Family Guy/Tropes Q to Z

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Q

R

Stewie: You came unarmed?
Bertram: As we agreed.
Stewie: Admirable - but foolish! (pulls out a gun)
Bertram: (immediately pulls out his own gun)

  • Really Gets Around: Quagmire, Brian, and Lois before she married Peter.
  • Rearrange the Song: During season 3, the end credits music (an instrumental version of the opening theme) was rearranged with a big band motif. It was rearranged again during season 4.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Quagmire delivers one of these to Brian in "Jerome Is The New Black."
    • An earlier example: in "Play It Again, Brian", Brian delivers one to Peter regarding of how bad a husband he is. However, Peter countered with another one regarding Brian's inability to hold a relationship.
    • Brian is once again on the receiving end of one from Bill Maher, Dana Gould, and Arianna Huffington in "Brian Writes A Bestseller", when he completely dismisses what he said in his own book in a desperate attempt to impress Bill when Brian guest stars on his show.
    • In "Seahorse Seashell Party", Meg gives one each to Chris, Lois, and Peter.
  • Red Shirt: Spoofed with "Ensign Ricky".

Capt James T. Kirk: Ok, we'll take a landing party consisting of myself, Mr Spock, Dr McCoy, and Ensign Ricky.

Ensign Ricky: Aww, crap.

Quagmire: Is it possible she's a whore? ...You know, like on weekends, just to pay for her mom's dialysis? ...Like in my fantasy? ...Y'know what, let's start over. Hi, I'm Quagmire! (offers his hand)

Peter: Yeah, everything'll go back to normal next week, so who gives a damn?

  • Retcon: The revelation that Peter's biological father is not Francis, but an Irishman named Mickey McFinnigan.
    • Also the revision of the founding of Quahog and mythicalization of the earlier Magic Clam story.
  • Retroactive Wish: "Imagine Lindsay Lohan naked and doing a backwards crab walk".
  • Rhetorical Question Blunder: From "Chick Cancer":

Stewie: I can't hide from this relationship. It's my responsibility to deal with it. I mean, what kind of man would I be if I just left my family and all my responsibilities like that?
Brian: Well, you'd be a black man.
Stewie: (shocked) Whoa, what was that?!
Brian: (realizes what he said) Agh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, that was my father talking.
Stewie: You, uh, you gotta work on that, man. Bad dog.

  • Rich in Dollars, Poor In Sense: Carter Pewterschmidt.
  • Ridiculous Future Sequelisation: In Rocky VI (which came out before Rocky Balboa did) Rocky goes to Mars for a fight.
  • Road Sign Reversal: Subverted in "Chitty Chitty Death Bang". In order to get the circus parade to come to Stewie's birthday party, Peter looks as though he's going to do this, then he uses the sign to knock out the parade leader and take his place.
  • Room Full of Crazy: Patrick, Lois's traumatized brother, came to live with the Griffins. His room is decorated with photos of himself strangling fat people.
    • And a dead fat guy and a half dead fat guy who then eats the dead fat guy.

Stewie: So we're just gonna look the other way on this one, huh?

  • Rousing Speech: Peter gives one to Joe in "Ready, Willing, and Disabled" to build him up during the Special People's Games. Typically of Peter, though, he quickly gets off-track.

Joe: If I couldn't catch a two-bit criminal, how am I supposed to win a race?
Peter: Hey, what kind of talk is that? It's un-American! Did George W. Bush quit even after losing the popular vote? No! Did he quit after losing millions of dollars of his father's friends' money in failed oil companies? No! Did he quit after knocking that girl up? No! Did he quit after he got that DUI? No! Did he quit gettin' arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct at a football game? No! Did he quit...
Joe: I get the message, Peter.

