love You Long Time: Lampshaded when Trisha Takanawa, upon meeting David Bowie, blurts out "Me love to meet Ziggy Stardust! I take you home! I make you fish ball soup!"
    • Wasn't she saying "Make love to me, Ziggy Stardust!"?
    • An earlier episode (the one where Joe is introduced) had Peter saying, "Me love you long time" to a prospective Asian softball player (as that's the only thing "Asian" Peter knows how to say).
  • Meaningful Name: Peter the Apostle of The Bible is an Idiot Hero, though nowhere near as bad.
  • Mediation Backfire: Peter is upset that he can't find way to bond with Stewie, until he discovers that beating up Lois is the perfect way to do it. Crosses the Line Twice when they lock her in the trunk of a car and sink it in a lake.
  • Medium Blending: Seen in "Road to Rupert" during the Stewie/Gene Kelly dancing sequence, which combines live action and animation.
    • Also seen in "Let's Go to the Hop" when Peter said that doing drugs caused things to get too real for him, and the show cutaways to a live action Peter on a park bench saying: "Holy crap, I am freaking out!"
    • They use puppetry in "Foreign Affairs".
  • Men Can't Keep House: Appears in an episode where Lois went to jail. After being arrested the house pretty much goes to hell, with garbage all over the place, Stewie not getting a diaper change in god-knows-how long, and wild animals coming into the house.
  • Midlife Crisis Car: Peter gets one in "And the Wiener Is..."
  • Misplaced Accent: Santos and Pasqual are supposedly Portuguese fishermen yet speak in heavily accented Brazilian Portuguese.
  • Mistaken for Masturbating: Chris was once really just using the bathroom, but his Holier Than Thou grandfather assumed he was masturbating and railed against its sinfulness, scaring poor Chris away from what he was really doing for the rest of the episode. "God's watching me do Number Two? Aw man, I'm a sinner and God's a pervert!"
    • In a pre-cancellation episode, after Chris is caught peeping in the girls' locker room, Peter approaches Chris' room, and there's a rapid knocking sound, which turns out to be Chris, playing with a ball-and-paddle. Peter gives Chris his porn collection, then leaves, and the sound continues, then Peter realizes he's holding the paddle
  • Monkeys on a Typewriter: Peter references them in "The King Is Dead". In a twist, the monkeys are fully intelligent and speak exactly like regular humans.
  • Mood Whiplash: Dr. Hartman's conversation with Peter and Brian over a much needed kidney transplant. He tells Brian that because his kidneys are smaller, Peter would need both of his in order to keep living. He tells Brian that the procedure would kill him... Then he laughs as he notices a car being towed outside.
    • In "Brian Wallows and Peter's Swallows", there's a big mood whiplash after Brian tearfully says goodbye to a dying Pearl. Immediately after, Dr. Hartman comes in and says, "Hey, anybody wanna see a dead body?"
  • Motivation on a Stick: In "He's Too Sexy for His Fat", Peter gets Chris to run on a treadmill by sticking a plumber's helper to his forehead with a twinkie hanging from it.
  • Mrs. Claus: Appears in a Show Within a Show helping KISS in Saving Christmas.
  • Mugging the Monster: Stewie has been victimized a few odd times by Jerkass characters, thinking he's little more than a baby. Needless to say, they almost all end up completely out of their league. Except for Susie Swanson, who managed to kick his butt despite being younger than him.
  • Multi Boobage: Meg has 3...well, she has 3 nipples, according to the Count. Yes, that Count. They dated briefly.
  • The Multiverse: The season 8 premiere, aptly titled "Road to the Multiverse".
  • Mundane Made Awesome: Herbert's fight with Mr. Gutentag in order to save Chris and Peter. The fight itself is extremely awkward, but the music was epic and Gutentag's death was just a fall from a porch, but the camera angle and slo-mo really invoked this trope.
  • Murder by Mistake: In the 9th season premiere, Diane's mechanism to murder James Woods accidentally kills Stephanie.
  • Mushroom Samba: Brian consumes psychedelic mushrooms in "Seahorse Seashell Party", and ends up having a series of horrifying visions.
  • My Friends and Zoidberg: One episode's opening depicts the Griffin Family as members of the Superfriends... and Meg.
  • My Girl Is a Slut:

Peter: [triumphantly] My wife did KISS!
Lois: And J. Geils.
Peter: What?
Lois: Nothing.

