Top 20 Worst Things the Griffin Family Has Ever Done

Top 20 Worst Things the Griffin Family Has Ever Done

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the most disturbing, reprehensible, and unforgivable things the Griffins have done.

#20: Peter & Lois Cheat on Each Other Constantly

Various
Although they’ve been married for over twenty years, it hasn’t always been smooth sailing. Both Lois and Peter fool around with other people all the time, and sometimes, they don’t even try to hide it. Peter hooked up with a phone sex worker, not realizing it was actually Lois. And while on a couples retreat, he obnoxiously hit on a much younger woman in front of everyone. Of course, Lois is no better. When she found out Joe was attracted to her, she put on a show for him right in the front yard. She even made out with Meg’s boyfriend. In season five, both Peter and Lois slept with Bill Clinton. It’s a miracle their marriage has lasted this long.

#19: Meg Got Bonnie Arrested

"The Hand That Rocks the Wheelchair"
We can’t be too hard on Meg – considering what she has to put up with, no wonder she clings to any bit of appreciation she gets. But in this episode, she takes things too far. When Bonnie goes out of town, Meg checks in on her family for her, and quickly develops a crush on Joe. She appoints herself as a surrogate wife and mother to baby Susie, much to Joe’s dismay. When it’s time for Bonnie to come home, Meg drives all the way to Maine to plant a gun in her suitcase. Obviously, airport security isn’t amused. However, unlike most of the Griffins, Meg actually learns a lesson from her mistakes and apologizes to the Swansons.

#18: The Family Rejected Brian for Being an Atheist

"Not All Dogs Go to Heaven"
After Meg becomes a born-again Christian, the entire family is shocked to learn that Brian is an atheist. Though to be fair, Peter and Chris don’t really understand what’s going on. When her attempts to convert him to Christianity fail, Meg outs Brian to the whole town, and he becomes a pariah. He eventually gets so desperate, he has to lie about accepting Jesus just to get a drink. In the end, Brian talks Meg out of her faith, which is not exactly doing her a favor. With the amount of intolerance going around the Griffin family, there are no winners in this episode.

#17: Peter Tried to Marry Chris for His Money

"Fresh Heir"
After Carter makes Chris the sole heir to the Pewterschmidt fortune, Peter suddenly takes an unhealthy interest in the boy. When his attempts to impress Chris fail, Peter is struck by a horrifying idea. He decides to marry his own son just to get his hands on Chris’s inheritance. He even sneakily gets Lois to sign divorce papers. The saddest part is that Chris is so desperate to spend time with his father that he goes along with it. It’s part of a long-running pattern of Peter proving that he’s pretty much the worst father in Rhode Island.

#16: Peter Broke Lois out of Prison

"Breaking Out Is Hard to Do"
Lois usually comes across as the Griffins’ voice of reason. But occasionally, we see that she has a dark side too. After she gets a rush from stealing a grocery store ham, she turns into a full-blown kleptomaniac and winds up in prison. The family quickly falls apart without her, so Peter decides to bust her out. They assume new identities and hide out in Asiantown, where Stewie even gets a job in a sweatshop. While it’s sort of admirable that Peter wants to be with Lois at any cost, his willingness to flaunt federal laws and upend his kids’ lives is nothing to brag about.

#15: Meg Kidnapped Brian

"Barely Legal"
Once again, Meg gets carried away after someone shows her just a little bit of kindness. Though to be fair, Brian is also partially at fault here. Meg is devastated that she doesn’t have a date for prom, so Brian volunteers to go with her. Unsurprisingly, he gets drunk, and the two end up making out. Meg then develops a “Fatal Attraction”-style obsession with the dog, texting him constantly and even baking him a pie with her hair in it. The situation escalates until Meg finally kidnaps Brian. The family comes to the rescue in time, and Meg, who is really a sweet girl at heart, apologizes yet again.