  • Rule 34: Reversed with Quagmire in "Family Goy," where he – the sexual deviant who always tries to corral a woman into bed with him, especially if they are older teenage girls – has no concept of Internet pornography, and is teased because of it. By mid-episode, it is played straight, as he gets a huge muscular left arm from masturbating for a few weeks straight.
  • Rule of Funny
    • It's good to know this before criticizing the show for inconsistencies. Seems that many have taken everything ever said in this show as official canon (of some sort) and call "plot hole" whenever a serious-plot moment crops up that contradicts an otherwise one-time gag.
  • Rule of Three: In "Fast Times at Buddy Cianci High", the teachers introduce the various classes at the school. For each class, Peter says, "Ah I love dodgeball/bundt cakes/trombone! Heads up!" The first two times, he throws an object at a random person, knocking them down. The third time, he actually plays the trombone and gets applause... only for Peter to throw the trombone after finishing.
    • In the Black Eye Griffin segment of "Untitled Griffin Family History", three of Black Eye Griffin's short films end the same way: With the character getting hit in the eye and shrugging at the camera while smiling widely, while "wah wah wah waaaaaaaahh" music plays.
  • Running Gag
    • Ollie, with the Blac-u-weather forecast. Originally a one-off (e.g. the Weather Mime), but used more and more since then.
    • Play me off, Johnny!
      • In the episode "Saving Private Brian", Stewie terminated this gag with extreme prejudice by shooting Vern and Johnny and proclaiming they will never be seen again. Ironically they were seen again as ghosts in a later episode "Back To The Woods" with Johnny appearing in Hell because, as Vern puts it, "Johnny liked little boys."
    • Cleveland: No. No. No. No. No. No. No. NO~~ * bathtub breaks*

Tim the Bear: I don't get it.

    • Ladies and gentleman, Mr. Conway Twitty.
    • Someone saying "What the hell?" to someone else Once Per Episode.
    • Peter's Giant Chicken Fistfights.
    • Every time "The Bird Is the Word" "Surfin' Bird" is played, after "I Dream of Jesus"
    • In the earlier seasons, every time Chris did something creepy or questionable Peter or Lois would flatly say "Go to your room."
    • The idea of Quagmire getting his own spin-off.
    • Nearly every episode, a character (most likely Peter) would waste an entire minute or two doing something mundane repeatedly (like making 'Dad noises') while any other character nearby would just watch with an unamused looking expression on their face.
    • Stewie trying to kill Lois. He would have succeeded once, if Death wasn't on vacation.
    • Brian inadvertently offending Quagmire via some misunderstanding, leading to a drawn out rage attack from the latter. Possibly Running Gagged since this gag has disappeared for almost a season with only occasional more subdued disagreements between the two afterwards.
  • Running Gagged: Quite a few examples. The evil monkey gag ended in Season 8 when he decided his time in Chris' closet has been enough, and leaves to live in Jake Tucker's closet.
    • Vern and Johnny get killed about a season after they were introduced. They come back as a Continuity Nod in ghost form.
    • The Giant Chicken fights. The last time they fought, they made amends and decided to go out to dinner, and they only continued fighting because they were arguing who would pay the check. Every few episodes, a Call Back is made to their dilemma.

S

  • Sadist Show: Cheerful bullying of mentally ill, disabled, or terminally ill constitutes an awful amount of the jokes in the series. If someone is in intense pain to the point of suicidal it will almost invariably be mocked and worsened to the extreme.
  • Samus Is a Girl: In the fourth episode of the series Peter punches out a "guy" who badmouths his son once too often, not knowing "he's" a pregnant woman. Justified as she looks like this.
  • Sarcasm Failure: Brian in "Excellence in Broadcasting".
  • Sassy Black Woman: Cleveland's ex-wife Loretta.
    • A Black woman in hindsight.
  • Saving Christmas: In the episode "Road to the North Pole", Stewie and Brian attempt to do this, because Santa is exhausted to near death due to the increasing demand for presents. Predictably, they fail catastrophically.
  • Scratch Damage: This is all Meg is capable of in "Viewer Mail."
  • Second-Person Attack: In "Stuck Together, Torn Apart", the singer on stage who says the next song is for all the ladies out there is given a punch by Peter, seen from the singer's viewpoint.
  • Seinfeldian Conversation: Often appears in conjunction with an Overly Long Gag.
  • Self-Deprecation: One episode centered around Brian's attempts to befriend Quagmire. When he asks why he dislikes him so much, Quagmire goes off on an incredible tangent, obviously voicing the reaction some fans had toward Brian's Author Avatar status, including his religious and political biases.
    • Combining this with when Quagmire thought he was getting the spinoff and when he was trying to make an improv show, it seems that Seth MacFarlane is using Quagmire as a Self-Deprecation avatar as much as he uses Brian as an Author Avatar.
    • In the 100th episode special, Seth MacFarlane interviews several people about Family Guy (who don't know who he is). They all say that the show is terrible.
    • In the 150th episode special, when Brian and Stewie are talking about "Peter's Two Dads" where Peter visited Ireland:

Stewie: Did we explore the effects of the difficult political and agricultural dynamics that have rent Ireland for centuries?
Brian: No, we just made them a country of drunken redheads.

