So many times in shows, babies are pointless additions to the cast. I mean, seeing as how they can’t speak or have a personality outside of “likes to suck on a pacifier and sleep,” you can’t really blame screenwriters and television writers to not put much effort into them. The Simpsons sort of broke this rule by giving Maggie a bit of a devious personality and having her be the one who hit Mr. Burns (jury is still out on whether or not it’s an accident). But it was Family Guy which took this idea to the next level with Stewart Gilligan Griffin.
From the very first episode of the show, Stewie was clearly the stand-out member of the family. While all the various types of human characters of the Griffin household had been before and Brian had the novelty of being a dog but aside from that was just the voice of reason. Stewie, on the other hand, was a baby with a purpose: take over the world. For the first few seasons of the show, we saw Stewie create machines and plan schemes to finish his mission but never quite did it.
Perhaps sensing that this would get old after a while, Seth MacFarlane and his gang developed Stewie even further in later seasons by giving him a flamboyant and fun side. Also, how can I forget about his friendship with Brian, which forms the bedrock of the series’ best episodes? But Brian is only a supporting character in this list. Here are 20 crazy secrets about Stewie Griffin.
20 His Diabolical First Words
In the sixteen seasons of Family Guy, we’ve seen Stewie Griffin do some terrible things. Despite Family Guy being a comedy show, Stewie has to be one of the most overpowered and evil people in fiction. We’ve should have known as an audience, though, that this was going to be the case, because the first words we see Stewie mutter is the stuff of comic book villainy.
What would characters like The Joker, Dr. Doom, and Lex Luthor think of this infant?
In the first episode of the series, the whole family is at the kitchen table enjoying some grub but the freaking baby is fiddling with a gadget. Once he’s done screwing the last screw, he says “Excellent, the mind control device is nearing completion.” Lois mistakes this for a mere toy and takes it away from him which prompts him to respond with “darn you, vile woman! You’ve impeded my work since the day I escaped your wretched womb!” In just two lines, audiences knew right away what kind of character Stewie was and what we could expect from him for years. You know, until they softened up his character and abandoned his goal of world domination.
19 Stewie’s Soaring Dream With Brian
When you see somebody you love about to meet their end in the hospital, you want to tell them everything you always wanted to tell them. At least, I assume so, as I haven’t had the misfortune of that happening to me yet. So it’s quite telling what Stewie tells Brian after Brian is breathing his last breaths on the table of a veterinarian’s surgery room.
Kind of ironic how Brian and Stewie destroyed the Surfin Bird record in retrospect, eh?
While the rest of the Griffin family are all in shock and crying over their dog losing the battle before their eyes, Stewie is the only one who tries to speak directly to him. Even with a heavy heart, as it was Stewie’s idea to play hockey in the street that led to Brian being hit, Stewie tells him that he can’t perish because they were going to be windsurfers together. He qualifies this by saying that he was going to be the better one of the two, but they would both be great. And those are his last words to his best friend… until two episodes later when he time travels to save him.
If the series doesn’t end with the two fulfilling Stewie’s dream of being a windsurfing duo, I don’t know what to say.
18 Disrespect For His Parents
When growing up, you usually call your parents by their relation to you and not by their actual names. “Dad,” “Dada,” and “Daddy” are the usual suspects for your father, while your mother goes by “Mom,” “Mommy,” and “Mama.” Hopefully, though, none of you reading this are named Stewie Griffin, because if you are, you probably called your parents by different names.
It’s a shame Stewie can’t do us a favor and end the fat man instead of Lois.
For all his hatred for the woman who birthed him into the world, he respects her as a worthy adversary. So for that, he doesn’t give her any degrading nicknames and usually just calls her Lois. His father, on the other hand, is somebody that Stewie doesn’t respect one iota. I mean, why would he? Peter has shown himself multiple times to be a psychopathic and idiotic jerk. So why should he respect him? No, instead Stewie calls his father the “Fat Man.” You could always argue that Stewie should be more respectful of his parents and call them Mom and Dad, and in the case of Lois, I might agree. But Peter? Yeah, I’m fine with whatever Stewie calls him.
