Brian Griffin

Template:TV-in-universe Brian Griffin is a fictional character from the animated television series Family Guy, and is voiced by show creator, Seth MacFarlane. MacFarlane uses his normal speaking voice for Brian, as opposed to the vocal modifications he makes when voicing other characters in the show such as Peter and Stewie. Brian is portrayed to be a Mongrel.

Origins

In the Larry shorts, Seth MacFarlane provided the same voice as Brian for a dog named Steve. Steve had the same collar and the same personality.

Overview

Brian is a talking dog who has lived with the Griffin family since Peter picked him up as a stray. While he exhibits some typical dog behaviors like eating garbage, licking himself, playing fetch, leaving dead birds on the porch, intensely fearing the vacuum cleaner and the dog whistle, toilet flushing, and sleeping at the foot of Peter Griffin's bed, barking uncontrollably at other dogs, and trouble standing up in the car, he also possesses various anthropomorphic qualities, such as the ability to speak intelligently, drive a car, and walk bipedally. He also has a particularly sharp wit. Peter is his best friend, despite Brian's vastly superior intelligence. Seth MacFarlane has once described Brian as "a dog who has a wit as dry as the martinis he drinks."

Brian has a cultured background; he loves opera and jazz, and loves to sing. He is depicted speaking fluent French, Tagalog, and decent Spanish. He is also a member of Mensa, and is an avid writer (in one episode invited to write for The New Yorker).

Brian is apparently working on a novel, but the fact that he just can't seem to finish it has become a running gag. It was first mentioned by Stewie in the episode "Brian the Bachelor" (the subject was brought up twice) and again in "Brian Goes Back to College", wherein Stewie mockingly asks him how he is coming along with the novel, his voice growing higher and higher in pitch until it reaches a comic level, only returning to normal after the subject is dropped (though in the latter episode, Stewie goes right into his high voice, with Brian quickly knocking him out for revenge). In Saving Private Brian, Stewie attempts to keep Brian from leaving the army by saying "You dropped out of college and you still haven't finished that novel," pointing out that he believes Brian rarely completes what he sets out to do. In the episode "Movin' Out (Brian's Song)", he tells Lois he has finally come up with a plot for the novel and has entitled it Faster Than the Speed of Love. Lois merely cracks up at how stupid the title sounds, and finds it even more hilarious after realizing his plot is coincidentally a mix of the entire Iron Eagle series.

He is depicted smoking in early episodes but did not smoke during the 2006-2007 season. In the commentary for the episode "Road to Rhode Island" on The Freakin' Sweet Collection, "Brian" (MacFarlane in character) states he has quit smoking and has gained weight as a result.

Brian is prone to alcoholism (which isn't helped by the fact that he seems to have a very low tolerance for alcohol), and in one episode gets treatment for cocaine addiction after becoming a detection dog. He has also referred to buying, being in possession of, or smoking marijuana in the following episodes:

• "A Very Special Family Guy Freakin' Christmas" - After Peter tells Brian his idiotic plan to get the family's presents back, Brian asks, "Can I buy some pot from you?" in reference to a line from Animal House.
• "Jungle Love" - When Brian tells Chris about his time in the Peace Corps, he says that the country he went to had "great dope" which was growing wild, and that he and his friends had once gotten so high that they ate all the food that was meant for the natives.
• "Deep Throats" - Lois states Brian has some "inspiration" in a cigar box under his bed.
• "Whistle While Your Wife Works" - When Stewie asks how he can watch MTV Brian responds by saying "Pot helps."
• "Barely Legal" - When Lois is telling Brian how much it means to Meg that he is taking her to the school dance, Brian asks "You got any weed?" to which Lois answers, "I put it in your coat pocket."
• "No Chris Left Behind" - When Brian learns that Meg has connections to pot at her school, he makes up an excuse to Lois so that he and Meg can buy pot and make the night go by faster (they were watching Swan Lake).

While not seen holding a regular job in Quahog, Brian is depicted owning a car, paying bills, and maintaining a credit card. In various episodes he has been a substitute teacher at Chris' school, a contributor for the The New Yorker, a taxi driver and a drug-sniffing dog for the Quahog police department. He also worked selling cars while the Griffin family thought that Peter had died in the episode "Perfect Castaways". Brian held several jobs while living in Los Angeles including waiter, car wash attendant, screenwriter and pornographic film director.

