Family Guy Fanon / Tropes A to C

A - C | D - I | J - P | Q - Y

Back to Main. Beware of spoilers!

---

Tropes with their own pages

• Adaptation Expansion
• Ascended Extra

A

• Abusive Offspring: Peter becomes this to Francis in this adaptation. Justified, as Francis was abusive to him growing up, and Peter uses this to seek revenge.
• Abusive Parents: While it's more downplayed, Peter and Lois still have their moments. If fact, they have it as early as Season 1! As "Mind Over Murder" has Peter chain up Meg in the cellar as punishment for touching the thermostat.
• Accidental Kidnapping: "Long John Peter" has Shelly Boothbishop hire a group of goons to kidnap Peter and Francis' wives Lois and Thelma after the two, alongside Seamus and Randall Fargus, loot his car full of sugar cane, tobacco, and spices. However, Anna, Chris' girlfriend, gets kidnapped while on a date with Chris, thinking she’s his girlfriend.
• Adaptational Alternate Ending:
  • "Running Mates" instead ends with Peter gleefully having fun with his teacher Mr. Fargus. Setting a stage of Randall Fargus becoming a recurring in the adaptation.
  • "Peter's Two Dads" instead ends with Peter's real father Mickey dying due to the beer he drinks in a beer glass being poisoned.
  • "Seahorse Seashell Party" adds an extended ending where the family lock Meg out, hoping to kill her, but the hurricane rips their house off it's hinges and send them all flying away with it, endangering the lives of everybody except for Meg, who stands in the front yard, completely safe and unharmed.
  • "Stand By Meg" ends with Chris being chased by his former gang and puts his clothes on Meg. When the gang busts in, they think Meg is Chris and hit her for bailing on the gang. After they leave, Meg lies bleeding on the ground and begs Stewie to call the doctor, but Stewie fears getting involved with gang activity, and convinces himself that he already paid his dues as Meg's servant, by hooking her up with Kevin and making her feel superior.
• Adaptational Badass: Peter when it comes to Francis. While he still loves him like in the OG show, he no longer bothers to seek approval from Francis after Season 2, as he knows already that it's not worth the work. He also stands up for against Francis more often, whether using Francis' devote Catholic nature to his advantage or as revealed in Live in Vegas, not only blackmailed Francis to come to the episode, but also got to him with mind games. Things that original incarnation of Peter in regard to his relationship with Francis wouldn't be capable of doing.
• Adaptation Deviation: The fanfic does one for some of the plots.
  • Season 3's "Ready, Willing and Disabled" rewrites the main plot so that instead it has Bonnie and Kevin be the ones to help Joe out of his depression and not Peter. With Peter's lines being rewritten to fit Bonnie and Kevin (Kevin does some of Peter's slapstick and is the one to drug Joe's drink) and Peter playing a minor role in the story.
  • Season 4's "The Perfect Castaway" in its second and third act scraps the Brian and Lois getting married plot and instead focuses on the family after what they assumed is Peter's death.
  • Season 21's "Vat Man and Rob 'Em" removes the plot point of the beer vats emptying, and instead focuses on Preston trying to catch Peter in the act, while Peter and the Bar Buddies take extra precautions to avoid such.
• Adaptational Early Appearance:
  • Cleveland, who didn't appear until "Mind Over Murder", appears in the pilot "Death Has a Shadow" in this adaptation.
  • "Do and Die" has quite a few early appearances for a number of characters:
    • Horace, the bartender of The Drunken Clam that didn't properly appear in his current form until "E. Peterbus Unum"
    • Bruce, the performance artist who didn't appear until "Chitty Chitty Death Bang"^note While made to be early in the first season in the original, the episode was pushed to be the second to last episode of the first season here.
    • Mayor Adam West, who doesn't appear until Season 2's "Fifteen Minutes of Shame".
    • Asian reporter Tricia Takanawa, and Cleveland Brown Jr. who both first appeared in "Love Thy Trophy" in the original.
  • Herbert, who didn't appear until Season 3's "To Do or Die in Dixie" appears earlier into the show in this adaptation, debuting in Season 2's "Neighbor Pains"
• Adaptational Explanation:
  • Compared to the real show when he was always mayor until his death, Adam West has a whole episode to introduce him in "Do and Die". It also adds Buddy Cianci, the real mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, in the episode, and shows that he was forced to resign from his job after being charged with racketeering, which happened in real life.
  • In terms of the Meg voice actor change from Lacey Chabert to Mila Kunis, it's made to be that the voice change was due to Meg getting a voice transplant in "Employee for Fire", replacing her Lacey voice with her well-known Mila voice.
  • Kevin actually is shown signing up and getting shipped to fight the Iraq War in "Full Metal Jackass". In the same episode, Chris also graduates from Buddy Cianci Jr. High.
  • Compared to the original show and Cleveland Show where Cleveland Jr.'s reason for his body transformation was only found in scripts, "Breadlosers" outright admits from Cleveland himself that Cleveland Jr. gained weight due to a side effect of Ritalin, which Cleveland used to even out his hyperactivity.
