Top 10 ‘Family Guy’ Episodes, Ranked

It seems today that all you see are superheroes in movies and dark, gritty dramas on TV. Yet, anyone after good old-fashioned animated sitcom values can find them in Family Guy. Alongside pre-2000s shows like The Simpsons and South Park, it feels like they’ve been around forever. There are people who are adults now, finding jobs and becoming family figures of their own, who wouldn’t have been born when this show started. Or at least, they would be family guys if being a parent wasn’t so horribly unaffordable.

Anyway, like other long-runners, Family Guy isn’t non-stop consistency/quality, but its early seasons were generally pretty great, not to mention fresh, at the time. It was an underdog, scrappy sort of show that survived getting canceled post-season 3, coming back more popular than ever after several years, and not going away ever since. And those later seasons still have their moments, with the following collection of episodes—spanning from season 2 to season 10—being among the very best.

10 “North by North Quahog” (2005)

Season 4, Episode 1

Family Guy’s first episode post-cancellation brought it back in a big way, with an episode that’s unsurprisingly a riff on an Alfred Hitchcock classic, given it’s called “North by North Quahog” instead of North by Northwest. But before the main plot gets underway, there’s some great biting-the-hand humor, with Peter annihilating the fourth wall and saying Family Guy was dead, and might only have a chance at coming back if 29 shows were canceled by Fox (this being Family Guy, he says all of them, and they were indeed all canceled while Family Guy was off the air).

Beyond the Hitchcock homage stuff, it’s also memorable for lampooning the movie business, especially taking potshots at Mel Gibson and his ill-fated actionized sequel to The Passion of the Christ called The Passion of the Christ 2: Crucify This. The pacing, style, and overall feel here are all reminiscent of where Family Guy would go from 2005 onwards (for better or worse), making “North by North Quahog” a significant – and entertaining – episode for numerous reasons.

9 “Brian Wallows and Peter’s Swallows” (2002)

Season 3, Episode 17

Some might reject the celebration of an episode as sentimental as “Brian Wallows and Peter’s Swallows,” but it’s such an oddity within Family Guy’s run that it’s worth highlighting. It’s Family Guy with an unexpected amount of heart, and it kind of works, with Brian forming a connection to an old woman while doing community service, and Peter becoming a father of sorts for a trio of baby birds that begin living in a beard he’s grown.

The more well-known “serious” episode of Family Guy is the widely criticized “Life of Brian,” but “Brian Wallows and Peter’s Swallows” actually works as a more serious spin on the usually irreverent and chaotic show. Perhaps in some alternate timeline, Family Guy would be like this more often than not. Maybe that wouldn’t work long-term. But at least here, in our world, it’s a genuinely sweet and touching one-off.

8 “E. Peterbus Unum” (2000)

Season 2, Episode 18

“E. Peterbus Unum” is one of those early high-concept Family Guy episodes that takes a very stupid premise and gleefully runs with it, pushing it as far as possible all the while. Essentially, it’s an episode that involves Peter setting up his own sovereign nation within the Griffin family household; a nation he, of course, calls Petoria.

The whole thing sort of writes itself from that point onwards, with memorable bits including Peter’s infamous “Can’t Touch Me” song/dance routine, and Peter saying, “Hey, Lois. Diarrhea” (it barely makes sense in context, don’t worry). It’s just that perfect blend of kind-of-smart but also very stupid humor that dominated early Family Guy seasons and made the show fun to watch, with the immaturity being almost charming instead of too crude or played out as it sometimes feels in later seasons.

7 “Back to the Pilot” (2011)

Season 10, Episode 5

Being very aware of how much the show has changed and using that fact as a premise for comedy, “Back to the Pilot” works as what’s easily one of the show’s greatest episodes released after the end of what most people would call the golden age. It’s a Back to the Future style time travel story, following Stewie and Brian as they go back to the show’s pilot and, in turn, mess up the future.

“Back to the Pilot” does revolve around the