In contrast to the other characters on the show, Brian actually can remember things from show to show. In the "The Fat Guy Strangler" episode, Brian remembers Peter encouraging him to jump into the closed window of the General Lee in "To Love and Die in Dixie". Brian also recalls Stewie beating him up mercilessly in "Patriot Games" and lets him swallow Peter's tobacco spittle in retaliation in the "Airport '07" episode.

As the most sensible member of the Griffin family, Brian often serves as the voice of reason or as a mediator during family arguments. He is also usually the first (and often only) one to realize that there is impending danger.

Background

In the Family Guy universe, dogs are either talking, anthropomorphic creatures like Brian and his cousin Jasper, or regular animals such as his mother, Biscuit, and his one time lover, Seabreeze. Both classes are subject to the same rules, such as not being allowed inside certain shops or to wander the streets without an owner. Brian's "anthropomorphism" is rarely remarked upon. Exceptions include when Peter's boss Mr. Weed refers to him as a "funny talking dog". In the "Road to Rhode Island" episode he asks the owner of his mother, Biscuit, if he remembers him, the farmer asks which one he was, and Brian says "I was the one who could talk", to which the farmer remembers him immediately. Also in the episode "Brian in Love" when Brian tries to explain his relationship troubles to Peter, who responds, "Oh my God! You can talk!" (this was not the first time Peter had spoken with Brian). Another example of Brian's "anthropomorphism" is his attraction to human women; Brian has dated several since the show began (such as Jillian), and is deeply in love with Peter's wife, Lois.

Brian was born on a farm in Austin, Texas, in a litter of five puppies, the other four being apparently non-anthropomorphic. The show has yet to explore his youth and adolescence in detail. He was homeless, panhandling, and cleaning car windows on the side of a highway exit when Peter found him. Having no money to give Brian, Peter brought Brian home to the Griffin family. Brian also intermittently attended Brown University, though he remains one class short of graduating (in the season 4 episode "Brian Goes Back to College", Brian re-enrolls in an attempt to earn his degree, but fails). Brian has also served in the Peace Corps. When Brian returned to Austin to find his mother, he found that she had died and her owners were using her stuffed body as a table. Brian absconded with her body to give his mother a proper burial. In another episode, when Brian teaches Chris's English class, it is mentioned that his father's name was Coco and was run over by a milk truck.

Prior to Brian, the Griffins had another talking dog named Todd, who is thought to have been put down at the age of 15 due to illness.

Despite his anthropomorphic intelligence, Brian shares certain traits and shortcomings with real dogs. For example, he cleans himself with his tongue and scratches at fleas with his hind leg. On the commentary of "Road to Rhode Island", he confirmed that he sees in black and white (which is odd, considering he has solved a Rubik's cube in the episode "Saving Private Brian", and although since it was him and Stewie giving commentary, it's not known if this can be considered canon). He has a fear of the toilet flushing (which is also odd, considering, he actually flushed the toilet, in the episode "Stewie Loves Lois"), and of the vacuum (which is again odd, considering that he was actually vacuuming in the episode "Fore Father"). He also couldn't control his animal urges for the prized Pewterschmidt dog, Sea Breeze, resulting in a paternity dispute, although he was ultimately proven not to be the father of Sea Breeze's pups (the father was revealed to be Ted Turner). Another example occurs in the episode "Blue Harvest", where he (playing the role of Chewbacca) is coaxed into the trash compactor by Peter throwing in a dried pig's ear which Brian uncontrollably chases in a fit of barking.

He is also shown to have a liking for dog food at times. In "Chitty Chitty Death Bang", he chases a hallucination of the chuck wagon from the commercials for Purina Chuck Wagon, and in "Barely Legal", he comes running with joy when Peter's daughter Meg shakes a bag of Dog Chow. He also, like other dogs, defecates outside on a daily basis, which results in him being made to wear diapers in the episode "Bill and Peter's Bogus Journey". In "Brian in Love", he urinates inside the house and gets in no trouble by blaming Stewie for it, but the ruse is revealed when he urinates inside a supermarket.

Brian seems somewhat ashamed of his animal urges and insecure about his canine status in general. He once refused to do degrading pet tricks for Peter during a dog show, despite it being necessary to win the money needed to buy the family a new air conditioner. He also chastised Lady and the Tramp for acting in typical dog-like behavior, saying, "That's just what they want you to do". He suffers mistreatment as a dog, with references to movies like The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and School Ties, movies about characters who suffer from racial segregation and anti-Semitism. He is humiliated when the Griffins catch him with canine pornography.