  • "The Birthday Bootlegger" explains Bert and Sheila's sudden replacement. It turns out Bert and Sheila were at the United States Capitol on January 6, revealing that their progressive views were a facade, and that they were actually staunch supporters of Donald Trump.
  • In "Karma's a Bitch", it explains two changes in the show: the living room carpet's color and Chris' earrings. Peter states he hated the yellow carpet, so he burned it, and Chris explains he just didn't want to wear them anymore. Though compared to Peter's explanation to why the Griffin Living Room carpet has changed color, Chris still kept them in their box in his room and put them on to show his still had them, and they remained on him for the rest of the episode.
• Adaptational Intelligence:
  • While Peter is no Einstein, he does get far more moments of genuine wisdom, insight, and time to show that while he may be a Ditz, he's not stupid, especially when dealing with Francis. The same story can also be said for Chris, with the fanfic giving him far more of a focus on artistry than just being the Fat Idiot who jacks off too much.
  • Brenda's abusive boyfriend Jeff in "Screams of Silence: Story of Brenda Q." gets some. In the original, Jeffery blatantly abused her in public. Making him sort-off a generic, one-dimensional strawman villain of domestic abusers. Here, Jeffrey's abuse toward Brenda is made more subtle to both the characters and the audience, and only show his dark side in private, when nobody else was around. Which greatly helped improve the episode, as not only did this make the plot better, because we don't know from the start that Jeffrey is abusive until The Reveal, but it also made the domestic abuse more realistic, portraying abusive relationships in a way that emulates real-life abusive relationships.
• Adaptational Jerkass:
  • Episode example. While in the original episode for "Ready, Willing and Disabled", Peter came to check on the depressed Joe. In this version, Peter's more apathic to Joe and doesn't even visit him. Even joking about how Joe's tears collected in his laugh lines. Justified as the A-plot was rewritten to have the whole Swanson family be the main stars and not just Peter and Joe, so Peter being this way makes some sense.
  • Cleveland's temporary girlfriend Bernice. While in the original, she was a little bland and had no real personality, here she does have a personality due to having an arc in the sixth season dedicated to her... unfortunately, that personality is of a sassier abuser that's just as bad - if not worse - as Loretta. Of course, Cleveland dumped her in "Tales of a Third Grade Nothing".
  • Roberta Tubbs. In both the original and this version of The Cleveland Show, Roberta was a popular, but polite girl, who had respect for those less fortunate than her. However, when she came to Quahog, she fell victim to the Crapsack World clique at James Woods High set by Connie D'amico and became now a stuck-up bully. However, she does still have her standards, as when they bully her brother Cleveland Jr., Roberta makes a deal with the clique, saying that they can't bully members of their own family.
• Adaptational Job Change:
  • While in the original Loretta didn't seem to have a job aside from being a housewife, here she has two jobs. Her past job before marrying Cleveland as a parking enforcer, and her current job as Cleveland's Deli as the waitress. Loretta quits her job at his deli after the divorce.
  • Hennessey O'Callaghan. While in the original, he was a rival fisherman to Peter, here he's Peter's boss.
  • Lance Prueher. While he seemed to just be an employee at the Suicide Hotline, here he got promoted to being the boss of the hotline.
  • For Peter, it's more of a Job Return. As in Season 22, he returns to being a fisherman.
• Adaptational Karma:
  • Meg gets an expanded bit of it in "Love Your Trophy". While she did get some karma in the original episode by being forced to give the purse up so they can get Stewie back, she was never told off for her actions in the episode, or that Lois never said anything, despite the seriousness of what Meg had done. In this episode, it adds an extended scene of Lois scolds Meg over her put her own selfish desires over her little brother, grounds her for a month, and tells her she's going to clear things up to everyone. Including at Flappy Jack's. She also gets fired from Flappy Jack's because of that.
  • Herbert gets a small dose of some in the rewritten version of "Brian the Bachelor", with his ladder instead of being propped near the backyard is instead propped near the streets, with him getting run over by a car for his pedo trouble.
  • Brian gets hit hard with on in "Play it Again, Brian". With him now losing his friendship with Peter due to him trying to hit on his wife.
  • "April in Quahog" has Channel 5 getting heat for the whole "black hole" prank and the building is getting attack by angry Quahog residents.
  • Peter and the whole family gets some of this in "Brian the Closer". While in the original, Peter got away with messing up Brian's face and when Brian begged the family for help, they all but laughed in his face. Here, instead of tricking Quagmire into buying a rundown condo, he tricks the Griffins instead. In fact, Quagmire helps Brian in his scheme.
• Adaptational Name Change:
  • Enforced In-Universe. Chris' old middle school Buddy Cianci Jr. High School was renamed after Carrie Fisher in Season 17's "Another Widow Opens", as she was a far more respectable historical figure, who deserved to be honored.
  • Downplayed, but Peter's parrot Adrien Beaky is renamed to Adrianne Beaky.
  • While Hennessey still has his first name, he does get a last name, O'Callaghan.