17 Visions Of Rupert
There are very few things that Stewie truly cares for in the world of Family Guy. We know this his best friend is the pet dog Brian but aside from him, there are not many actual people who Stewie gives a darn about. However, he does care greatly for his teddy bear, whom he calls Rupert. In fact, he might care for Rupert a bit too much…
It would be interesting to see who Stewie would pick between Rupert and Brian.
There are times in the series when Stewie has a dream of Rupert being a real human man, save for a teddy bear head. In these visions, they can be seen frolicking in the water on a beach, going to a carnival, and generally having a good time. Too much of a good time, in one case. In a DVD exclusive scene from the Season 9 episode “Excellence In Broadcasting,” Stewie discovers a new concept. Thus, he imagines this buff Rupert and an equally buff Brian hanging out while he is attached to a bed. Normally I would let kids keep their stuffed animals, but in Stewie’s case, maybe we should keep them away from him till he’s older.
16 He Wasn’t Always A Football
Most of the cast members on Family Guy have a unique visual quality that separates them from other cartoon characters. When it comes to Seth MacFarlane’s greatest creation, you gotta think about Quagmire’s giant chin, Peter’s chin etc… Obviously the most striking of these has got to be Stewie’s giant football-shaped head. If we go by the continuity of the show, though, this wasn’t always the case.
When Stewie was born, he had a normal shaped head. However, there was an accident involving his parents’ bed that caused him to develop his signature pigskin head. In the season 3 episode “Stuck Together, Torn Apart,” we get a flashback where Stewie is seen jumping up and down on the bed like the monkeys jumping on the bed nursery rhyme. Brian is supposed to be watching him, so when he demands Stewie to stop, Stewie refuses. It costs him his head shape as he hits his head on the ceiling. Amazingly, though, he doesn’t suffer any brain damage but instead, his skull is flattened into its current mold. If that was what really happened with head trauma in the real world, life would be a lot funnier and carefree. But unfortunately, concussions are a thing.
15 He Saved Brian’s Life
For many people, Family Guy was truly finished for them when it was announced in 2013 that Brian Griffin was going to bite the dust for good. Many people saw it as just drumming up interest for the episode and expected Seth MacFarlane and his crew to not follow through with it. But sure enough, Brian is hit and goes to the afterlife while on an operating table. A new dog named Vinny is introduced as the Griffin’s new pet, and fans were angry. Nobody was more angry, though, than Brian’s best friend, Stewie.
Find yourself a friend who will bend space and time to save you.
After the episode “Life of Brian,” Stewie decides that there must be a way to get his friend back. Luckily for the infant, he has a sweet time machine! After being asked by Santa what he wants for Christmas, Stewie breaks down and cries for his friend back. He uses it to teleport himself back in time just before the moment that car hit Brian. In any other show, I would be asking questions about time travel paradoxes, but this is Family Guy here; not exactly expecting some deep analysis. Too bad one of the first episodes done with Brian’s return was the much-maligned “Brian Is A Bad Father.” Maybe Stewie should have stuck around with the Italian dog.
14 He Once Loved His Mom
Most people are aware that Stewie’s biggest enemy in his life is his own mother, Lois Griffin. There was even a pair of episodes that explored a computer simulation where Stewie finally does the deed of ending his mother… until she’s rescued by a merman and then destroys her son in return. However, there was one point in time where Stewie truly did feel genuine love for his dear mom.
In the season 5 season premiere, appropriately titled “Stewie Loves Lois,” Stewie’s teddy bear Rupert is ripped up by an angry dog on the playground. Stewie is immensely sad about it, but Lois surprises him by stitching back his teddy. Stewie is overjoyed by this and for the first time in his life is happy with his mother. This, however, backfires against Lois as Stewie now clings to her all the time and tires her out. Once she starts getting visions of putting Stewie in the washing machine, she feels that it’s for the best if Stewie goes back to the way he was before. She starts to neglect him to the point where her son’s anger returns and things are turned back to the status quo.
13 He Goes To Extreme Lengths For Revenge
Not every joke lands. We’ve all been watching a comedy movie in a theatre and even though you can tell that the filmmakers were hoping for a big laugh, it falls flat on its face. Most of us, however, just go home and angrily write about it on our social media. Stewie Griffin decides to go straight to the source and let them know it.