#14: Lois Forced Herself on Peter

"Prick Up Your Ears"
This episode is a great argument for the importance of good sex ed. James Woods High School brings in a religious extremist to convince the kids never to have sex. After Meg shares some of this terrible misinformation about sex with Peter, he decides to become abstinent. Naturally, this is pretty frustrating for Lois. But that doesn’t excuse her reaction. She eventually decides to solve the problem by forcing Peter to submit to her desires. I don’t think we need to explain why this was so wrong, even if Peter wasn’t upset about it after the fact.

#13: Peter Exploited an Indigenous South American Tribe

"Jungle Love"
After Chris joins the Peace Corps to escape being bullied at school, he’s taken in by a group of Native South Americans and accidentally marries the chief’s daughter. When the rest of the Griffin family finds out, they hop on a plane to retrieve their oldest son. However, Peter soon discovers that with his American currency, he’s the richest man in the village. He uses this to his advantage, paying the locals to wait on him hand and foot and do demeaning tasks. Of course, Lois points out to Chris that he, too, is exploiting this culture to escape his own troubles. Eventually, the Griffins are chased out of the village and forced to return to Quahog.

#12: Brian Invested in Dog Protein Shakes

"The Woof of Wall Street"
If you haven’t seen this episode, you might be wondering, what’s wrong with putting your money into protein shakes? The problem is, these aren’t shakes for dogs – they’re shakes made of dog meat. Even worse, Brian decides to go ahead with his investment even after he learns about the shakes’ main ingredient. He only changes his mind when he nearly gets turned into one of his own products. Luckily, Stewie comes to the rescue in an extremely close call. It’s an especially horrifying deed from a dog who’s not exactly known for selfless behavior.

#11: Brian Let a Woman and Her Child Drown

"American Gigg-olo"
In this season 15 episode, we learn that Brian has an untreated hernia due to performing what he claims was a good deed. In a flashback, we see an attractive woman drive off a bridge, and Brian rushes to her rescue. However, when he discovers that she has a baby in the back seat, he lets go of the car and allows it to slide into the water. We already knew that Brian can be pretty gross when it comes to women, but this was a whole new level of slimy behavior.

#10: Meg’s Abuse

Various
If you’ve watched even one episode of “Family Guy,” you know that Meg is the family’s punching bag – sometimes literally. The Griffins constantly bully her, mock her appearance and interests, or just ignore her completely. It gets so bad that at one point, Lois casually suggests that Meg harm herself. In a season 10 episode, Meg finally stands up for herself, but even that backfires. After she points out how horrible her family has been to her, they all turn on each other. Meg realizes that allowing them to treat her like crap is the only thing holding the family together, and she recants her accusations. It’s a pretty problematic outcome just when we thought things were about to turn around for Meg.

#9: The Family Covered Up Stewie’s Head Injury

"Brian Griffin's House of Payne"
When Meg and Chris accidentally knock Stewie down the stairs, he gets a pretty serious head wound. Instead of taking him to the emergency room, they hide the injury and cart him around, “Weekend at Bernie’s” style. After Peter finds out, he becomes their accomplice. Eventually, the trio resorts to tossing Stewie’s limp body behind Lois’s car, hoping to trick her into believing she’s responsible for his condition. Then we find out that Lois’s first instinct is also to hide the injury instead of taking Stewie to the doctor. It’s amazing all three of these kids have survived as long as they have.

#8: Stewie Tortured & Murdered Brian’s Siblings

“Hannah Banana”
Stewie has been a ruthless little guy since before he was even born, but this was especially depraved, even for him. After Brian refuses to get him tickets to see Hannah Montana, Stewie tracks down Brian’s eight siblings and straps them into horrific torture devices. He murders one just to make a point, forcing Brian to give in and agree to help him get the tickets. It’s extremely disturbing to realize that Stewie is willing to go to these lengths just to see Miley Cyrus on stage. The kid was basically born to be a supervillain.

