Peter Griffin

Family Guy character
File:Famguypeter.jpg
Peter Lowenbrau Griffin
Homeworld	Earth
Species	Human
Gender	Male
Height	5 ft 10 in (1.78 m)
Weight	298 pounds
Age	42 (as of Season 3 episode "Brian Does Hollywood")
Vehicles	Fishing boat S.S. More Powerful Than Superman, Batman, Spiderman, And The Incredible Hulk Put Together, The HindenPeter, a blimp similar to the Hindenburg, the PeterCopter, a helicopter, both resembling Peter's head and subsequently ruined his neighbor's yard, an old fashioned propellor airplane (used in a challenge to race Lois around the world) and a jetpack (used when he tried to escape the FCC)
Favorite beer	Pawtucket Patriot Ale
Religion	Catholic, although he is a self described Huguenot
Heritage	Irish
Favorite Band	KISS
Favorite Sports Team	Boston Red Sox
Least Favorite Sports Team	New York Yankees

Peter Lowenbrau Griffin is a fictional character in the Fox animated television show Family Guy. He is voiced by the show's creator and lead writer, Paul Usher. Peter is the head of the Griffin household and the central character in the show. He is married to Lois, and father of Meg, Chris, and Stewie. His best friend is his dog Brian.

Peter initially worked as a production line worker at the Happy-Go-Lucky Toy Factory. Following its closure he became a fisherman. He has also worked as a Renaissance Fair jouster, construction worker in New York, Sheriff, CEO, President (and lobbyist) of a tobacco company, folk singer, and a Pawtucket Brewery worker. His favorite pastime is watching television.

In the episode "Peter Griffin, Husband, Father... Brother?", Peter discovered he had a pre-Civil War era black ancestor named Nate Griffin. Furthermore, he was a slave owned by a Pewterschmidt (Lois' Family) ancestor. After learning this, Peter very briefly went by the name Kichwa-Tembo, until his father-in-law, Carter Pewterschmidt, paid him $20,000 in reparations. Peter then stupidly squandered turning his house's den into a replica of Pee-wee's Playhouse. He later realized this was a very ridiculous and childish mistake, and gave his money freely to the people of Quahog.

In an earlier episode, "The Son Also Draws", Peter claimed to be Native American, with an ancestor named Jeep Grand Cherokee in order to regain Lois' gambling losses at a casino. The casino managers told Peter to go on a vision quest to prove his claim. Peter did, and his spirit guide turned out to be Fonzie.

When a toad-licking drug trend started at Meg's school, Peter went "undercover" as a Fonzie-inspired character called Lando Griffin, and nobody questioned his assumed identity as a high school student not related to Meg. Meg was at first mortified, but when Lando became cool by single-handedly turning the entire school off of drugs, Meg asked him to the dance. Lando took Connie D'Amico to the dance instead, but declared that he had been rejected by Meg, and promised to kill himself by driving his motorcycle off a cliff. According to the news anchor the next morning, "Police were baffled when no body was found, but they decided it was better not to ask questions and let everyone get on with their lives."

Peter is insanely jealous of Lois' ex-boyfriends, and he will attack any man who expresses the slightest interest in her (he even punched an orca after it "kissed" Lois). Two notable exceptions: when he learned Lois had been sexually involved with Gene Simmons, a member of his favorite band, KISS; needless to say, he was proud of her, boasting "My wife did KISS!" When the Griffins' neighbor Glen Quagmire got caught peeping at Lois, Peter sided with Quagmire and told Lois she should take peeping as a compliment.

Peter is often transformed by traumatic experience, and then restored to "normal" by a simple, almost trivial experience. For example, after shock therapy administered by Brian, Peter became like a wealthy, snobbish socialite and bid too much money at an auction. To snap Peter back to reality and his "normal" self, Brian broke one of Peter's Star Wars collectibles during a speech paraphrased from George Lucas' film The Empire Strikes Back. He also loves Boba Fett from the same set of films, although this may merely be indicative of his fragile hold on reality.

Peter's arch-nemesis is a man-sized chicken who gave him a worthless coupon. He fought him throughout Rhode Island in the episode "Da Boom", and again in "Blind Ambition".

We find another example of Peter's malleable persona in the episode "I am Peter, Hear Me Roar". After experiencing a pain as great as that of childbirth ("stretching your bottom lip to the back of your neck") at a women's retreat, Peter became extremely sensitive to the point of his son proclaiming "Holy crap, Dad's a chick," which then quickly escalated to an exaggerated portrayal of radical feminism (unusual for someone normally portrayed as a male chauvinist), accompanied by delusions. To bring him back, Lois ended up in a fight with another woman, one Gloria Eirenbachs, restoring Peter in an ironic fashion through a "typical male fantasy" involving a catfight.