Brian is notably intelligent, enjoying renowned works of art such as the opera Carmen and the works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. He has also heavily invested in the stock market, and collects first editions of literary classics. In "Meet the Quagmires", he is shown to be able to play the guitar and Keytar, although this may have just been another play on the scene in Back to the Future. His intellectual bent makes it very difficult for him to form romantic relationships with most human women, which may be one reason for his substance abuse as a coping mechanism.

In Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story, which is set 30 years in the future, it is revealed that Brian died (or rather, will die) after "getting into the garbage and eating some chocolate".

Relationships

Romances

In addition to behaving like a human, Brian sometimes pursues relationships with humans. Usually other characters do not comment on the zoophilic aspects of such a sexual relationship; exceptions include "The Perfect Castaway", where Peter asks Lois why she wants to stay with Brian, then remarks, "That, and uh, hi? He's a dog." MacFarlane mentions in the commentary for "Castaway" that making episodes about Brian being in love is "always a line that we have to walk," concerning the mainstream media's anxiety regarding bestiality.

"Whistle While Your Wife Works" was the first time where it was heavily implied that Brian did have sex with a human woman (albeit a very dim-witted one) named Jillian (voiced by Drew Barrymore). Stewie pressed Brian the most for these details, noticing that his collar was inside out after being away for a whole night. After Stewie meets Jillian, he hassles Brian for the rest of the episode about her lack of intelligence, once asking if her parents were "brother and sister". Brian finally decides to attempt to break up with Jillian, but instead, he ends up leaving Stewie in the car for three hours, apparently to have sex with her. In the end, Brian's relationship with Jillian appears to be based solely on sex and has virtually no meaningful qualities. They ended their relationship on the episode "Movin' Out (Brian's Song)".

In the episode "Brian Wallows and Peter's Swallows", Brian falls in love with an elderly human woman named Pearl Burton. Before Pearl passes away, Brian shares a virtual reality vision of their possible future together that involves marriage and children. He once made a pass at Meg while drunk, and had a brief fling with a prostitute named Tina while he was hooked on cocaine. During the show's fourth season, in "Brian the Bachelor", he falls for a woman named Brooke Roberts while appearing as a contestant on The Bachelorette. Although she chooses Brian as the winner, she doesn't return his affections outside of the show.

In a different episode ("Peter's Got Woods"), Brian has another brief romance, with Shauna Parks, one of Meg's teachers at James Woods High. Parks is black, in contrast to Brian's other on-screen girlfriends, who have all been white. Although not hostile (as in later episodes), Brian is awkwardly conscious of race in this episode, which Shauna seems to find sweet — "Nothing cuter than a nervous white dog". She breaks up with him over his loyalty to Peter, who foiled her (and Brian's) attempts to change the name of the high school to honor Dr. Martin Luther King.

Although he seems to be somewhat ashamed of it, Brian also has relationships with "regular" dogs. In the episode "Screwed the Pooch", he is faced with being neutered as punishment for impregnating Seabreeze, a racing dog owned by Lois' father, Carter Pewterschmidt. At the last moment, however, he discovers that the real father turns out to be Ted Turner.

Brian has had a kiss with Meg Griffin in the episode "Barely Legal". This resulted in Meg becoming very clingy towards him. When he tried to break it off, Meg became obsessed with him to the point that she baked her hair into an apple pie that she made for him, built a shrine in her room to him, and even abducted him and tied him up so they could have "good, old-fashioned, all-American fun" together. However, she eventually got over him after she visited Quagmire and he gave her a copy of Shel Silverstein’s The Missing Piece.

With Meg and Chris

Brian is one, if not the only, member of the family who does not treat Meg as badly as the others, but he seems to ignore her more than anyone else does. He has, however, been known to join in on laughing at Meg's misfortunes, as well as reading her diary along with the rest of the family. In "Barely Legal", he makes out with Meg at a dance after he gets drunk. The kiss affects Meg, causing her to become deeply infatuated with him. Even after he tells Meg that he doesn't want to be attached to her, she continues to harass him. The infatuated Meg kidnaps Brian and brings him to a hotel where she attempts to seduce him. However, Peter, Lois, Cleveland, Quagmire, and Joe appear and rescue Brian before she can.

