History FamilyGuy / TropesDToI

*** Quagmire's sexual tendencies were exaggerated to the point of being an outright perverted [[strike:borderline-]]rapist. This has been toned back in later episodes. His KafkaKomedy related resentment towards Brian also started off as a subtle awkward moment after [[strike:Stewie]] he supposedly offended his girlfriend in "The Man With Two Brians". In later episodes fate seems to lead Brian to fuel Quagmire's now occasionally violent hatred towards him. Since season 8, not only has he started hating on Brian, he's become really cynical, has an anger problem, and is frequently really intolerant of certain things: For example, Joe shouting "GET SOME GET SOME, YEAH!" in "Excellence in Broadcasting", and Peter shooting him and Joe in the eye in "Lotteryball Forever" (although it was reasonable, as Peter was being inconsiderate, but Quagmire's anger problem really shined there)!

* Meg often tries to perform this on ''herself'' by committing suicide over trivial things like not getting a date.
* Stewie beats Brain to a bloody pulp because Brian fails to repay a debt to him.

* DoubleStandardAbuseFemaleOnMale: Subverted with Peter hitting females, especially Meg, and nothing is done about it.

* DarkerAndEdgier: The series seems to have taken this turn. While an adult show, the gags of initial episodes were much more toned down and limited in mature humor, and even had a touch of sentimentality. Post-{{Uncancel|ed}}ation the excessive mix of BlackComedy, ComedicSociopathy, and CringeComedy has made the newly formed SadistShow of acquired taste to say the least.

** With the [[SethMacFarlane creator himself]] being one, you can expect pretty much every recurring character except for [[IntelligibleUnintelligible Opie]] and [[SnarkBait Meg]].

* DeepSouth: Season 3's "To Love and Die in Dixie" (where The Griffins are sent to Bumblescum, Alabama as part of Witness Protection) and season 5's "Boys Do Cry" (where The Griffins flee to Texas to escape religious nuts who think Stewie is possessed). It's worth noting that they portray the South in distinctly different ways in each episode. In the former, the locals are inbred hillbilly stereotypes but basically good people, while in the latter, they're behind-the-times intolerant {{Jerkass}}es.

* DemotedToExtra: Neil Goldman used to appear a lot in the pre-cancellation seasons. However, once his dad Mort was introduced in season 3, he began to appear less often. He wasn't seen during season 5, had two brief cameos in one episode of season 6 and another in season 7, and was again absent for season 8. Also, Connie D'Amico, a [[AlphaBitch popular girl]] who often antagonized Meg suffered a similar fate. Note that these characters only appeared in Meg-centric episodes, when nowadays Meg herself is victim of this trope too.

** Peter - a well-meaning idiot who would never hurt someone intentionally, or a ChaoticStupid Jerkass PsychopathicManchild who borders on CompleteMonster territory?

* EarlyBirdCameo: [[TheWoobie Brenda]] and [[CompleteMonster Jeff]] from "Screams Of Silence" actually made their first appearance in "Jerome Is The New Black", when Brian tries to make friends with Quagmire and mistakes Brenda [[RetCon (then named Harriet)]] [[KafkaKomedy for a chick Quagmire had over for sex]].

* EasySexChange: [[PunctuatedForEmphasis QUAGMIRE'S. DAD.]] She could have been on estrogen for a while and been binding the resulting breasts, and the long hair we see her with could be a wig. Admittedly, though, that was a VERY fast recovery from the gender reassignment surgery!! Particularly when Ida [[spoiler: has sex with Brian]] [[ArtisticLicenseBiology so soon after the surgery.]] Though, of course, it's never specified that they had vaginal intercourse.

* FanVid: Parodied. In one episode, Stewie makes a video with the Bryan Adams song ''(Everything I Do) I Do It For You''. It's full of random effects and [[ShoutOut Shout Outs]] to various famous works of art. Of course, when Brian (the dog, not the singer) points out that he doesn't get the storyline of the video, Stewie promptly tells him to "Shut up!"

** If a cutaway is anything to go by, Peter has a thing for school girls when he and Lois role-played before sex. Not to mention Lois seems to have various bad boy and violence fetishes.

*** Although, despite the mild Flanderization in seasons four and five, Peter and Lois also remained the earlier parts of their personalities, but when Creator/SethMacFarlane left the show's creative-writing department, their newer personalities were overly-exaggerated to the point where neither Peter, nor Lois are that caring about their family anymore. However, the seasons 6-present could be considered non-canon, due to lack of involvement with the original creator.
*** Meg has went from being a rather unpopular teenager to an ''extremely'' unpopular teenager. She's basically the show's [[ButtMonkey punching bag]] unless the plot actually involves her.