Stewie: Ah! Groundbreaking.

    • A meta example is that one of the writers is Jewish, and in the commentaries he admits most of the Jewish jokes are his.
  • Self-Serving Memory: When Peter recalls his prostate exam, it is incredibly sinister, and totally wrong.
  • Sex for Solace: When Peter caught Loretta, Cleveland's wife, having an affair, he found Cleveland's lack of anger to be surprising. Lois suggested getting him to confront his emotions, but Peter instead insisted that Cleveland just needed a "Revenge Lay" in order to deal with the situation. Of course, they never quite got that far...
  • Sexual Extortion: Angela with Peter.
  • Shaggy Dog Story: "The Juice Is Loose", where Peter meets OJ Simpson, and, at first, attempts to prove that he murdered his wife and Ron Brown. But then, when he finds out, he despairs that he is innocent and can never get away from the accusations. So Peter lets him stay at his house, but the family is suspicious of him. The entire episode is set up as a twist on the normal narrative about OJ, with him actually being innocent. At the end, the town comes in an angry mob to kick him out, but then O.J. makes an emotional speech about how nobody is perfect, and we shouldn't judge people for making a few mistakes. It works, and the whole town is on his side. But then, he stabs and kills three people for absolutely no reason, and runs off. After which, Peter just nonchalantly says "Oh, I guess he did do it.", and the episode just ends.
  • Shoot the Dog: Literally done by the Board of Directors of the El Dorado Cigarette Company in the episode "Mr. Griffin Goes To Washington".
  • Shoot the Shaggy Dog: "420" is essentially this: long story short, Brian manages to convince everybody in Quahog to legalize pot, but Carter doesn't like it (it had something to do with his business losing money), and bribes Brian with publishing his horrible novel if he convinces everybody to re-illegalize pot. Brian does, but in the end his novel doesn't sell a single copy. However, this episode was meant to deliver a message about how wonderful everything would be if pot were legal.
  • Shotacon: Herbert is a pedophile/ephebophile who lusts after little boys and male teenagers, especially Chris.
    • In "Back to the Woods", the ghosts of previously-killed characters Vern and Johnny are shown. Vern is in Heaven, while Johnny is in Hell. The explanation?

Vern: You might be wondering why Johnny is in Hell. (beat) Johnny liked little boys.

  • Shout-Out: Aside from all the pop culture Shout Outs, there are several made specifically for viewers who live in Rhode Island, although these have gotten rarer since the show was Uncanceled.
  • Shower of Angst: Stewie, after learning Rupert has "cheated" him, along with Sanity Slippage.
  • Showgirl Skirt: The showgirl outfit in the opening, and in scenes with showgirls, all have the same design of a leotard and a headdress and skirt of feathers.
  • The Show Goes Hollywood: "Brian Does Hollywood", in which Brian moves to Los Angeles to become a writer but ends up becoming a porn director.
  • Sideboob: Ptv's The Sideboob Hour.
  • Sitcom Arch Nemesis: Peter vs Ernie the Giant Chicken. Brian also seems to be gaining a more mutual hatred for Quagmire as episodes progress.
  • Slapstick Knows No Gender: All examples of physical comedy, from random abuse, to violent murder, and even rape, are Played for Laughs regardless of the gender of the perpetrator or the victim.

Lois: You can't hit me! I'm a girl!
Peter: Sometimes I wonder.

Peter: That [vase] would look simply smashing in Lois' crapper -- I mean, crappiér.
Kitty: You're so right, Peter. Any woman would love to have that in her crappiér.

  • Sound Effect Bleep: Used occasionally in the pre-cancellation seasons to bleep out stronger swearing; used frequently when the show was revived in 2005.
  • Soundtrack Dissonance: the classy, somewhat 50's-esque, Frank Sinatra-ish BGM playing during many scenes (mostly shots showing the Griffins' house from the outside, anyway) just doesn't fit what this show is about. For starters, it's an Adult Swim show. Do the math.
  • Speaking Simlish: In "Mc Stroke," Peter believes he can speak Italian because he has grown a mustache. However, he only produces a series of "beepity boppity."
    • The butcher, who actually speaks Italian, has no problem understanding him and the two have a conversation with him and Peter speaking Italian and gibberish, respectively.
  • Spin-Off: The Cleveland Show.
  • Spit Take: Peter does this in "Peter's Got Woods", soaking a nearby Meg.
  • Spontaneous Human Combustion: Played for Laughs in a Cutaway Gag in the episode "A Fish Out of Water," when Stewie imagines how his family would look if they were more cultured. Cue the Griffin men sitting in the living room wearing formal clothes, drinking wine, talking with British accents... and Peter spontaneously bursting into flames.
  • Spot the Imposter: Done in "The Hand That Rocks the Wheelchair" when Brian has to differentiate Stewie and Evil Stewie.