And people say that kids nowadays have no motivation.
In one of Family Guy’s rampant cut-away gags, Stewie is watching the 2005 movie remake of the classic television show Bewitched starring Will Ferrell and Nicole Kidman. After Will Ferrell fails to make Stewie laugh, Stewie knows what he must do. He gets out of the movie theatre, takes a taxi to the airport, flies out to California, takes a limo to a hardware store, buys a ladder, goes to Will Ferrell’s house and rings the doorbell. As soon as Ferrell opens the door, the baby socks him right in the jaw laying him with one punch and tells him that the joke wasn’t funny. Everybody has an entertainer that they would like to punch in the face, but none of us actually get to live our dreams. God bless Stewie Griffin.
12 His Favourite Meal Is Childish
Everybody has a favorite meal or snack when they’re children. It could have been pop tarts, pizza, or Dunkaroos, but Stewie, on the other hand, is a bit more sophisticated than that. He wouldn’t dare eat the food of those tired, unwashed masses. He has a particular dish that he likes served just the right way and we find out exactly what it is in Season 5’s “Stewie Loves Lois.”
After Lois repairs Stewie’s teddy bear, Rupert, she decides to make Stewie his favorite meal to cheer him up even more. The ensemble is as follows; cut green beans, Atkins’ Friendly Potato Sticks arranged according to size from largest to smallest and a Scooby Doo Yogurt… Oh, can’t forget that the yogurt container has Shaggy’s eyes scratched out. This display of love from his mother causes Stewie to drop his previous seasons of hatred and tell her that “Lois, I was wrong about you. You’re my everything.” In all honesty, this is one of the most heartfelt and touching moments in the show. Unfortunately for the family, by the end of the episode, Stewie is back to hating her, but it was nice while it lasted.
11 He Might Be A Ripoff
Most of the slides on this list have to do with the actual episodes of Family Guy, but for this one we have to go back to our real world. To most people, Stewie is one of the most original characters to come to television screens in years and absolutely the most unique character on Family Guy. But, he might just be a fake.
From the years of 1995 to the year 2000, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid On Earth was a weekly comic strip about a grown up sad man who meets his father for the first time at 36 years old. However, we also get flashbacks to his life as a kid where he creates tons of technology and experiments with science. Now, those are sort of vague similarities, but if we look at the visual designs of the two, that’s where we get into eyebrow raising coincidences. They both have football shaped heads and only a few strands of hair that are slicked back. In an interview with IGN back in 2003, Seth MacFarlane even remarked that “I saw a copy of the strip, and it’s amazing. It was so similar. He had like the same shape head, he had like the same hairs on top. I had never seen it before, but it was actually pretty shocking.” Corrigan’s creator Chris Ware was never amused by it.
10 Falling Into Submission
So it’s safe to say that Family Guy goes places where no other cartoon has ever dared go. Not only have they made fun of and brutally satirized of every group of people on the planet, but with the show entering its 17th season this fall, it’s gotten viewers to casually accept a dog seeing human beings on the regular and the dreams of an infant. And not just vague illusions, we mean we know exactly what kind of guy Stewie Griffin would be when he became an adult.
We know way too much about this facet of Stewie.
We know that without a doubt despite his plans for world domination and his violent outbursts, Stewie is a really passive boy when it comes to relationships. In the season 6 episode “McStroke,” Stewie and Brian have a conversation about Stewie going on a date with another child to a place called A. Point. Brian explains to Stewie that it’s like a parking space that you don’t think you’d be able to fit in. Stewie then remarks that he’d rather be the parking space. If I have to explain that to you, step away from your computer and go play some Fortnite.
9 He Almost Came Out Of The Closet
Recently there was an episode of Family Guy called “Send In Stewie, Please” which had Stewie finally speak to a child psychologist who broke him down and got him to spill some secrets. One of them is basically confirming that Stewie’s romantic preferences are fluid and are in a state of flux. However, there was a time when years ago that his hints at being gay were going to be explored.
