Have you ever watched an episode of Family Guy and wondered how the writers got away with this weird material? The comedy is known for taking things a little over the edge, so it shouldn't be a shock when the storylines unveil something questionable and sometimes inappropriate. I've been watching Family Guy since its beginning in 1999, so I'm familiar with its comedy and subversive narratives. And I like the weirdness of it. At the end of the day, though, FG is just entertainment and not designed to be taken seriously.
But some of the episodes went a bit too weird, but nonetheless, they delivered the laughs, and depending on your objective, you can feel disgusted, or just go along with the adventure. Either way, FG has done its job to the audience, and that's to tell a story.
Here are five episodes that completely flew over the weirdness level.
5 Family Guy episodes that were the weirdest
"Da Boom" (Season 2)
If you were a teen or adult who experienced that awful Y2K Bug on December 31st, 1999, you probably feared that all computer systems in the world would crash and burn, leading to a technological apocalypse, but that didn't happen.
However, Peter Griffin is so sure that it will, and he takes the doomsday prep very seriously. It's not unusual for him to do odd stuff, so this is completely in character. After Peter saves his family following the event, he leads his family to food-the Twinkie factory in Nadict, as the sweet and cream-filled cakes can last through a disaster. I don't believe that's true, but for the sake of Peter's belief, let's go along with it.
The Griffin family settled in New Quahog, elect simple and ineligible townspeople as officials, and Stewie become a half-human, half-octopus specimen after falling into nuclear waste.
There are other perturbing examples throughout, but because of them and the mentioned, "Da Boom" is a classic and made light of a fear-mongering situation.
"A Very Special Family Guy Freakin' Christmas" (Season 3)
It's the first ever Christmas episode for Family Guy and the Griffins are getting ready for the holidays. In their own way of course. After Peter mistakenly donates the family gifts to charity, he and Brian try to get them back by robbing the family who received tham. Peter goes over an plan that makes no sense to Brian (or to anyone else) for the break-in, leading his dog to believe that his human is on something.
If that scene wasn't weird enough, try Lois and Peter going shopping at the mall on Christmas Eve to replace the gifts. Peter gets attacked by pet shop fish. All he wanted to do was watch his favorite Christmas special, Kiss Saves Santa.
But don't subject Peter to the weirdness, as Lois had a moment herself when she snapped and went a little rampant in Quahog, thanks to the stress and high expectancy of Christmas.
Been there with the stress, but not going rampant.
"Petarded" (Season 4)
Peter takes the MacArthur Genius Grant IQ test after winning a simplified version of Trivial Pursuit. The results determined that Peter is borderline cognitively challenged, and as such, he takes his diagnosis literally, much to the embarrassment of his family. What's more, Hulu has the unedited episode, which includes the track "Peter Is Slow" to the tune of "The Telephone Hour" from Bye Bye Birdie.
As I said, Family Guy's plots shouldn't be taken seriously, and the show is no stranger to plots that border on offensive and lighthearted. In Peter's disability, the joke is around him and how he responds to it in his world. It's visibly crude and can be viewed as discriminatory. I say this as I have a physical disability, and Peter's behavior can shed a bad representation of us.
"Mother Tucker" (season 5)
Peter's mother dates Tom Tucker following her divorce from Frances, and Peter takes on a child-like attachment to Tucker, and views him as a father figure. May we remind you that Peter is a grown man with kids in his early forties, so him embodying the characteristic is indeed strange, but comfortable to him.
What's even weirder though, is that Tucker treats and disciplines Peter like a child, as if he's actually going along with his shenanigans.
And we question why Lois ever married him, but it's probably that she's the only woman on the planet who puts up with him.
"Road To Germany" (Season 7)
To be clear, "Road To Germany" isn't a bad episode. In fact, I'd consider it a great episode, for it's telling of history in a humoral, but indirect matter. Mort Goldman accidently travels back in time to September 1st, 1939, the day when Germany invaded Poland, the Holocaust began, and World War II started. As one of German-Jewish heritage, it's pretty brave of the writers to take a risky leap and show the conflict of one of the world's darkest and unfathomable periods in a way that mustn't be offensive, but the story must be truthful as all three of this occurrences should never be stroked over lightly.
"Road To Germany" does carry a few weird points. Otherwise it wouldn't be Family Guy. For instance, the "Welcome to Berlin" sign has the Disneyland slogan, "The Happiest Place on Earth," which is a direct reference to the park itself as it had the sign since 1955, and to the indirect rumor that Disney despised the Jewish people and was actually a Sympathizer. However, the rumors were dissuaded by staff and family, but it was common during the 30s-50s to practice and witness prejudices, as it's easy to slip into the pattern. It doesn't reflect that Disney had the same feelings. In irony, though, Family Guy is now a Disney property since the conglomerate brought Fox Entertainment in 2019.
What other FG episodes would you consider weird?