Top 20 Family Guy Plot Holes You Never Noticed

Various Episodes

“Family Guy” isn’t exactly known for its continuity– and that even goes for the main characters. There are at least two different, canonized versions of how Brian joined the Griffin family. The first was established in the very beginning of the series, where it was explained that a grown up Brian had been begging on the side of the road when Peter took him in. However, in the episode “The Man with Two Brians”, Brian tries to win his family back over by showing them home movies of him as a puppy. If Peter really found him as an adult dog, how would those videos even exist? Add in the fact that Brian discovered he had a whole other family before the Griffins in “Who’s Brian Now”, and things become even more complicated.

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In “Hefty Shades of Grey”, Peter’s hair suddenly goes white after a ghost hunting mishap, and it’s established that it’s permanent. Due to his white hair, Peter is hired to be a “fake news” reporter at Quahog 5. At the end of the episode, Donald Trump asks Peter to work for his cabinet in Washington DC. However, by the beginning of the next episode, “Trump Guy”, Peter’s hair has somehow reverted back to its original brown shade. Despite the hair being a major reason he was hired, no one has anything to say about it. It may seem like a small, insignificant change, but when it was pretty much the catalyst for the episode, you’d think they’d commit to it for at least one scene.

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“Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story” has a lot of moving parts, so naturally, some things end up slipping through the cracks. Peter had a segment called “What Really Grinds My Gears” on the news, which propelled him into local fame. Meanwhile, Stewie attempts to reform himself after a near death experience by being nicer to others. While committing his good deeds, Stewie crashes into the Drunken Clam, and Peter is subsequently fired. At the end of the three part series, Stewie time travels directly before his accident, essentially resetting the timeline. However, Peter never got his job back on TV. If Stewie was successful in the reset, then Peter should still have his news segment. Even if this is supposed to be a film within the Family Guy universe, that doesn’t mean we can’t point out plot holes in that too!

“The Cleveland–Loretta Quagmire”

In the episode “The Cleveland-Loretta Quagmire,” Peter and Brian rush into Cleveland’s house when they hear what they think is an emergency. What they find instead is Cleveland’s then-wife Loretta having sex with a man they couldn’t identify. Brian said it was a “skinny white guy,” which should have been a dead giveaway it was the show’s notorious sex offender, Glenn Quagmire. What should have been even more of a giveaway was that the couch was right in front of Peter and Brian, so they should have been able to directly see who Loretta was having sex with? Couldn’t they tell by the chin?

“Death Is a Bitch”

When Death is laid up in the Griffin household, he isn’t able to harvest souls, so the rules of death temporarily don’t apply. In typical fashion, Peter sees this as an opportunity to be more reckless than ever. He bets Cleveland and Quagmire 1000 bucks that he can jump off a building and survive, and when he lands on the ground, he’s completely unharmed. But just because the rules of death don’t apply, that doesn’t mean bad things still can’t happen. So, Peter should have been horribly disfigured from his fall, even if he wasn’t able to die. Also, the fact that Peter was able to land before his loogie violates simple physics.

Various Episodes

A lot of the characters on “Family Guy” aren’t exactly what most would call or consider good people, but Herbert truly takes the cake. Not only does his whole character revolve around being a predator, this is even confirmed by several characters throughout the series. And yet, nobody does anything to keep him away from his targets. Stewie even lampshades this by directly stating that there’s someone questionable living nearby that nobody does anything about because he’s funny. We know that Peter and Lois aren’t exactly the most attentive parents, but you’d think they’d care enough to keep their son away from him. While Herbert may be a fan favorite to some people, it’s just odd that they have never tried to address his criminal tendencies in an episode.

“Peter-assment”

One thing about Stewie Griffin is that he practically oozes confidence. From effortlessly becoming the coolest guy in school to performing with Frank Sinatra Jr., it’s hard to imagine him being shy in any setting. Well, the show decided to go back on that by having him suddenly develop stage fright during his big scene as the plug in the Terry Schiavo musical. Normally, something like this would be up his alley– especially considering he’s performed live in several episodes. Seeing Stewie get so nervous and freeze up made little sense, and it seems it was only used as an excuse for Peter to start using the video camera. Sacrificing character elements for the sake of jumpstarting a story isn’t uncommon for this show, but this was too blatant of a change.

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In Carol’s first appearance in “Emission Impossible”, she gives birth to her son with the help of Peter, which inspires him and Lois to try for another baby. However, after this episode, Carol’s son is never seen or mentioned again. There’s a chance that he could be with his birth father, but it’s never confirmed. He isn’t even brought up when Carol starts dating Adam West. Even though she doesn’t appear too often, she is enough of a constant character for this to be a valid concern. Having a character give birth just to jump start that week’s story– only for that baby to immediately fall off the face of the Earth– takes “Family Guy’s” consistency issues to a whole new level.

“12 and a Half Angry Men”

In the real world, being on the jury for a criminal case– especially murder– comes with a long list of regulations, and for good reason. However, “Family Guy” isn’t exactly real life, and so they can get away with skirting some of these rules. But, having multiple family members of the defendant on the jury has to be breaking code of some kind. Peter, Brian, and Carter would all be too biased to be on the jury, seeing that they’re related to West through Carol. Having just Peter, or even he and Brian would be one thing– but including Lois’ dad Carter was pushing it. This was most likely due to the show not having enough recurring or familiar characters to fill a jury if they excluded him.