Brian: Oh, come on, not this thing, really?!

  • Spoof Aesop: Many of the early episodes ended this way with Peter or another character learning either something completely different from the events they experienced or bluntly admiring to learning jack squat like nothing ever happened. Commentary from Seth and the other writers state that this was their way of ending the episode without filling it with nonsensical bullshit with a mix of the writers not giving a damn how the story ended.
  • Springtime for Hitler: In-Universe. Brian's second book, Wish It, Want It, Do It.
  • Stable Time Loop: Stewie ends up outside of the space-time continuum and has to overload the return pad to his time machine in order to return to existence. This event turns out to have been the cause of the Big Bang.
  • Stalker Shrine: Quagmire has one about Lois.
  • Status Quo Is God: A few minor changes have stuck, such as Cleveland moving away (to get his own show) and Brian's relationship status. But for the most part, this is strictly enforced.
    • Spoofed in "Da Boom", where things are set back to normal by recreating the infamous All Just a Dream ending from Dallas, complete with the original actors.
    • Another ep has Chris being chased by poachers in Africa. It's never resolved, but during the end credits Stewie says to Brian that "the Chris thing was just a gag, he'll be back next week like always."
  • Stealth Pun: In "Death Lives", Carter offers Peter $1 million to stay away from Lois. Peter replies:

Peter: She may be worth a million dollars to you, but to me, she's worthless!

  • Stock Audio Clip: Every time Cleveland falls to the ground in his bathtub after part of his house is destroyed, the exact same vocal clip plays.

Cleveland: What the hell?! No, no no no no NOOOOOOOO!!!

Jerry: Are ya smoking yet?

  • Suck E. Cheese's: Cheesie Charlie's in "Chitty Chitty Death Bang".
  • Suckiness Is Painful: In-Universe, Brian's novel, "Faster Than the Speed of Love". In one episode, his book wins an award by a special organization. Emphasis on special, much to Brian's dismay.
  • Sudden Humility: Peter starts discriminating against Joe for being handicapped, until the feud leads to an accident that leaves him temporarily wheelchair bound. Despite his initial insistence that he will treat his problem with far more dignity than Joe, it takes 40 minutes for him to breakdown from his incapability and apologize to Joe.
  • Suddenly Ethnicity: Subverted in "Halloween on Spooner Street", in which Quagmire convinces Peter and Joe that he's part Japanese as a set-up for a prank.
  • Super Bowl Special: The show premiered after the 1999 Super Bowl followed by a Super Bowl themed The Simpsons episode.
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Joyce Kinney, Diane Simmons' substitute

T

  • Take That: Many cutaways consist of nothing but one of the characters telling an actor how much they suck. Some examples include Peter as Christina Aguilera's manager and Stewie trashing Matthew McConaughey, who doesn't seem to mind.

Stewie: "That's not funny!!!"

Peter: You know what else grinds my gears? You, America. FUCK YOU! Diane?

    • This exchange:

Guy #1: Outrageous! How dare he say such blasphemy?! I've got to do something!
Guy #2: There's... there's nothing you can do.
Guy #1: Huh... well, I guess I'll just learn to develop a sense of humor...