N

  • Native American Casino: The Griffins visit one in "The Son Also Draws".
  • Negative Continuity: In "Baby, You Knock Me Out". Throughout the episode, people are surprised that Lois can fight so well and that she can be so aggressive, including Lois herself. Lois even says something to the effect of how she's never felt so powerful. Apparently everybody (including Seth MacFarlane and the show writers) forgot about "Lethal Weapons", the episode in which she mastered Tae Jitsu and became ultra-aggressive and drunk on power as a result.
    • In "The Fat Guy Stranger" (airdate- 2005) Lois revealed she was in her forties. "Meet The Quagmires" (2007) revealed Lois was 18 in 1984. "And I'm Joyce Kinney" (2011) revealed she legally starred in a porno film in 1981.
  • Nested Story Reveal: As it turns out, all the events of "Stewie Kills Lois"/"Lois Kills Stewie" was just a simulation that Stewie was running to see what would happen if he succeeded in his plan to Take Over the World.
  • Never Bareheaded: Meg and Chris are almost never seen hatless. Meg is especially notable: going hatless appears to be akin to nudity for her (she quickly covers up when discovered brushing her hair, and a makeout fantasy has her inexplicably hatless).
  • Never Live It Down: In-universe. Brian once dated a Brainless Beauty and was conflicted about it, however everyone (including Quagmire, who also dates brainless beauties) accuses Brian of only dating women for their looks (even though Brian once dated Pearl, the elderly woman who used to be a jingle singer, only to exile herself from society after trying to launch a legitimate singing career and being shot down, from season 3's "Brian Wallows and Peter Swallows").
    • Lois was in a porno but she learned to live with that and showed the video IN CHURCH.

Priest: "I may be a man of God, but THAT SHIT IS HOT!!!"

  • Never Trust a Trailer: Done a lot recently, especially with episodes featuring an A-Plot with Meg or Chris and a B-Plot with Brian and Stewie. The promotional image for "Not All Dogs Go To Heaven" was Stewie with the ST:TNG cast, as well as the summary. Six minutes into the episode, Peter announces that it's going to be a Meg Episode (although in the end it was more about Brian). The Star Trek cast got like one or two lines each. Another similar example is "Stew-Roids". All the promotional images and summary were about Stewie muscling up, and implied that the story involving Chris, Meg, and Connie was a minor subplot.
  • Nice Character, Mean Actor: Mother Maggie.
  • Nightmarish Factory: "The Road to the North Pole" has Santa's workshop like this.
  • Nixon Mask: Masks of Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter specifically, at two different points in the series. Also a literal Nixon mask to get Cleveland onto a golf course.
  • No Accounting for Taste: Peter and Lois, which is quite frequently lampshaded in the show.
  • No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Several of them.
    • "Patriot Games" has Stewie smashing a glass on a Brian's face, smacking Brian around, repeatedly punches Brian in the face, picking up a towel rack and repeatedly hitting Brian in the head with it, holding Brian's head into the toilet, then throwing Brian onto the floor saying the dog has until 5:00 to pay up. (Brian owed Stewie money because of a bet.)
      • He then shot him in both of his knees and lit him on fire.
    • In "Road to Rupert" after Meg had enough of being humiliated by Peter and his friends, she stops the car she's driving them in and immediately gets rear-ended. When confronted by the hostile driver of the vehicle behind her, she proceeds to beat the living hell out of the guy.
    • In "Dial Meg for Murder" Meg comes out of jail as a hardened psychopath and gets revenge on her abusive family and classmates. In it she beats the crap out of Peter twice and beats up the popular kids with a pillowcase full of unopened sodas.
    • In "Quagmire's Dad", Quagmire administers a brutal beat-down to Brian after he finds out that Brian had sex with his father.
    • "Peter's Daughter"; "Hey Connie. Hi. I'm Peter Griffin, Meg's father. Say could you do me a favor? Ya see that fire extinguisher over there?..."
    • "The Hand that Rocks the Wheelchair": every murder committed by Evil Stewie.
  • No Indoor Voice: Blac-u Weather Reporter Ollie Williams. Except when he's baked.
  • No Such Thing as HR: The Pawtucket Brewery. The plot of one episode has Peter's boss Angela sexually harassing him; never once does Peter even consider taking it up with HR. (or even if the company has HR).
  • Nobody Over 50 Is Gay: Subverted with Herbert.
  • Non-Specifically Foreign: The two long-haired blond guys first introduced in a cutaway about people whose English is just off enough that you can tell they aren't native speakers, but not bad enough to reveal where they're from.
  • Noodle Incident: An event Peter refers to in "Don't Make Me Over".

Peter: (after seeing Meg made over, but not knowing it was her) Oh, my god, Lois, it was twenty years ago, I'd never even heard the word "rubber"...!
Lois: Peter, this is Meg.
Peter: ...Oh.