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In the episode “Welcome Back, Carter,” Lois’s mom, Barbara Pewterschmidt, tells the story of how she met her husband Carter. Though no specific time is set for when the flashback took place, it looks like the two met around the late 1930s. One major clue for this date was Carter introducing Babs to the song “Jeepers Creepers,” which came out in 1938. Since the episode took place in 2010, that would make Lois’s parents around 90 years old, which would have made them both 50 years old when Lois was born.

“Dog Gone”

After Brian accidentally hits a dog in “Dog Gone”, he tries to convince the town that dog’s lives are just as important as human lives. Unfortunately, no one agrees– not even his family. Stewie decides to take things into his own hands by committing arson and tricking his parents into thinking Brian was the victim. Brian sees everyone hugging and crying over his supposed death, and thanks Stewie for helping– although he briefly confronts him about burning down the store. This all seems fine– until you realize that Brian was upstairs while the firefighter was explaining the situation, meaning he didn’t actually hear about the fire. It’s a “blink and you’ll miss it” plot hole, but there’s no logical explanation for how Brian would have known what Stewie did for him.

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In a legendary cartoon crossover called “The Simpsons Guy,” the Griffins traveled to Springfield, and ended up meeting and staying with the Simpsons. This would have been an excellent set-up for the characters’ meeting– if the characters hadn’t already met the Griffins several times. Not only is “The Simpsons” referenced and parodied throughout the series, there have been moments where Homer has interacted with characters on “Family Guy”, such as when he served on the gang’s trial in “Cool Hand Peter”. You would think that at least one of the Griffins would have recognized them, particularly Peter. However, when they meet, they act as though they’ve never heard of the family or the show. It put a decent sized plot hole into what could have been a stellar collaboration.

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In animated shows, it’s common for characters to stay the same age for years at a time, or age at a very slow rate. Normally, it’s easy to suspend disbelief in those kinds of situations, but when one of the principal characters is pregnant for years, that can start to become a tad noticeable. Bonnie ended up being pregnant for around a decade before Susie was finally born, and her insanely long pregnancy is mostly mentioned as a throwaway joke. Susie isn’t the only Swanson child to be put on the backburner– Bonnie and Joe’s oldest son, Kevin, was gone for years before being brought back in a climactic way– only for him to be relegated to a character that’s mostly offscreen or with rare appearances.

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A product of working class upbringing, Peter has a thick New England accent. However, Lois has an even thicker accent, despite having grown up in a wealthy household. No one from her family shares her accent. Her mother has a stuffy upper-class accent, while her father, brother, and sister don’t have any discernible accents whatsoever. Lois wouldn’t have picked it up from any of her social circles, so it makes no sense that Lois has the accent that she does. Where could she have picked up a blue collar, New England accent?

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“Family Guy” has been all over the place as to who can understand Stewie when he talks. The show has been upfront in pointing out how inconsistent the rules are from time to time, with Brian and Stewie debating whether Loretta is the kind of character who could understand him in “Love, Blactually.” In earlier seasons, Chris couldn’t understand Stewie, though now they regularly interact. However, this gets most confusing with Peter and Lois, who don’t understand what Stewie is saying most of the time, even though Lois in particular is way smarter than Chris.

“Screwed the Pooch”

To show how good a family man Brian is in “Screwed the Pooch,” Peter had Brian answer questions about things only he knew about the Griffin family. This included the fact that Peter wasn’t Meg’s biological father, but rather a man named Stan Thompson. However, in “Not All Dogs Go to Heaven,” Brian tells Meg that life isn’t fair because she looks like Peter, thus implying that Peter is Meg’s biological father. While it’s possible that Brian was lying to psychologically abuse Meg, the simpler explanation is whoever wrote this scene screwed up.

“Herpe the Love Sore”

After watching a scene in “The Outlaw Josey Wales” where Clint Eastwood cuts his palm as part of a blood oath ritual, Stewie wants to replicate the ritual with Brian. However, the next day after Stewie and Brian cut their palms and share their blood, Stewie wakes up with a herpes outbreak. It’s eventually revealed that Brian tricked Stewie into taking the blood oath as a way to spread herpes to the infant through his blood. The problem is that herpes is not a disease that can be transmitted through blood, so Brian’s plan isn’t scientifically possible.

“The Former Life of Brian”

In “The Former Life of Brian,” Brian reunites with an old flame who tells him that she’s been raising a 13-year-old son that he fathered named Dylan. The thing is - Brian is 7 years old, so fathering a 13-year-old would be a mathematical impossibility. When Stewie asks how that’s possible, Brian explains that when you go by dog years, that would make Brian much older. Except that’s not how dog years work! Brian would still be 7 by human years, which would make Dylan older than he is. And let’s not get started on how a dog can father a human child.

“Underage Peter”

When Quahog Mayor Adam West raised the town’s drinking age to 50, Peter and his friends found themselves unable to purchase alcohol. The only way they were able to drink was by hanging around Brian, who was over the legal age because he was 56 in dog years. However, it was revealed in the episode “Fox-y Lady” that Quagmire was 61 years old, and that he was able to retain a youthful appearance by ingesting carrots in various ways. Quagmire would have been old enough to drink under the new law, so he could have bought himself and his friends all the booze they wanted.

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When Peter brought Jesus over for dinner at the Griffin household in “I Dream of Jesus,” Brian asked for proof that the man really was Jesus. To honor the request, Jesus performed some miracles, producing ice cream sundaes and enlarging Lois’ breasts. The latter miracle was so impressive, it caused Brian’s jaw to drop to the table. In the episode, “Not All Dogs Go to Heaven,” Brian said that he’s an atheist, not having any good reason to believe in God. Except you do, Brian. You had dinner with Jesus, and he performed miracles in front of you that proved he was the real deal. That’s not something you’d expect someone to forget.