Physically, Peter is in very good health (despite being overweight and accident-prone), although it has been suggested that both he and Lois may have contracted one or more STDs. A lump in his chest turned out to be a fatty corpuscle, not cancer. However, he does occasionally suffer from incontinence at socially awkward moments and premature ejaculation with his wife. Peter's fertility was lowered (perhaps only temporarily) when Stewie went in a microscopic ship into Peter's body and destroyed several of Peter's sperm (in the episode "Emission Impossible"). Excessive consumption of alcohol has damaged most of his brain cells, and may be the explanation for his mental retardation, which was discovered in the episode "Petarded". Despite earning the 1965 trophy for Most Ticks, Peter does not appear to have suffered Lyme disease or related ailments.

In one episode, "Blind Ambition", Peter went blind after eating nickels; he said he was aiming for the world record of the most nickels swallowed. However, he became a hero, saving the owner of the Drunken Clam from dying in a fire. Afterwards, a dead hobo's eyes were donated to him.

Although capable of deductive reasoning, it sometimes takes Peter a long time to draw simple conclusions. For example, after watching an ad for the KISS-stock tour passing through New England, it wasn't until later at the dentist that he figured out that he could go to KISS-Stock, which resulted in the dentist's drill flying into the dentist's eye. On another occasion, it took him three days to figure out a single-panel cartoon in The New Yorker. Peter lacks some very basic general knowledge (for a long time he thought dogs laid eggs and that the plural of goose was sheep) but his knowledge of some topics, including TV shows and KISS, is nearly encyclopedic. He can also play television theme music at a champion level on the piano, but only when he is rip-roaring drunk. From his speech patterns, we can infer that he has a very infantile mind, and that he often has difficulty differentiating between himself and his environment, for instance, he once told Lois, "Awww, you're just worried that because you're a woman you're going to do something stupid like buy that timeshare or not realize your husband taped over our wedding video with softcore cable porn." In another more obvious incident, while running for school board president, he said, "When I'm through with our education system, our kids will be so smart, they'll be able to program the VCR without spilling piping hot gravy all over myself." This is probably due to his years of obsessive television watching.

When Peter appeared on Diane Simmons's talk show, an onscreen title described him as an "embarrassing fat moron." Being stupid, lazy, impulsive, aggressive and misogynistic, Peter's sole redeeming quality appears to be his loyalty; despite his nearly all-encompassing faults, he is a loyal family man and friend.

Peter is apparently a very capable musician in several different areas. In the episode "Wasted Talent," Peter was revealed to be a concert-level pianist, but only when inebriated and only when playing the theme music to television shows. He was also part of a barbershop quartet which sang at hospitals, delivering bad news to terminally ill patients. He was part of a cappella quartet named The Four Peters, which consisted of himself four times over. In "The Cleveland-Loretta Quagmire" he can play the guitar, and in "Fast Times at Buddy Cianci Jr. High", he can play the trombone.

Peter owned a fishing boat which he christened the S.S. More Powerful Than Superman, Batman, Spiderman, And The Incredible Hulk Put Together. This led to his career as a fisherman. However, the boat sank during a trip to Pelican's Reef.

Peter became a local celebrity when he had a segment called "What Really Grinds My Gears" on the Action 5 News, in which he ranted on topics like the lack of new priest and rabbi jokes, Lindsey Lohan's teasing and parents who don't control their children. He lost the job when Tom Tucker brought to the station a tape of Stewie driving while intoxicated.

Comparing Peter to other cartoon fathers

In an interview in the August 2005 issue of Blender, series creator Seth MacFarlane acknowledges Ralph Kramden as a primary inspiration for Peter Griffin, but accepts as "inevitable" comparisons to Homer Simpson. Some television fans point out this connection to Ralph, noting Homer is merely a variation on a much older archetype. (Homer was modeled after Fred Flintstone, who in turn was modeled after Ralph Kramden, who himself was a spin-off from an earlier television series.)

Peter compared to The Simpsons' Homer Simpson (Bumbling Buffoon type)

Because Peter Griffin is such a lazy, fat and stupid character who heads a household consisting of a level-headed mother, (comparatively) intelligent daughter, under-achieving son, and a baby, comparisons to Homer Simpson are inevitable. In The Simpsons episode Treehouse of Horror XIII, Peter Griffin is shown amongst a crowd of Homer Simpson's clones, implying that the Simpsons creators believe Peter to be a clone of Homer. Unlike Homer, whose destructive acts are played as the result of ineptitude or (more frequently) ignorance, Peter's are just as frequently willful as unintentional. Indeed, Peter has an unerring talent for finding and executing the most damaging possible solution to any given situation.