Brian also seems to ignore Chris most of the time. He mostly reacts when Chris says something extremely stupid, such as "Brown is the color of poo!", when Brian reminisces about attending Brown University, or answering "eating a pebble!", when Brian asks the family what would be really exciting. In both cases, Brian reacted with a simple, flat "Yes, yes it is." However, he did give Chris advice on what to do when Chris kissed Sam in "To Love and Die in Dixie." And in the episode "Jungle Love" he tells Chris a story about when he was in the Peace Corps.

With Lois

Brian's crush on Lois is an ongoing theme in the show. He first confesses this to his therapist in the Season 2 episode "Brian in Love", in which he eventually decides not to reveal it to Lois, settling for her friendship.

In the episode "Perfect Castaway", Peter comes home (after a long absence where he is presumed dead) to find Brian has been married to Lois for a period of several months, with Brian having taken a job to support the family in Peter's absence. Lois has insisted on keeping separate beds despite Brian's requests that they consummate their relationship. Lois returns to Peter, but later mentions she was "one day" from deciding to finally have sex with Brian, to Brian's great frustration.

When Lois becomes obese in the episode "Sibling Rivalry", Peter tells Brian that he is no longer attracted to her; Brian replies, "I don't care what she looks like, I would wreck that chick."

File:FGBrianinLove.png

Alone with Lois in "Brian in Love"

Lois is sometimes alternately oblivious to, or intolerant of, Brian's feelings for her. In "I Take Thee Quagmire", Lois discusses, with Brian, problems arising due to her inability to wean Stewie from breast milk; Brian offers to "medically examine" Lois' breasts while giving Lois the impression that he knew what he was doing. After that discussion, Brian also offers to "medically examine" Lois' genitals; when Lois becomes confused as to why Brian would want to examine that area of her body, Brian simply replies hastily "Please pull down your underpants." In "Prick Up Your Ears", Brian immediately tells Lois, after Meg walked out of her room after she and Lois had a spirited discussion about vaginal intercourse, that he loves her. In "Peter's Two Dads", Lois and Brian secretly celebrate the death of Francis Griffin, but she slaps him when he grabs her breasts. However, in "Deep Throats", Lois and Peter, under the influence of marijuana, discuss a picture of Brian on the wall. Lois quips, "He wants to have sex with me so bad! He's not gonna get to!!" In "Meet The Quagmires" when Lois comes out the pool in a sexy-enchanted way, Brian responds to her in the edited version "Could I Wham! my Oingo Boingo into your Velvet Underground?" or in the unedited version, simply saying "I'd eat your poo."

Brian was once seen wearing Lois' clothes, much to Stewie's surprise and disgust (though he appears to have just been mocking her).

In "Stewie Kills Lois," Brian gives Lois a pair of tickets for a cruise for her birthday. Though he intended for one of the tickets to be for himself, Lois assumes that one is for Peter and brings him instead. Later, when Stewie begins listing all the horrible things that he plans to do to Lois after she returns from the cruise, Brian suggests to Stewie that he do many sexual things for the sake of his own erotic fetish over her.

In "Play it Again, Brian," Brian takes Peter and Lois on a vacation to Martha's Vineyard, which he won to receive a writing award for a poem he wrote. There, he read an excerpt from the poem, which is about her. He then spends an entire day with her, though his repressed feelings of love lead him to have fantasies of him kissing Lois. He eventually loses his self-restraint and ends up trying to have sex with her while openly professing his passion. When Brian apologizes, Lois herself finally admits that she feels the same way Brian does about her, saying she imagined having sex with him would be the same as "doing it with a stuffed animal," though they both agree she should be with Peter. With this established, it is currently unknown if Brian has finally overcome his desire to be with Lois.

With Peter

I'm not gonna call the hospital because you won't learn anything if I do.

— Brian, to Peter, injured on an indoor water slide made by running water down the stairs

As Peter's best friend, Brian has had to adapt to Peter being substantially less intelligent than him. In a role reversal, he hits Peter's nose with a rolled-up newspaper for bad behavior, sternly saying No! in the manner of a dog trainer.

On other occasions, Brian plays the "dog" role, such as when lunging and biting Peter's arm when told that Brian shouldn't hang around with Frank Sinatra Jr. in "Brian Sings and Swings".

Although he doesn't show it often Brian has great affection for Peter. This is exhibited in the episode "Brian: Portrait of a Dog" when, after Peter saves him from being put to sleep, Brian licks Peter's face saying afterwards "If you tell anyone about that I'll kill you".