  • Not Quite Dead: Meg, Ernie the Giant Chicken, Connie D'Amico, and the Evil Monkey have all been pretty much left for certain death and somehow survived it.
  • Not-So-Imaginary Friend: The Evil Monkey in Chris' bedroom closet.
    • Except now he lives in Jake Tucker's bedroom.
  • "Not Wearing Pants" Dream: Stewie, in "He's Too Sexy For His Fat":

Stewie: Attention, world leaders: I have 137 nuclear warheads trained on every capital city around the globe. The world is now under my control! (camera zooms out) But oh no, I'm naked. (world leaders laugh)

  • Not What It Looks Like: Brian squirting lotion on Stewie's sunburned body, from a certain angle, looks like he's ejaculating on Stewie, to which a passing-by Mr. Furley says, "Nevermind, I'll come back later!"
    • Played with when Peter gains an attraction to Lois' gained weight and is later found making love to the removed pile of fat from her liposuction.

Peter: Errr, (defeated) this is exactly what it looks like.

  • Notable Commercial Campaigns: In 2011 American channel TBS bought the rights to air The Big Bang Theory and advertised it by showing a clip of Peter jumping into midair and getting frozen there. After he says "Call a Scientist!" we cut to a clip from Big Bang of Leonard answering the phone. Oddly enough, the footage of Peter came from an episode which only five minutes earlier had featured a Big Bang parody complete with stars Jim Parsons and Johnny Galecki voicing their characters.
  • Nothing Personal: In true gangster fashion, Stewie is surprised that Brian is so offended about giving him two brutal beatings over a late payment of gambling earnings in Patriot Games.

Stewie: I got my money and your wounds are clearing up nicely, can't we just let bygones be bygones?
Brian: You shot me in both my knees, and set me on fire. Piss off.

  • Nuns Are Funny: "When You Wish Upon A Weinstien".
  • N-Word Privileges: Referenced in a cutaway in an early episode involving Peter's ancestor Huck Griffin who now referred to his raft partner as "N-word Jim".
    • When Peter thinks the world was going to end, he mentions that he is going to go to the black section of town and say the N-word. He returns a short time later wearing a sash that says "King of the Black People," and says "They respected me for saying it."

O

  • Obnoxious In-Laws: Peter's stepdad, as well as Lois' father.
  • Obvious Beta: Seth's earliest work, "Life With Larry", is quite clearly a very early version of Family Guy. Some of the jokes even carried over (see Recycled Script below).
  • Off-Model: In "Let's Go to the Hop", during the musical number, Peter's head keeps shrinking for no reason. This was even addressed on the DVD audio commentary.
  • Obvious Object Could Be Anything: Used on multiple occasions. The exact execution depends on who's doing the guessing.
  • Officer O'Hara: Subverted: the Irish cop on the police force is actually a guy who's good with impressions.
  • Oh Crap: Lois has a terrifying one when she realizes that Diane Simmons is the killer at James Woods's mansion.
  • Older Than They Look: One one-off joke shows Quagmire is actually in his 60's, despite looking younger than that.
    • What really makes this odd is when Quagmire's dad shows up, and he's the one who looks to be in his 60's, especially since he served in Vietnam.
  • Once Per Episode: One character says "What the Hell?" to another.
  • The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Stewie rescues Lois from being shot to death by Diane Simmons...because no one but him is allowed to kill Lois!
  • Only Sane Man: Lois and Brian exchanging the role, albeit more and more in a comparison only state as their characters evolve.
  • Opening Narration: "Fast Times at Buddy Cianci High" features a Law and Order parody that opens the episode.

Narrator: In the television comedy world, the people are entertained by two separate yet equally important types of shows: Traditional sitcoms that get laughs out of everyday situations, like trying to fix your own plumbing or inviting two dates the same dance, and animated shows that make jokes about farting. This is the latter.
Peter: Oh, sorry. I just farted.

Peter: That's right, it's going to be a Meg episode. (places remote on the table) Here's the clicker. No one'd blame ya.