MacFarlane says that Stewie grows to be gay, or a repressed straight man. In an interview with the magazine made famous by Hugh Hefner years ago, Seth MacFarlane said that there originally was going to be an episode where Stewie was going to finally come out of the closet and reveal himself as gay. We had an episode that went all the way to the script phase in which Stewie does come out," MacFarlane said in the Sept. 2009 issue. “It had to do with the harassment he took from other kids at school. He ends up going back in time to prevent a passage in Leviticus from being written: ‘Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind. It is an abomination.’ MacFarlane ultimately decided to leave it ambiguous as he felt it made more sense for a one-year-old. Since when did Family Guy start using logic?
8 Does His Family Understand Him?
Easily one of the most common questions about Family Guy involves Stewie himself and the blatantly obvious question that anybody watching the show for the first time would have. Does anybody understand him when he talks? While we know for sure that Brian understands him, the rest of the family’s comprehension of him has always been up in the air. Well, Seth MacFarlane has given an answer to this question, twice actually.
The first answer to the question was when MacFarlane stated that the entire family DOES understand what Stewie is saying, but they choose to ignore what he says as they just chalk up to what he says as baby talk. Later on, it would appear in some episodes that Chris also understands what Stewie is saying so MacFarlane adjusted his answer by saying that he understands him too, but the writers strive to ensure Meg, Lois and Peter don’t understand him. There’s also the unanswered question as to why Brian has always taken Stewie seriously. Then there’s the whole issue of people outside of the family understanding him and just… man, trying to make logic out of the series is a nigh impossible feat. Let’s just chalk it up to MacFarlane doing what he wants, eh?
7 He Has A Famous Ancestor
Stewie has shown that despite being only a year old, he is by far the most intelligent person in the world of Family Guy. He has designed time machines, mind control devices, doomsday weapons and whatever else his mind desires. How is this even possible, given that his parents are Lois and Peter Griffin, of all people? Well, maybe we should look back further in his ancestry to find that out. If Stewie could have stuck to art, the world would be safe from his terror.
In the episode “Big Bang Theory,” Stewie’s half-brother Bertram travels back to the Renaissance Era of Italy to destroy Stewie’s life before it ever began. How does he intend to do that? By ending the life of the most talented man in history, Leonardo Da Vinci, of course! Yes, it turns out that Stewie’s family lineage on his mother’s side can be traced back to the original Renaissance man. The two half-siblings engage in an air duel using Da Vinci’s original flying machines but Stewie loses and just when it seems like the day is lost, Stewie has a stroke of genius. He injects his DNA into the body of Da Vinci’s girlfriend, which will ensure that he does indeed get born in the future.
6 He Hates Broccoli Most Of All
Everybody has a vegetable that they think blows and they never want to eat it. This is especially true when we’re kids and all we want to eat is the food that will undoubtedly give us health problems. Well, we might hate certain vegetables, but do we have the motivation and willpower to wipe them off the face of the Earth? We may not, but Stewie Griffin sure as hell does.
In the series’ second episode ever, Stewie is forced to eat broccoli by his mom Lois. Refusing to accept his fate of a healthy body loaded with vitamins and minerals, Stewie comes to the logical conclusion that he must destroy the world’s entire broccoli supply. To accomplish this goal, he creates a weather control machine that will ruin all crops of the leafy green vegetable. It almost looks like he’s going to succeed, however, when a lightning bolt destroys the machine his plans are foiled.
The episode ends with Stewie being fed some more broccoli but he tries to dump them onto Brian’s plate but this fails too. Maybe Stewie was trying to end Brian’s life as broccoli is dangerous to dogs in high amounts. We wouldn’t put it past early Family Guy Stewie.
5 His Original Colours Were Villainous
Believe it or not, there are actually two versions of the original Family Guy pilot. The one that went to air, and the unaired version that Seth MacFarlane made entirely himself in six months and for 50,000$. That version is pretty widely available online, and in it you can see how a lot of the characters look a bit different than their final designs. Stewie looks largely the same though, except for the colors of his clothes, and you can see what MacFarlane was going for.
The Joker and Stewie have more in common than we thought.