Though Brian is openly attracted to Lois, this has never caused tension between himself and Peter until "Play it Again, Brian," in which Brian tries to have sex with her. He gets into a huge fight (a brawl, really) with Peter until they are broken up by Nathan Lane (whom Peter married while drunk). Brian and Peter then agree never to let anything like this happen again and rekindle their friendship right then and there.

With Stewie

Although they share a small level of dislike at each other, Brian and Stewie have similar levels of intelligence and sophistication, and suffer comparable reality-based shortcomings (being respectively a dog and a baby). Stewie at times considers himself as Brian's buddy but sometimes openly professes his disgust of him.

Brian and Stewie are often paired in storylines as a comedy duo, especially in the Road to... episodes (starting with "Road to Rhode Island"), which openly imitate the Bob Hope/Bing Crosby pairing in their "Road" movies, complete with musical numbers.

Political beliefs

Brian has liberal political leanings, mirroring MacFarlane's; MacFarlane uses a voice close to his ordinary speaking voice while portraying Brian. Brian's views have been demonstrated several times; through his criticism of then-Presidential candidate George W. Bush in his musical number "You've Got a Lot to See;" he is shown reading Michael Moore's book Dude, Where's My Country? in "North by North Quahog;" his car, a Toyota Prius, (which is addressed in "North by North Quahog" and the commentary for "Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story") displays a "Kucinich '04" bumper sticker; also in Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story he is shown eating Stewie's teddy bear Rupert's leg because of Stewie's support for a flat tax system. Brian mentions in the episode "Don't Make Me Over" that he votes Democrat, though he also said in the first episode, "This is why I don't vote," suggesting that he was not a registered voter until a later date; in the episode "He's Too Sexy For His Fat", Brian is quoted as saying "You know, I like Hillary Clinton, I don't care what anyone says." In the episode "You May Now Kiss The...Uh...Guy Who Receives," Brian goes to extremes to prevent a gay marriage ban proposed by mayor Adam West after his cousin Jasper comes to Quahog to get married to his Filipino boyfriend (West merely wanted the ban as a distraction after he squandered the entire city budget on a gold statue of the Dig 'Em Frog). In "Hell Comes to Quahog," Brian turns off the air conditioning in favor of a more environmentally safe alternative, to which Lois replies, "Save your hippie BS for the winter months."

In "Meet the Quagmires," it is revealed that in 1984 when Peter cancelled a date with Lois and thus altered the future, Al Gore was elected President, which Brian seems happy about. When they call for Death to help them fix things, he reveals that "it has been a busy day" because Dick Cheney shot Justice Scalia in a hunting accident and the bullet went right through him killing Karl Rove and Tucker Carlson in the process; this makes Brian think that staying in the altered future isn't such a bad thing, and earlier he tells Peter that his not marrying Lois is the best thing that ever happened to the world. Nevertheless, Brian puts his friendship before his political beliefs and assists Peter in fixing the past, even showing concern when things begin to look down for him in the ordeal.

Racism

Brian often uses civil rights metaphors to describe his second class status as a dog. However, in several episodes, Brian is embarrassed by his own displays of thoughtless racism.

In "Don't Make Me Over" he barks in reflexive hostility toward a black man, then apologizes anxiously, blaming his father ("Oh God. ... Please forgive me ... I get that from my father"), only to catch himself barking again. In the episode "Chick Cancer", Stewie asks Brian a hypothetical along the lines of "What kind of man would I be if I ran off now?" to which Brian replies "You'd be a black man". Even Stewie, never exactly the liberal humanist, is disgusted by this remark, after which Brian again tries to excuse himself by citing his father.

Brian seems perfectly comfortable around Cleveland and the Brown family. However, when working as a cab driver, Brian gets in trouble anyway for not picking up Cleveland in his hurry to run an errand for Lois. In a flashback, we see Brian enraged by the verdict of the O. J. Simpson murder case while seated next to his black roommate, who is happy over the same outcome; the two pull guns on each other, and decide they can no longer live together.

References

Bibliography

• S. Callaghan Family Guy: The Official Episode Guide : Seasons 1 - 3 New York: Harper Paperbacks, 2005
• A. Delarte, "Nitpicking Family Guy: Season 4" in Bob's Poetry Magazine, 3.January 2006: 11, 14, 17 - 21, 24 - 26 http://bobspoetry.com/Bobs03Ja.pdf