#7: Stewie Let His Psychologist Die

"Send in Stewie, Please"
Speaking of Stewie being ruthless, you’d think he’d benefit from some professional counseling. Unfortunately, this therapist is a little too insightful for Stewie’s taste. He coaxes the evil toddler into dropping his facade and even his British accent. Later in the session, when Dr. Pritchfield suddenly has a heart attack, Stewie sees his opportunity. Realizing that the therapist is the only one who could expose Stewie’s true self, Stewie refuses to hand him the heart medication that sits only a few feet away. The doctor dies in front of him, and Stewie shows no remorse.

#6: The Griffins Flooded Quahog with Illicit Substances

"Farmer Guy"
After their house is robbed, the Griffins buy a farm and flee to the countryside to escape the rising tide of crime in Quahog. But knowing nothing about farming, they immediately start losing money. While Brian goes to college in hopes of learning how to make the farm profitable, the rest of the family discovers a meth lab in the basement. Realizing they can use it to fix their finances, they start cooking meth and selling it to people in Quahog. This results in the Griffins single handedly starting an epidemic of substance use in their own hometown.

#5: Lois Encouraged Quagmire to Commit Assault

"And the Wiener Is..."
Meg doesn’t just deal with bullying at home – the popular kids at school also make her life miserable at every opportunity. After she tries to befriend them, they repay her by inviting her to a party and tricking her into kissing a pig. In retaliation, Lois sends Quagmire to the party. Although the show never explicitly says what Quagmire is going to do, fans know exactly where this is going. After all, Quagmire is really only known for one thing, and “Family Guy” has never shied away from controversial gags like this one.

#4: Peter Caused Massive Property Damage During His Giant Chicken Fights

Various
To be fair, Peter’s destructive tendencies aren’t limited to his fights with Ernie the Giant Chicken. Just ask his neighbors. But he causes the worst property damage when he and Ernie are going at each other. Together, they’ve derailed a subway train, destroyed the International Space Station, crashed a plane, drove a cruise ship through half the city, and leveled too many buildings to count. We can’t even begin to guess how many people have become collateral damage during these outrageous brawls. And to think it all started over an expired coupon.

#3: The Family Resorted to Cannibalism

"Into Fat Air"
It takes a lot of preparation to summit Mount Everest. So when the Griffins decide to do it just to show up the Fishman family, we know something bad is bound to happen. Surprisingly, they actually make it to the peak, but on the way down, they run into a terrible storm. When they find the frozen body of the Fishmans’ teenage son, they decide to eat him to survive. Perhaps even worse, the Griffins let the boy’s parents head back into the storm looking for him, rather than telling them that he’s dead. They sort of redeem themselves by going back to rescue Ross and Pam. But the casualness with which Peter treats their act of cannibalism is truly disturbing.

#2: Peter & Lois Caused a Measles Outbreak

“Hot Shots”
“Family Guy” has never been afraid to take a stand on contentious issues, and that includes the anti-vaccine movement. After Lois and Peter read a lot of anti-vax propaganda online, they decide not to vaccinate Stewie. Not only that, they produce commercials and hold a rally to try to convince others to do the same. This results in a measles outbreak killing 150 people and Quahog getting put under quarantine. Peter even blows up a hospital in the process. Of course, we already knew that the Griffins were irresponsible about getting their kids vaccinated, since Meg came down with the mumps back in season 7.

#1: So Many Murders

Various
Would you believe season 15 wasn’t the first time Peter blew up a hospital? The Griffin family’s body count is off the charts. Peter is probably the worst offender, but no one is innocent here. Brian shoots a random waiter on a riverboat cruise in season 10. In season 16, Lois admits to killing a pedestrian years earlier. And there’s no telling how many people Stewie has murdered, especially back in the early seasons when he was still into world domination. Even Chris and Meg occasionally get in on the deadly action. Suffice to say, the Griffin family has a lot of blood on their hands.

Which of the Griffins’ dirty deeds shocked you the most? Let us know in the comments.