  • Taking the Bullet: Brian in "Forget-me-Not".
  • The Tape Knew You Would Say That: In one episode, Peter leaves a tape that tries to hold a conversation with Lois to convince her he's actually there. In a subversion, she figures it out when he starts to drift off topic.
  • Teacher-Student Romance: Chris and Mrs. Lockhart, until she asked him to kill her husband for her.
  • Tear Off Your Face: Peter does this to Chris in a Cutaway Gag.
  • The Teaser: More common in the earlier seasons. It almost always featured a TV or movie parody that the family was watching, though there were a few exceptions. Examples:
    • "Death Has a Shadow": The Griffins watch The Brady Bunch.
    • "Brian in Love": In a dream, Stewie destroys Neighborhood of Make-Believe before getting ready to kill Mr. Rogers himself.
    • "Fifteen Minutes of Shame": Peter watches The Joy of Painting and paints the family from Family Ties.
    • "The Story on Page 1": The Griffins watch "Sherry and the Anus".
    • "Fore Father": The Griffins watched "Little House on the Prairie".
    • "Brian Does Hollywood": A fake recap of the previous episode (parodying the TV Cliff Hanger) opens the show.
    • "North By North Quahog": Peter tells the family that they've been canceled and names off all the short-lived FOX shows that aired as replacements for Family Guy.
    • "Excellence in Broadcasting": The family watch the widescreen version of The Brady Bunch (this was the first standard length widescreen episode).
  • Technology Marches On: Just what are these mix-tapes Stewie and Lidanne like so much?
  • Teen Pregnancy: Well sort of. In the episode "Love Thy Trophy" Meg gets a job by pretending that Stewie is her son.
    • A more closer example is in "Peter's Daughter", where Meg falls in love with a young doctor named Michael, and has been dating him for a good while, but when the recently overly-protective Peter, who became like this after Meg nearly drowned in the flood, keeps butting in, Michael breaks up with Meg, and two weeks later, Meg believes that she's pregnant with Michael's baby, leading to a Shotgun Wedding. It turns out that Meg isn't pregnant because she had her period.
  • Temporal Paradox: Brian telling his past self about the terrorist attacks on 9/11 causes George W. Bush in the present time to not only be not elected for U.S. President in 2004, but he also throws a fit and causes the Deep South to break off with the North and basically repeats the Civil War, but with nuclear weapons. This causes Stewie and Brian to go back in time where Brian is about to screw up the timeline and tell them not to do anything in the past. This doesn't go over too well.
  • Tempting Fate: Seen in the short "He's Quagmire". A stuffy upper class man said: "I do hope nothing happens to spoil our fancy dinner party." Immediately after, Quagmire jumped on the table wearing a leopard G-string and said "Giggity!" over and over.
    • Also in "PTV", after the FCC shuts Peter's TV network down, he says that they can't censor the way people live in real life. Three guesses what happens next.
    • Subverted in "Stu & Stewie's Excellent Adventure" when Peter launches himself with a catapult:

"Excellent! These dominoes are set up exactly as I want them: right next to the good china. Now I'll just place this priceless faberge egg right in the center, next to my newborn, hemophiliac baby."
-Peter lands right outside the window- "Hey, those yours?"
"Yes."
"Oh, those are all really nice things!"
"Thank you!"

Stewie: "Ah, bitch, you got jacked, bitch."

  • Throw the Dog a Bone: While she still is picked on, the writers have started to tone down the Meg bashing this season.
  • Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: This trope is pulled whenever Brian gets a human girlfriend.
  • Title Drop: Spoofed in "420" where Peter is shown being amused by various title drops in films ("The only way I can stop this crisis is by being Superman IV the Quest For Peace!") Then later, a walk-on character says "I'm a family guy!" and Peter is thrilled.
    • Brian said "Stewie loves Lois!", which is the title of that episode.
  • Title Please: Exceptions being the Brian & Stewie "Road To..." episodes and "Viewer Mail #1", which had three different title cards for each segment.
  • Toad Licking: "Toad" becomes such a popular fad at James Woods High School, after a Colombian drug cartel's plane transporting the toads crashes near Quahog, that Peter winds up going undercover at the school as "Lando Griffin" to get the students to stop.
    • There was even a hilarious anti-drug PSA directly spoofing the classic Tootsie Pop commercial with Mr. Owl.

Kid: Mr. Toad, how many licks of you does it take to get to the center of a Rhode Island State Prison?
[Jail Door Closes]
Voiceover: Just one.

