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This article is about the Family Guy Character. For other uses, see Peter Griffin (disambiguation).
Peter Löwenbräu Griffin[1] is a fictional character, and the protagonist of the Fox animated comedy series Family Guy. Peter is the patriarch of the Griffin family. He is married to Lois Pewterschmidt, and is the father of Meg, Chris, and Stewie. He is also the father of Bertram, who is currently Stewie's enemy. He is voiced by the show's creator and lead writer, Seth MacFarlane, who performs his voice with a slight Rhode Island accent, and first appeared on television, along with the rest of his family, in the series premiere, "Death Has a Shadow", on January 31, 1999 after Super Bowl XXXIII. MacFarlane conceived Peter and the rest of the Griffin family in January 1999. Peter's voice was inspired by a janitor that MacFarlane heard on his school, his design came from MacFarlane's last cartoon called Life of Larry and Larry and Steve; he took the design of Larry and redesigned it. As a character, Peter has been critically mixed received and appears in several pieces of Family Guy merchandise, including toys, t-shirts, and a video game. He also has appeared in other shows such as The Simpsons, South Park and The Cleveland Show.
[edit] Role in Family GuyPeter Griffin is the overweight husband of Lois and is the father of Meg, Chris, and Stewie, who reside in the fictional town of Quahog, Rhode Island. Peter has primarily worked as a safety inspector at the Happy-Go-Lucky Toy Factory until his boss Jonathan Weed died from choking on a dinner roll. He then became a fisherman using his own boat with the help of two Portuguese immigrants, Santos and Pasqual, until his boat was destroyed. He now works in the shipping department of the Pawtucket Patriot brewery. Family Guy uses a floating timeline in which the characters do not age much, and as such the show is always assumed to be set in the current year. However, several of the characters, such as Meg Griffin have aged 2 to 3 years since the show's pilot episode, while others, such as Stewie and Pepe Bravo, have remained the same age. In several episodes, events have been linked to specific times, though sometimes this timeline has been contradicted in subsequent episodes. In a running gag, storylines are randomly interrupted by extremely long, unexpected fights between Peter and Ernie the Giant Chicken. These battles parody the action film genre, with explosions, high-speed chases, and immense devastation to the town of Quahog. The sequences always conclude with Peter the victor leaving Ernie the Giant Chicken for dead, only for a sudden movement to show that the chicken is still alive. In the episode "Da Boom", the feud starts over a trivial incident where the chicken gives Peter an expired coupon at a grocery store.[2] While the story in "Da Boom" is outside the continuity of the series, the feud nevertheless became a running gag seen in regular episodes,[2] resuming briefly in "Blind Ambition".[3] In "No Chris Left Behind", the chicken is identified as "Ernie", and he is given a wife named Nicole, also a giant chicken. In the episode, Peter encounters the chicken once more; however, during their fight, the two seem to have forgotten about the expired coupon they were fighting over.[4] The two then make up and go out to dinner with Nicole, only to resume fighting over who pays the bill.[4] Ernie makes a brief, non-fighting appearance in the time travel themed episode "Meet the Quagmires", in which Peter unwittingly assaults the giant chicken at an 80s dance,[5] retroactively providing Ernie with a grudge against Peter. The chicken appears in the Star Wars parody episode "Something, Something, Something, Dark Side," as the infamous bounty hunter Boba Fett, nemesis of Peter's Han Solo.[6] [edit] Character [edit] CreationWhen he was still in college, Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane created a cartoon short entitled Life of Larry.[7] The short centered around a middle-aged man named Larry and his anthropomorphic dog Steve.[8] In 1999, when MacFarlane was working for Hanna-Barbara Studios, writing for shows such as Johnny Bravo, Dexter's Laboratory, and Cow and Chicken,[9] he made a sequel to Life of Larry, which Cartoon Network broadcast in 1995.[10] The short caught the eye of 20th Century Fox representatives, who asked him to create a TV series revolving around the characters.[8] MacFarlane received a US$50,000 budget to develop a pilot for the show, which was, as MacFarlane stated in a 2006 interview, "[...] about one twentieth of what most pilots cost".[9]  In three months, MacFarlane created the Griffin family and developed a pilot for the show he called Family Guy.[11] Peter's character was largely based on Larry and Steve would be the main inspiration behind the Brian character.[12] MacFarlane based Peter's voice, which was similar to Larry's,[12] on the voice of a security guard he once overheard talking, while he was attending the Rhode Island School of Design.[13] Other influences on the character's personality were the maintenance and security staffs at the schools he attended in New England and the father of one of his friend's, who fell asleep while watching the controversial 1993 Philadelphia.[14] The network executives were impressed with the pilot and ordered thirteen episodes, giving MacFarlane a 2 million dollar per-season contract.[11] In "Peter's Two Dads" it is revealed that Peter's biological father is actually Irish; MacFarlane based Peter's biological father on his own father, who is Irish.[8] MacFarlane commented "When I was growing up, my father had lots of friends: big, vocal, opinionated New England, Irish Catholics. They were all bursting at the seams with personality, and Family Guy came out of a lot of those archetypes that I spent years observing."[8] [edit] PersonalityPeter frequently gets drunk with his neighbors Cleveland, Joe, and Quagmire at "The Drunken Clam", Quahog's local tavern,[15] and is a stereotypical blue-collar worker.[16] In an interview with The Advocate MacFarlane described him as "Archie Bunker without the knowledge of what he's doing. He has the mind of a child, basically, and a source of big laughs is when he does not realize he's doing something inappropriate."[17] In the season four episode "Petarded", Peter takes an I.Q. test, and discovers that his low intellect places him in a category slightly below mentally retarded, but higher than a creationist.[18] Peter is known for his brash impulsiveness, which has led to several awkward situations,[19] such as attempting to molest Meg in order to adopt a redneck lifestyle.[20] He is incredibly jealous of other attractions Lois has in her life, an attitude that tends to get out of hand in most cases, even assaulting a whale that kissed Lois at SeaWorld.[21] In the season three episode "Stuck Together, Torn Apart", Peter and Lois split up because of Peter's jealousy only to discover that Lois has the same character flaw and the two decide to live with their mutually jealous nature.[21] Peter has a very short concentration span and somehow frequently ends up in bizarre situations, as Chris points out in "Long John Peter", after Peter's parrot dies "He will get over it pretty quickly and then move on to another wacky thing", to which Peter finds a pipe organ and forgets about his parrot.[22] [edit] Ancestry