As you can see above, Stewie has green overalls and a purple shirt. While this may innocuous to most, a little lesson on colours with fictional characters will shed some light on this. In a video by the Youtube channel NerdSync, host Scott Niswander explains that superhero comics tend to give heroes primary colors blue, red, and yellow and villains receive secondary ones like green and purple. This can been seen with Superman and Lex Luthor or Spider-Man and The Green Goblin for example. Seeing as how Stewie is the kind of kid who would make Lex Luthor proud, it only makes sense that his clothes are colored this way. This is one thing about the original designs that I wished was kept.
4 He Is A Parent
Scientists have to always consider just how much they should tamper with nature. As tempting as it may be for them to use their knowledge for nefarious purposes, most of them thankfully choose not to. Stewie Griffin, however, is not one of those scientists and has cooked up some truly evil schemes. None, however, are as bizarre and stomach turning as his scheme in the season 13 episode “Stewie Is Enceinte.”
In this episode, Stewie feels that his friendship with Brian is waning. Now, this seems like an okay setup to have them go on one of their classic adventure episodes. But oh no, Stewie instead decides to implant himself using Brian’s DNA and have human/dog hybrid children. While maybe one or two of them look a little cute, most of them are abominations and now my eyes hurt from looking at them. This is considered by most to be one of the dumbest and worst episodes in Family Guy’s entire catalog. It’s episodes like this that make fans wish Fox ended the series years ago. But nope, we needed to see human/dog hybrids.
I guess someone must have thought this was a good idea, right?
3 Getting Close
Stewie’s time travel machine is responsible for getting him in trouble just as often as it helps him out. In the 200th episode of the show called “Valentine’s Day In Quahog,” Stewie decides to get into the spirit of love by traveling back to the Summer of Love of 1967. That may have turned out to be the biggest mistake of his life, however, as he does something that should make anyone hurl.
This is why you get a girl’s name first.
Once he arrives in that time, Stewie spots another kid on the playground that just knocks his socks off. After giving her back her ball that she dropped, Stewie just can’t let her get away and chases after her. Before her father takes her away, Stewie plants a big ole wet kiss on her. But once the father takes off her hat to reveal her signature hair and says the name Lois, Stewie has the most natural reaction, disgust.
Fed up with the Summer of Love, he goes back to his own time where he never wants to speak of it again. Knowing Stewie, I wouldn’t be surprised if he invented a machine that could wipe the memory of this incident from his mind. If not, I don’t know how he looks at her again.
2 If That’s What He Likes
You would think that not even Family Guy would try to make an episode revolve around injury but hey, here we are. Not only did they go there, but they also decide to throw in some other stuff into that equation as well. Just another day at the office for Seth MacFarlane and the gang, right?
Too bad this wasn’t brought in the episode where Stewie goes to a child psychologist.
In the Season 5 episode “Peter’s Two Dads,” Lois gets angry at Stewie for destroying her pearl necklace and spanks him out of rage. Although Stewie is hurt by this, he doesn’t necessarily hate it… in fact, he got a thrill out of it. The rest of the episode’s subplot focuses on Stewie trying to provoke his mother into hitting him again. This includes spilling his juice and drawing on the walls of the kitchen. When Lois refuses to give in Stewie says “Come on discipline me! Make me wear panties! Rub dirt in my eye!” It was only upon uttering these words where Stewie realized that he may have some problems. I suppose that his previous crimes never struck him as things that most people just don’t do.
1 His Accent Is Fake
For the most part, Family Guy has entered into Simpsons territory nowadays. Despite still being on the air and pulling in some decent ratings, it has fallen heavily from the public consciousness and really only makes headlines when they do some publicity stunt. Think of the crossover between The Simpsons and Family Guy and Brian getting hit by a car. One of the latest attention-grabbing headline episodes actually seemed to have a lot of promise; the episode “Send In Stewie, Please”.
This episode was the first Family Guy episode to have no commercials.
In this episode, Stewie finally sees a child psychologist voiced by Ian McKellen. There we finally see Stewie’s character literally get dissected and we learn much about him. While everybody expected Stewie to come out as gay in this episode or at least bi, we only get a hint that he may be fluid in preferences. The bigger revelation is that his British accent is actually fake. He puts on that voice because he wants to stand out and feel special among everyone else he knows. While it seems that this and the other revelations in the episode might shake up the series, he then lets his psychologist perish from a heart attack so nobody will ever learn his secret. So close to character development. So close.