  • Token Good Teammate: Brian and Lois initially before they Took a Level in Jerkass. Arguably Meg in recent episodes, par Bratty Teenage Daughter and occasional Yandere qualities. To an extent the evolution of the show has led "Good" to be defined as "slightly less of a Jerkass".
  • Token Minority: Two in the main cast, Cleveland and Joe; lampshaded by Asian Reporter Trisha Takanawa and "Black-u-weather forecaster" Ollie Williams.
    • As well as "Hispanic Reporter Maria Hee-Ji-Jiminez?"
      • Jiminez.
      • I know what it is!
  • Tonight Someone Dies: The plot season 9 premiere "And Then There Were Fewer" said that many characters were going to die. However, only one of them was relatively important.
  • Too Hot for TV and Better on DVD: A lot of Family Guy episodes (particularly those aired after the show was Uncanceled in 2005) have a lot of scenes and lines that FOX censors won't air or were cut due to time constraints. Cartoon Network airings partially restore some of the scenes and lines that were edited on FOX, but the DVD has all of the scenes and lines that were rejected by censors (either in the episode proper or as part of a deleted scenes reel)
    • Also, two episodes were banned: "When You Wish Upon A Weinstein" (was banned out of fear that Jews and Catholics would find the show's take on religion offensive. The episode aired years later with a line change and some light trimming of one scene) and "Partial Terms of Endearment" (banned for dealing with the hot-button topic of abortion. The episode did air on a UK TV channel and was released on DVD, but FOX is never going to reverse its decision not to air the episode and Cartoon Network might not air it, either).
  • Took a Level in Jerkass: Highly debatable that the main cast have become this as of late.
    • One episode had Joe regain the ability to walk, which boosts his confidence level tenfold. However, he gets a little too overconfident and starts to berate his friends for not meeting his high demands to improve in whatever activity they are doing. He even ditches Bonnie (who is still pregnant) and his friends to be with friends that he says are not lazy and can keep up with him. It takes Joe losing his ability to walk again to bring him back down to humble levels.
  • Took a Level In Kindness: In contrast to the majority of the cast's increasing sociopathic tendancies, original Token Evil Teammate Stewie has evolved more and more into Jerk with a Heart of Gold (or at least Affably Evil) territory.
    • Similarly Meg, originally a Bratty Teenage Daughter that was ashamed of her family's antics, has become more docile and friendly, if only in her desperation for her family's love.
  • Trade Your Passion for Glory: Happened to at about all the main characters at least once.
  • Train Job: Subverted. Peter and his father-in-law, Carter, try to do this, but the ticket taker tells them that no one rides the trains anymore.
  • Tranquillizer Dart: In an early episode, Peter's boss devises a contest for the company picnic, which involves taking shots at the employees with a tranq rifle and seeing who can last the longest. Most of the employees drop like stones the moment they get shot... except for Peter, who ends up with more than a dozen tranquillizer needles stuck in him, and still manages to stay conscious long enough to win the contest. It would seem that this is either due to his relatively high body mass, which (in theory) would require longer for the chemicals to spread through his body, or due to the increased amount of fatty deposits, which would help isolate the venom from his bloodstream.
  • Transsexualism: Handled with all the tact that a character vomiting for 28 seconds straight can bring to a topic. Although the show does deserves credit for Quagmire adamantly claiming that being a transwoman who is interested in men does NOT constitute being a gay man; it constitutes being a straight woman born into a man's body.
  • Trash Compactor Scenario: The Trope Namer is parodied in "Blue Harvest"

-Peter/Han :Look at that. Someone threw out a perfectly good couch. Why would you do something like that? You know what? I'm takin' that couch.

Brian: (referring to a mole on Stewie) I think it could be... the c-word.
Stewie: What does that have to do with anything?
Brian: No, I mean cancer.
Stewie: Oh, oh! Cancer, oh no!

U

Joe: Um, Quagmire, Taylor Hanson's a guy.

    • Subverted on Diane's talk show when a man reveals he's not a man but a woman, then not a woman but a horse, and then not a horse but really a broom.
  • Unspoken Plan Guarantee: In "Airport '07", the plan to get Quagmire's job back is explained (with a dramatization even) before it's carried out. Guess how well the original plan went.
  • Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Peter of course.
  • Uptown Girl: Lois and Peter, as shown by an early episode where Peter is at odds with her tyrannical father in order to gain his approval, which he never does. She marries him despite her father's insistence that she doesn't really love him or his covert attempts to kill Peter.

V

  • Vehicle Vanish: Subverted. "It would probably have been a good idea to get on that truck."
  • Victoria's Secret Compartment: Mrs. Lockhart.
  • Victimized Bystander: often.
  • Video Wills: Mr. Weed's.
    • Peter's father-in-law Carter keeps quite a few of these, for any situation that might come up...including Death by Chocolate.
  • Vignette Episode
  • Vinyl Shatters: In the episode "I Dream of Jesus", Brian and Stewie break Peter's Surfin' Bird record; Stewie stomps on it with his foot and Brian smashes it further with a baseball bat.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: Brian and Stewie.
  • Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Used every time somebody throws up, which is not rare. Taken Up to Eleven in the episode "Quagmire's Dad" where Brian vomits for almost 30 seconds straight without stopping.
    • Used to the extreme in "8 Simple Rules For Buying My Teenage Daughter" where Peter, Chris, Brian, and Stewie drink medicine that induces vomiting and have a contest to see who can be the last guy standing before vomiting. Nearly a minute or two of this gag involves nothing but the four guys vomiting constantly all over the living room.
      • "Who wants clam chowder?"