** Brian is an atheist... despite the fact that God and Jesus are frequently seen in Quahog and he's actually ''met'' both of them on several occasions, not to mention how in one episode in the early seasons Brian was trying throughout most of the running time to convince Peter to stop getting people to worship him so that the real God would stop sending plagues upon them.

** Of course, sometimes the show goes out of its way to justify his beliefs. "Family Goy" ends with Jesus himself saying that all religions are "pretty much crap", followed by an off-screen Brian shouting "Thank you!"

** Played straight, subverted, and lampshaded. Played straight: Show's been on for 7+ seasons, but the children are still in school; Stewie is still a baby. Subverted: Chris goes to high school. Lampshaded: Peter bemoans Bonnie's pregnancy: Peter: "You've been pregnant for like 5 years. Either have the baby or don't." Eventually they did an episode dealing with the birth. Immediately after the nurse says "It's a girl!", Quagmire comments [[LampshadeHanging "I can't believe she's already 18."]] (Note, however, that this was just a throwaway joke; so far the daughter has been shown to be younger than Stewie.)

* FreeRangeChildren: Stewie generally wanders about the world with little concern from Lois and Peter. Hell, in one episode he even ''joined the army.'' The only concern we see from Lois is for Chris, who is more of age (although competence could be argued, considering that this is Chris).

** Also, [[VictoriasSecretCompartment pretty much everything she needs resides in her cleavage.]] Chalk, the test papers, instructions for murdering her husband, and even the machete with which to do it.

** Played straight with [[HollywoodHomely Meg's supposed ugliness]]. The writers acknowledge that she isn't as ugly as many characters point out, but tend to exaggerate this for laughs. Not to mention, she has the [[OnlySixFaces same face as the majority of the female cast]].

** Quagmire has been becoming this more recently as has Chris. Lois slips into this on occasion. And after [[WesternAnimation/TheClevelandShow Taking center stage]] Cleveland has become somewhat snarkier.

** With the [[SethMacFarlane creator himself]] being one, you can expect pretty much every recurring character except for [[SnarkBait Meg]].

* DarkerAndEdgier: The series seems to have taken this turn. While an adult show, the gags of initial episodes were much more toned down and limited in mature humor, and even had a touch sentimentality. Post-{{Uncancel|led}}ation the excessive mix of DeadBabyComedy, ComedicSociopathy, and CringeComedy has made the newly formed SadistShow of acquired taste to say the least.

** Later a {{Brick Joke}}.

** And as mentioned above, the Christmas Episode gets deconstructed.

* ExecutiveMeddling: In-universe example: Brian Griffin has an idea for a show at CBS. Unfortunately it's altered beyond recognition by the execs. The reemergence of JamesWoods to twist the knife didn't help, either.

** Quagmire's GhostStory is clearly only scary to him.

*** Peter used to just be a moron who tried to do what's best for his family in spite of his shortcomings but is now just the {{Jerkass}} that's actually medically labeled as a mentally disabled person.

*** Although, despite the mild Flanderization in seasons four and five, Peter and Lois also remained the earlier parts of their personalities, but when SethMacFarlane left the show's creative-writing department, their newer personalities were overly-exaggerated to the point where neither Peter, nor Lois are that caring about their family anymore. However, the seasons 6-present could be considered non-canon, due to lack of involvement with the original creator.

*** Brian has probably been the worst recipient of this. He started out as a OnlySaneMan and StraightMan for Peter and Stewie. After the show was uncanceled, he began to drop some comments that mirrored some of SethMacFarlane's political views. However, by Season 7 this was taken to the extreme with many episodes focused on Brian's political views, much to the audience's dismay. Fortunately, this trend stopped in Season 8.
*** Stewie's curiosity for homosexuality slowly growing to make him flat-out gay. This trait has taken him over so badly that he has lost a lot of his EvilGenius traits as a result. Granted, Stewie has apparently lampshaded his own Flanderization on at least two occasions where he realized he was losing his villainous touch and attempted to de-flanderize himself by (the first attempt) attempting to kill Lois again, and (the second attempt) getting back to inventing for the sake of evil. We see only traces of his older characterization in the later seasons, but not much at all. SethMacFarlane has admitted that doing the take over the world thing every week was "getting played out".