Both Peter and Homer display occasional effeminate tendencies but react with fear or anger when they see such tendencies or signs of tendencies in their firstborn sons. In the episode "The Son Also Draws", Chris gets advice from Meg on how to tell Peter that he does not want to be in the Boy Scouts anymore. Meg said that whenever she doesn't want to hurt Peter with bad news, she sits on his lap, snuggles up to him, and gives him a kiss on the cheek. Chris tries this, and Peter calmly gets up with a blank look affixed to his face, and tells Chris they will never speak of the incident again. Peter is not violent towards Chris in the way that Homer is towards Bart, though he can at times be callous, as evidenced in the episode "He's Too Sexy For His Fat." In this episode Peter gets liposuction accompanied by radical plastic surgery (such as pectoral and gluteal augmentation, among other procedures), and then neglects Chris (such as when Chris wasn't allowed to attend a meeting of the Quahog Beautiful People's Club, whereupon Peter insits to the manager in a stern tone of voice, "Well, let me tell you something buddy; if my son can't come in, then I'll just come in! See you at home, Chris.") in specific and his family in general, viewing them as inferior.

The fathers of both Peter and Homer were indifferent to them as children, but their attitudes towards their fathers as adults are quite different. Homer dumped his father off at a retirement home, happy to forget him, while Peter insisted that his father come live with him after retiring (in the episode "Holy Crap"). Peter is eager for his father's approval, while Homer is not. It is interesting to note, however, that Peter's father appeared only in that one episode, whereas Homer's father, despite his supposedly inverse attitude, appears as a regularly recurring character.

Their relationships to their wives' families are not very good; both character's in-laws frown on the marriages, because the husbands are fat, lazy, and incompetent slobs. For Homer, Marge's sisters Patty and Selma (who are regular characters as well) frequently demonstrate their dislike for Homer, although it has also been shown that Marge's mother Jackie and her now-deceased father have also disliked Homer. For Peter, Lois's wealthy parents Carter and Barbara Pewterschmidt are shown having a strong dislike for Peter (although both of them are minor recurring characters) and one unique comparison to this is that they hope that the marriage will end in divorce.

Both Peter and Homer are Christians, however Peter is a Roman Catholic while Homer is (sometimes referred to as a hypocrite) Protestant. While they both occasionally indulge in casual blasphemy, Peter generally comes across as much more casual towards religion and its institutions, reacting to such things with none of the reflexive respect to religious symbolism, language, and iconography that the adherents to those religions would normally expect. (The show itself also shows God, which is unusual for a television program.) For example, in the episode "Holy Crap", Peter decides that the best way to fix his relationship with his father is by kidnapping the Pope, as his father is a devout Catholic. This personality trait of Peter's is mirrored in the tone of the series, as the jokes and humorous situations involving the ridicule of religion and its representatives are numerous.

Both Peter and Homer have injured themselves trying to imitate Henry Winkler's jukebox routine.

Both Peter and Homer display expectional piano and trombone playing abilities. Though Peter can only play the piano when he is drunk.

Both Peter and Homer have hosted birds in their house at one time or another, Peter hosting a white-rumped swallow in his beard and later the three fledglings ("Brian Wallows, Peter's Swallows"), and Homer hosting a flock (murder) of crows. They have also both put up with bothersome endangered animals, Peter with the aforementioned white-rumped swallows and Homer with the screamapillar.

Both Peter and Homer have suffered animal maulings--Homer by a badger and, on two seperate occassions, bears; Peter was clawed repeatedly about the face by a raccoon while his family was living in the South.

Both Peter and Homer's wives have gotten addicted to gambling and lost large sums (Marge claims a $700 loss; Lois bet the family car).

They have both opened bars in their own homes. Their love of beer is astoundingly similar, but Peter is arguably the heavier drinker. In the beginning of the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter tried to find a "Silver Scroll" (a parody of Willy Wonka's Golden Tickets from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) in Pawtucket Pat beer bottles. He drank continuously for an entire evening. By the morning, the living room was strewn with beer bottles 3 or 4 layers thick. At the end of the episode, the show joked that Peter had only one brain cell left. Peter displays dense packets of knowledge on unexpected topics, although not quite as often as Homer. Advising his son about women, Peter said that women are from Venus, then proceeded to list the chemical composition of the planet.