    • Meg has been hit with this the most. It's to the point that, even in an episode where Meg is the driving force of the plot, she disappears entirely after the first five minutes, does not reappear until five minutes before the end and spends three of those being entirely silent.
  • Overcrank: Parodied, with most anything else, in "The Kiss Seen 'Round the World": Meg swoons over Tom Tucker, who is walking in slow motion. It's assumed that he's only walking in slow motion in her fantasies, but no, that's how slow he actually walks, and people around him walk normal speed.
  • Overly Long Airplane Banner Gag: Neil sends a message to Meg, declaring his love and asking if she'd seen his good pen.
  • Overly Long Gag: A self-admitted favourite of series creator Seth MacFarlane. Opinion is constantly divided over whether such gags make the show better or worse.
  • Overly Long Scream: Peter does it when the experimental drug that temporarily turned him gay wears off in the middle of a group sex session. Also his shriek of acclamation when the drug first kicks in and Lois asks if he has turned gay. Also when his doctor performs an intimate anal examination.
  • Overly Polite Pals: "The Even Couple".
  • Overused Running Gag: In "Forget-Me-Not" Peter finds a jukebox playing "Surfin' Bird," and turns it off because he finds it annoying.

P

  • Palette Swap: Lois' sister, Carol, is practically a copy of Lois, the only difference being the clothing and the hair.
  • Paranoia Gambit: Done successfully by Brian in "Patriot Games" when Stewie, as payback for the brutal beating he gave Brian over the money that Brian owed him, offers Brian a free revenge shot. Brian agrees on the terms that he can use it at any time and that Stewie won't know when he will be hit. Brian does not use it, and Stewie goes crazy to the point of harming himself to even the deal. At the end of the episode, Brian evens it out by pushing Stewie in front of a moving bus. Also doubles as a Crowning Moment of Awesome for Brian.
  • Parental Incest: Oddly enough, One of the few things NOT poked fun of. Couple of examples would be the "incest episode" Peter mentioned after the Untold Story movie, and Meg getting yelled at by the family for making an incest joke.
    • Except for Peter who giggles afterwards.
    • There's also the Redneck episode.

Peter: Meg, I'm a redneck, which means I am about to do something to you that you will not remember until you're forty! *Meg screams and runs off* Meg, come back here! I meant sex!

    • Meg's bachelorette party, where Peter was the stripper.
    • When Chris proposes her to Peter to date in the same episode.
  • Pet the Dog: Both Stewie and Quagmire have certainly had moments where they have done this.
  • Pie in the Face: Lois (twice if you count "Saggy Naggy") in "You Can't Do That On Television, Peter," and Herbert in the "It's a Wonderful Day for Pie" sequence in "Road to the Multiverse."
  • Pineapple Surprise: Used in the climactic battle in "Lois Kills Stewie", though she is able to remove the belt before the explosion.
  • A Pirate 400 Years Too Late: Peter goes from stealing a parrot as a pet from a veterinarian's office, to dressing as a stereotypical pirate, then hiring a pirate crew and finally going on the road and engaging a motorist in an epic swashbuckling fight, in the course of which Peter's car acquires a mast and sails.
  • The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything / One-Hour Work Week: In the earlier episodes, Lois had a job as an at-home piano teacher. References to this job gradually dropped over time, and she has since been portrayed as a housewife.
  • Planet of Hats: Played straight in "Road to the Multiverse". Each universe that Stewie and Brian travel to has it's own special attribute; there's the universe where humans and dogs switch places, and then there's the universe where there's just one guy who gives compliments from far away.
  • Playing Pictionary: In "Lois Kills Stewie":

Peter: Stewie, uh, how long you been all messed up and evil like this?
Stewie: Oh, so now you're interested in Stewie. Last week when I made that macaroni picture of an owl, you didn't give a damn!
Peter: That was an owl?

  • Plot Hole: A big one that is attributed to Brian being the Author Avatar. Brian is an Atheist despite meeting God AND Jesus on several occasions.
  • Police Lineup
  • Poor Man's Porn: When Stewie finally succeeds in derailing Peter and Lois' plans to conceive a fourth child (about twenty seconds after he stops trying), Peter takes a lingerie catalogue into the bathroom.
  • Positive Discrimination: Subverted in "Extra-Large Medium" where a girl with Down's Syndrome is portrayed as a total bitch.
  • Possession Implies Mastery: "Peter, you can't speak Italian just because you have a mustache."
  • Post Modernism: By the truckload.
  • Power Is Sexy: This is why Cleveland would have sex with Margaret Thatcher, despite the incredulity of the other guys. "Oh, so no-one else here thinks power is sexy?"
  • Precision F-Strike: Peter tells America to go fuck itself in "Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story".
    • In "Peter's Two Dads", Brian says, "What the fuck?!" when he sees Peter on the couch, who just got done taking crack.
  • "Previously On...": Parodied and subverted at the start of "Brian Does Hollywood". All of the clips shown never actually occurred in part one, "The Thin White Line", and instead are send-ups of typical crime and court drama tropes.

Stewie: You want my badge number? Here! Here's my freakin' badge number!

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