*** Lois' father, Carter, also has his share of flanderization. He went from being a father that just disapproves of the husband his daughter married to a guy that stoops down to making Peter's life hell and doing childish acts just for the sake of making Peter remotely upset if it gets him to leave Lois. Lois takes advantage of this from time to time by pretending to get a divorce so her father can do her any favor she asks. His ruthlessness also exceeded past being an [[ObnoxiousInLaws Obnoxious In Law]] to Peter into an outright CorruptCorporateExecutive with occasional CardCarryingVillain shades.
** Some people would say that the show itself has been flanderized since its {{Uncancellation}}, thanks to the overabundance of cutaway gags and DeadBabyComedy.

** Also in the episode "Tiegs for Two", Peter says that his favorite shirt was stained by wine at a cocktail party hosted by MichaelJFox. Instead of the flashback, Peter appears in front of a grey screen, stating that the writers don't want to show the cutaway, saying that it's 'just too sad', and explaining what the basis of the joke was. However, the writers eventually tell Peter to show the clip.

* FreeRangeChildren: Stewie generally wanders about the world with little concern from Lois and Peter. Hell, in one episode he even ''joined the army.'' The only concern we see from Lois is for Chris, who is more of age (although competence could be argued, considering that this is Chris).

* GameShowAppearance: Mayor Adam West on ''Series/{{Jeopardy}}''; Peter Griffin on ''Series/WheelOfFortune'', ''TheDatingGame'', ''{{Series/Survivor}}'', the 60s version of ''{{Password}}'' and something called ''Bobcat or Bjork''; Peter also hosted ''Series/FamilyFeud'', disrupted a taping of ''ThePriceIsRight'', and his Citizenship test rapidly morphs into a ''{{Pyramid}}'' bonus round.

** Brian apparently love blondes.

* HaveIMentionedIAmGay: Stewie is constantly hinted as being gay, however, he's never fell in love with another boy so far (aside from his crush on Brian, which is mostly a joke), yet he's been with many girls. [[CargoShip He's in a committed relationship with Rupert, his stuffed]] [[{{Bara}} bear]].

* HesBack: [[spoiler: Evil Stewie as of "The Hand That Rocks the Wheelchair"...[[CanonDiscontinuity possibly.]]]]

-->'''Stewie''': I-like-pudding-pops. And-''GhostDad''-was-the-greatest-movie-since-''LeonardPart6''.

** Averted with New Brian from "The Man With Two Brians". His singing in a karaoke version of "Summer Nights" from ''{{Grease}}'' is painful, and he isn't faking.

** Another notable example would be "Road to Germany", where Brian remarks that Nazis portrayed Jews in an extremely offensive way. The leaflet that prompted him to say so showed the Nazis' idea of a Jew - namely, [[LampshadeHanging Mort Goldman alongside a Star of David.]]

** A third example involves Herbert calling Brian a pervert and ordered him to leave his property after the latter asked him to sign a petition to legalize gay marriage.

** Lampshaded and parodied in the episode "The Former Life of Brian". Brian tries to impress a recently-widowed mother (only referred to as "Jared's Mom") by putting on a magic show for her son, only to find out that she already has a boyfriend, Paul:

* InsufferableGenius: Subverted in "Petarded"; Peter wins at Trivial Pursuit and becomes a condescending jerk who thinks he's smarter than everybody and rubs it in their faces. The catch is, all his questions were deliberately chosen from the pre-school category and it turns out he's mentally retarded.

* IronButtmonkey: The entire family. Ironically, Meg, the series' regular {{Buttmonkey}}, gets the least physical abuse.

* IvyLeagueForEveryone

** The exchange between [[ItMakesSenseInContext Peter, Bill Gates, Michael Isner, Ted Turner, and Carter]] before their poker game.

'''Carter:''' Yes, Ted, that was the joke.

** Later a [[Brick Joke]].

** Quahog, Rhode Island is a fictionalization of Boston.

* FusionDance: The joined handicapped guys in "No Meals on Wheels"

** In "North by North Quahog", MelGibson dies falling off Mount Rushmore.

** There was a somewhat debatable example, when Quagmire clearly had a chance to take advantage of Meg, and didn't. Debatable because he's not portrayed as evil, just a pervert. Considering Quagmire has been shown to be a serial rapist, kidnapper, and deliberately spreads [=STDs=], {{YMMV}}).