W

  • We Want Our Jerk Back:
    • "I Am Peter, Hear Me Roar": Peter is sent to a sensitivity camp to deal with his outrageous sexism. When he returns with a more sensitive and mature (albeit comically feminine) understanding of how to treat people, it makes his friends and family very uncomfortable and they try to figure out how to turn him back into a misogynist again.
    • "I Never Met the Dead Man": Peter is forced to cope without Cable TV throughout Quahog, and as a result becomes a happier, active person who genuinely enjoys family life and just living in general. Even though this was Lois' idea, she tries ineffectually to get him out of it. The solution appears nigh when William Shatner's car breaks down in front of the Griffin's house on his way to a conference on how television is great for people's lives...but then Peter gets Shatner to come with him to the Bavarian Folk Festival instead, where Shatner renounces the emphasis TV has had on their lives. Don't worry, Peter's still turned back to a TV-watching slob by the end of the episode.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy: Chris in earlier episodes.
  • Well, This Is Not That Trope: Cruelly played straight in "Three Kings":

Peter: (introducing the final segment for the episode) Remember that movie with the creepy twins, and the guy running around with the axe, and that kid talking to his finger? (laughs) Can't you see Stewie doin' that?! Well, here's The Shawshank Redemption.

  • Wham! Episode: The premiere of season 9 kills off no less than three recurring characters, one of whom had been around since the beginning of the series.
    • The hurricane crossover. Meg gives most of the family a "The Reason You Suck" Speech, particularly towards Lois. This was similar in tone to "Brian and Stewie".
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Neil Goldman. Okay, he was sort of Demoted to Extra at first, but the entire Griffin family got invited to James Woods's mansion...and yet only the Goldman parents were invited? A few episodes later, in "Road to the North Pole", we see Mort Goldman making some remarks related to him being Jewish in the context of a song about what the characters want for Christmas...with Neil nowhere in sight. Where the hell is he?
    • Quagmire's Littlest Cancer Patient niece (whom Brian mistook for a boy, and further cemented Quagmire's resentment for Brian) in "Road to the North Pole". She was hospitalized somewhere around the start of the third act and that was the last we heard of her.
    • The Campbells, the nudist family. They appeared in two episodes early in 2002, and then they completely disappeared except for a short cameo eight years later.
    • Although he was never given a name, there's the conspicuous absence of Carol's son, whom she conceived with her eighth husband. Lois and Peter were the only people present at his birth back in the early seasons (discounting an unconscious Dr. Hartman) and this event in turn inspired them to want to have more children of their own for a short while. Fast-forward a few seasons, and Carol's married and divorced her ninth husband, leading her to move in with the Griffins—and yet her son, who couldn't be that much older than a baby, is nowhere to be seen. Then she marries and moves in with Mayor West in a record amount of time and STILL her child isn't even referenced, let alone taken along. Was he adopted? Did he die? Does anyone even CARE that Lois and Peter's nephew has melted into thin air?
  • "What the Hell?" Dad: Peter, at least to Chris
  • White Anglo Saxon Protestant: In "The Son Also Draws", Peter shows Chris a family of WASPS; not the animal, but a family of White Anglo Saxon Protestants who make passive-aggressive remarks towards each other at dinner.
  • Who's Laughing Now?: "Dial Meg For Murder" has Meg Take A Level In Badass and deliver a rather violent retribution on her abusive family and classmates.
    • "Stewie Kills Lois"/"Lois Kills Stewie" may also count, at least in Stewie's perspective even if it was all a simulation.
  • Whole-Plot Reference: Back to The Future, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, Poltergeist, Tootsie, And Then There Were None.
  • Why Do You Keep Changing Jobs?: Peter after his boss at Happy-Go-Lucky Toys died, though as of "Jungle Love", Peter is now employed at the Pawtucket Brewery. The myriad of odd jobs that Peter had (like Christina Aguilera's image consultant, a basement rat farmer, Lara Flynn Boyle's means of retaining warmth while sleeping, erotic writer, etc.) as seen through the Imagine Spots, flashbacks, Aborted Arcs, and Non Sequitur Scenes don't count because they're just put there for laughs.
  • Wise Beyond Their Years: Stewie is one year old but can build multi-verse transporters, time machines, and laser weaponry.
  • Won't Work On Me: Quagmire is able to shrug off a variety of different diseases that he is injected with, he notes in particular that he was the patient zero of gonorrhea. Peter Griffin manages to work around it by finding a mosquito from a foreign country and having it drink Quagmire's blood.
  • Working on the Chain Gang: In the episode "Holy Crap," Peter has kidnapped the Pope by posing as his driver and he drives the Pope Mobile past one of these. The Pope doesn't realize anything is wrong and keeps waving at everything, including a chain gang, parodying Cool Hand Luke:

Luke: (takes his shirt off) Taking it off there, boss.
Guard: Take it off there, Luke.
Luke: (wipes sweat off his face) Wiping it off there, boss
Guard: Wipe it off there, Luke.
Luke: (waves at the Pope) Waving at the Pope there, boss.
Guard: Wave at the Pope there, Luke.

  • Wrong Parachute Gag: Brian is going skydiving. Right before he jumps out the instructor stops him and points out he grabbed "the one with silverware" in it. He tosses Brian another parachute... that contains an anvil.

"... that one's probably fine. ..."

  • Wunza Plot: Parodied in the cutaway with Stewie and The Rock as partners.
    • Also parodied in a deleted song (seen on the Vol. 5 DVD set) about a fictional sitcom called "Hope and Rape", about a former model and a former rapist living together.

Y

  • Yandere: Meg in the fifth season episode "Barely Legal".
    • Meg in general for the last couple of seasons, really.
    • Meg again in "The Hand That Rocks The Wheelchair", this time towards Joe, even going so far as to attempt to cripple herself for him.
    • Stewie, too, in the episode "Chick Cancer", where he burns his "wife" and her male friend alive in his playhouse.
  • Yes-Man: Lampooned in "Mr. Griffin Goes to Washington" when Peter gets his own company suck-up.

Suck-up: Morning, nice day!
Peter: It's a little cloudy...
Suck-up: It's absolutely cloudy, one of the worst days I've seen in years! So, good news about the Yankees.
Peter: I hate the Yankees.
Suck-up: Pack of cheaters, that's what they are! I love your tie!
Peter: I hate this tie.
Suck-up: It's awful, it's gaudy, it's gotta go.
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!

  • You Monster!: Said to Peter after he tricks Dr. Hartman into giving him a flu shot that was in short supply and needed for the elderly. He responds with a reference to "Frampton Comes Alive."
    • Also by Brian when Peter tricks the Make-A-Wish foundation into bringing back "Gumble to Gumble" by pretending Chris has a terminal disease.
    • Brian to Stewie in "Brian & Stewie" when Stewie reveals that he made Brian eat his poop for a cheap thrill.

Brian: You son of a bitch, I could KILL you for that!

  • You Say Tomato: Stewie pronounces 'Cool Whip' as 'cool-huwip'. Brian tries fruitlessly to explain that it sounds weird, leading to Stewie using other w-silent-h words with the same weird pronunciation, totally unaware that he's doing it.
    • This becomes a minor plot point in one episode when Brian gets replaced by New Brain. Stewie begs Brian to come back and uses the "cool-huwip" shenanigans to get Brain to correct him, which Stewie missed a lot since New Brian is sickeningly sweet and doesn't hate anything.
    • Meg gets into it too, with the words "awhile" and "weird". The second is lampshaded by Brian: "Oh come on, that one doesn't even have an H in it!"
    • "It's all been 'ruweened'."
      • "Oh come on, Brian! Don't be cruwell!"
    • "Will HUEETon."
    • Another moment inverted this, with Peter making fun of Lois for pronouncing "nuclear" correctly, claiming "it's 'nukular', dummy, the S is silent".
  • "You?" Squared: played for laughs between Brian and his estranged son:

"My pot! (beat) "Your pot?"

  • You Will Be Spared: Sort of. Stewie tells Peter that his death will be quick and painless when he changes the channel after Stewie got distracted by The Teletubbies.
    • Flappy the pancake man. "Flappy, good news! I've decided not to kill you!"
  • Your Cheating Heart: There was an entire episode where Peter and Lois' marriage was about to fall apart because she slept with Bill Clinton (twice!). Granted, it did set up a funny joke at the end where Peter also ends up sleeping with Bill Clinton.
  • Your Princess Is in Another Castle: What, did you really think the world would end by black hole 15 minutes into the episode?
  • Your Television Hates You: When Peter feels sexually violated after his prostate exam, Brian tries to console him by turning on the TV, but every channel is about fingers and fingering.

Z

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