Peter's mother Thelma went to Mexico to have Peter aborted when she was still pregnant.[23] However, she went into labor during the procedure, and smuggled him home[23] to Providence, Rhode, Island, where he spent his childhood.[24] Peter was raised by Francis and Thelma Griffin in the Roman Catholic faith.[25] However, in "Peter's Two Dads", he discovers that his biological father is an Irishman named Mickey McFinnigan.[26] Peter visits McFinnegan, who neglects him at first, yet eventually accepts him as his son.[26] Throughout the show, Peter has also mentioned a number of ancestors, as he noted in "Untitled Griffin Family History", "the Griffin family history is a rich tapestry".[27] Famous ancestors of Peter include Moses Griffin, who led the Jews out of Egypt; Willy "Black-eyed" Griffin, Peter's great-grandfather, a 1920s silent film star; and Peter Hitler, the flamboyant brother of Adolf Hitler.[27] Peter's ancestor Nate Griffin, an African American slave from Virginia, was owned by Lois' ancestors.[27] He fell in love with their daughter, and secretly raised a family with her.[27] Nate's family was eventually discovered and they escaped.[27] [edit] Reception[edit] CommendationsMacFarlane has been nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in the Outstanding Voice-Over Performance category in 2009 for voicing Peter.[28] "Shipoopi", performed by Peter in Patriot Games ranked number 1 in IGN's top 10 musical moments in Family Guy. Peter has also sang several other songs that have appeared on the list, such as I Need a Jew, Can't Touch Me and This House Is Freakin' Sweet.[29] In IGN's list of the top 10 fights on the show, he ranked number 10 for the fight versus a giant robot of handicapped men in No Meals On Wheels, number 9 for his fight in the episode Long John Peter, number 6 for the fight on the episode Lethal Weapons, number 4 for the episode Believe It Or Not Joe's Walking On Air and other three times for his constant fights with Ernie the Giant Chicken.[30] British newspaper The Times rated Peter and the other characters as the forty-fifth best American show in 2009,[31] they were also named the seventh of the top one-hundred animated series by IGN.[32] [edit] Critical receptionThe character Peter Griffin has received mixed responses from television critics; the character has mostly been criticized for being too similar to Homer Simpson, the central character of the FOX animated comedy series The Simpsons. The Star-Ledger critic Alan Sepinwall has called Peter a "shameless copy" of the character.[33]. Family Guy is also mocked in a two-part episode, "Cartoon Wars Part I" and "Cartoon Wars Part II", of South Park.[34] In addition, the show's penchant for irreverent humor led to a controversy over a sequence in which Peter Griffin dances, in musical revue fashion, around the bed of a man with end-stage AIDS, delivering the patient's diagnosis in song.[35][36] [edit] Cultural influence Peter has had several television appearances outside Family Guy, often in the form of direct parody. Peter has appeared in two episodes of The Simpsons, referencing how the two shows are frequently compared to each other; in The Italian Bob, a photo of Peter is in a book of criminals, which says he is wanted for plagiarismo,[37] in "Treehouse of Horror XIII", Peter is depicted as one of Homer Simpson's clones.[38] Among the other members of the Griffin family, Peter appeared in the South Park episode Cartoon Wars.[39] NFL News reporter Michael Fabiano felt it was a bad decision to have an obese character advertise for a chain of restaurants that based their advertisement campaigns on health.[40] Peter, and most of the central characters on Family Guy, also appeared in the pilot episode of the show's spin-off The Cleveland Show.[41] The episode "Patriots Games" features a two-and-a-half-minute rendition of the song "Shipoopi" from the 1957 musical The Music Man, conducted by Peter and performed by the Patriots and people in the stadium.[42] Peter and the other Family Guy characters have been an influence to the idom as in an episode the curse word clemen was introduced, many viewers looked up the word on the Internet to try to find a definition. MacFarlane stated in the episode's DVD commentary that if someone invents an obscene definition for the word, the show will have to stop using it (it has not been used since this episode).[43] In 2008, the character appeared in advertisements for Subway Restaurants, promoting the restaurant's massive feast sandwich.[44][45] Chief marketing officer Tony Pace commented "Peter's a good representation of the people who are interested in the Feast, and Family Guy is a show "that appeals to that target audience."[46] The Boston Globe critic Brian Steinberg praised the restaurant's use of the character for the commercials.[44] [edit] MerchandisePeter is also featured on the Family Guy: Live in Vegas CD,[47] and plays a significant part in Family Guy Video Game!, the first Family Guy video game, which was released by 2K Games in 2006.[48] MacFarlane recorded exclusive material of Peter's voice and other Family Guy characters for a 2007 pinball machine of the show by Stern Pinball.[49] In 2004, the first series of Family Guy toy figurines was released by Mezco Toyz, each member of the Griffin family had their own toy, with the exception of Stewie, of whom two different figures were made.[50] Over the course of two years, four more series of toy figures have been released, with various forms of Peter.[51] Alongside the action figures, Peter has been included in various other Family Guy-related merchandise.[52] [edit] References
[edit] External links
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