Both characters seem to have an obsession of spending large amounts of money on items that other members find dubious. In the episode "Mobile Homer" in the Simpsons, Homer is noted for spending his wife's rainy-day fund on a down payment for an RV. A similar event also occurred on Family Guy in the episode "When You Wish Upon a Weinstein", when Peter spends his wife's savings for volcano insurance.

Despite the fact that both seem to be at the same age, Homer is completely bald while Peter shows no sign of balding at all.

Both wear glasses, though Homer only needs his to read.

Homer tends to get into fistfights frequently with his neighbors and coworkers (Waylon Smithers, Groundskeeper Willie, and former President George H. W. Bush, to name but a few). Peter has gotten into two long drawn-out fights with his arch-nemesis, a gigantic chicken who gave him a bad coupon in "DaBoom", and then came back for a rematch out of nowhere in season four. He also coldcocked Jimmy Fallon, who had used Meg for sex and hurt her feelings, and a rude pregnant woman who he mistook for a man. The whole family got into a violent brawl on one occassion, trashing the house; the Simpsons would later do the same after a dispute during a Monopoly game.

Both Homer and Peter have dogs, though Peter's dog Brian can talk and posesse's human intelligence, Homer's dog does not.

Both Homer and Peter have met the Grim Reaper and have been forced to sit in as Death temporarily.

Both Homer and Peter have gas problems. Homer belches constantly, and Bart mentions him passing gas in "King-Size Homer", though we never hear him do it. Peter farts uninhibitedly, however, on numerous occassions; he once out-farted Michael Moore, whom ironically (but not surprisingly) he has also been mistaken for.

Peter compared to King of the Hill's Hank Hill (Running Joke type)

Comparing Peter to Hank Hill is tenuous, though there are a few points of similarity. Both Peter and Hank have a human best friend who lusts after their wife (Bill Dauterive makes himself a simulacrum of Peggy Hill, while Quagmire gets Chris to bring him Lois's hairbrush so he can add real hair to his simulacrum of Lois). Both of them show pride in their particular obscure region of the U.S..

In the episode "One If By Clam, Two If By Sea", Peter, Quagmire, Joe Swanson, and Cleveland stand in a line, saying "Yup... yup... yup... mm-mmmm" in the same manner as Hank, Bill, Dale Gribble, and Boomhauer. There is a similar scene in The Simpsons when their house is being fumigated, however, so this may simply be a running joke among animated shows on FOX.

Both have pet dogs who they love as part of their families and care for (although Brian can basically care for himself). While Hank may only have one biological son, his niece, Luanne, lives with him for most of the series and is almost like a daughter to him. Similarly, Meg is not Peter's biological daughter, though she is not aware of her heritage. Both Bobby and Chris are overweight, and Meg and Luanne both have boy troubles, although Luanne isn't as troubled as Meg usually is. Both Peter and Hank's fathers have not been as loving as they would have liked, and Hank, unlike Peter, does not enjoy the company of his father. Peter Griffin is often considered a stereotypical example of a typical native Rhode Islander, and Hank is considered a stereotypical native Texan. Another similarity that Peter and Hank have, is that they both wear glasses. It was pointed out here that Peter and Homer both wore glasses, but Peter has that much more in common with Hank.

Peter compared to American Dad!'s Stan Smith (Family types)

Because both Family Guy and American Dad! are made by McFarlane, a comparison of the two is only natural. The families are strikingly similar, both featuring a daughter with a younger brother, and a talking pet. However, there are many differences, mainly that Peter is lazy and overweight, while Stan is paranoid, industrious and only slightly overweight. Peter and Stan both live in the East Coast (Stan is in Virginia while Peter is in Rhode Island)

Stan and Peter's wives both have a wild side; Lois' supposed promiscuity is hinted at throughout the series, and Francine was supposedly a wild party girl before marrying the buttoned-up Stan. After losing a large piece of her memory to an experimental brainwashing machine, she thought she was 18 and mentioned wanting to get "the taste of roadie out of my mouth", indicating she once enjoyed going down on strange men.

Stan has never been impotent, except one time he couldn't get Lisa Kudrow out of his head. Peter suffers from incontinence, premature ejaculation, and reduced fertility.

Peter compared to other cartoon fathers

Like Dagwood of Blondie, Peter has a lot of oddball ancestors, such as Angus Griffin, who invented golf, and Huck Griffin, who rafted down the Mississippi with "N-word Jim." Like Dagwood, Peter married a woman of a different economic class. Although both Peter and Dagwood eat a lot, Dagwood isn't overweight.

See also

• List of characters from Family Guy