  • While Meg's friends still retain their first names, they gain last names. Patty Patterson, Esther Esthederm, Ruth Rutherford and Beth Bethany.
• Adaptational Nice Guy:
  • Mr. Fargus in "Running Mates". While he still loses his job due to violating the School Board's order of taking his pills, he only egged other students and teachers with normal chicken eggs, whereas in the real episode, he dropped eggs of the "endangered California condor" during the Annual Egg Drop.
  • Although he's still a devout Catholic Jerkass, Francis does qualify in this. In canon, Francis was a Catholic Jerkass who really disliked Peter and was a genuine unpleasant person to be around. Here, while starts out the same way, he does lighten up and his devout Catholic and Jerkass nature become toned down by a lot, save for a few episodes, and has a lot more Pet the Dog moments to Peter, not to mentioning getting more involved in the famiy's shenanigans. He also changes to have a more Jerk with a Heart of Gold personality, as he shows to deeply care about Peter and Thelma.
  • A good majority of Peter's worst scenes like declaring he doesn't love his kids in "April in Quahog", or mentioning he's basically threatening Lois into marriage by saying he'll kill himself if she doesn't in "From Russia With Love" are scrapped out.
  • Compared to the original, when he was on his phone watching a baseball game during Brian's funeral in "Life of Brian", Quagmire instead shows some sort of sympathy, with him consoling Peter that he was never fond of Brian, but he was sorry for the death of his dog.
• Adapted Out:
  • Subverted with Peter not telling Lois he got fired in "Death Has a Shadow". Compared to the real episode, Peter tells Lois he got fired from his job^note Which he actually did in the original Pilot Pitch., though still hides him getting welfare from Lois, but in "Employee for Fire", he does hide his firing from Lois, and for a different reason of not wanting Lois to be mad he got fired again.
  • The hug Peter and Francis have in "Holy Crap" is removed, with Francis pushing Peter away before he could hug him, telling him to not push it. This becomes important as they do hug in "Between Sanity and Madness", and it has more weight because of that.
  • Strange example with Ellen and her sup-plot in "Extra Large Medium". Her sub-plot is scrapped, but the song is readapted to "Sweet Old Lady" for Season 2's "Good Ol' Fargy Love". And Ellen is now used in Season 11's "A Play on Turds" as the ugly girl playing Juillet and making Anna her understudy. She still retails her Bitch in Sheep's Clothing persona.
  • The third plot switch in "April in Quahog", involving Peter admitting he hates being around the kids, and trying to win them back is scrapped and replaced with instead Peter, after getting a heartfelt speech from Randall, spend his last few hours with his family.
  • Played straight in "Finders Keepers", with the beginning about Peter having bad breath is scrapped from the episode.
  • Played straight again in "Life of Brian", with the Native American intro plot is scrapped entirely
• Adaptational Personality Change: Downplayed for Mayor Wild West, as while he's still the same responsible level-headed person as in the original, certain episodes showcase a more flawed side to him, like using the taxpayer's money for ridiculous things the same way his cousin did to do things like construct a miniaturized Quahog for him to play around with in "Flaw & Disorder". And some episodes showcase him with a Fatal Flaw of him being self-conscious about himself and his position as mayor, and when he gets it, often does extreme actions that cause trouble for himself and others.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Lois and Thelma get one. In the original, they rarely interacted, but when they did they were shown to be on friendly terms. Here, while they both had a bit of a rivalry alongside Peter and Francis early on, they grew to have a friendship and actually respect each other now. Even having episodes like "Love and Sabotage" and "The Father, The Son, and The Holy Fonz" have Lois and Thelma ditch Peter and Francis to go on Las Vegas trips together.
• Adaptation Title Change: While there's episodes with uppercase or lowercase capitalization for some words compared to the original, there are quite a few episodes with different titles:
  • "I Never Met the Dead Man" is now "I Never Met Mr. Deaddy"
  • "Love Thy Trophy" is now "Love Your Trophy"
  • "Emission Impossible" is now "Missionary Impossible"
  • "There's Something About Paulie" is now "The Guyfathers"
  • "Chick Cancer" is now "Love and Sabotage"
  • "Wild Wild West" is now "There's a New Mayor in Town"
  • A Clevland Show example. "Pilot" is now called "Cleveland Moves In"
• Adaptational Villainy:
  • Shelly becomes this. While in the original he was more neutral aside from "Long John Peter", here he's show doing more villainous deeds. In this version's of "Long John Peter", he hires goons to kidnap Lois, Thelma and by accident Anna and held them hostage on his ship. And in "Long John Peter II: Shelly's Return", he returns to get revenge against Peter and threatens Quahog unless Peter fights him. Semi-Justified, as he only did the kidnapping because of Peter's pirate group provoking him and messing up his tea delivery, and it can also be due to a Sanity Slippage.
  • Retep also falls into this. In the original, he was a more joke villain, while here the Evil Twin aspect is played straighter and becomes more as a secondary threat for Peter.
• Aesop Amnesia:
  • Zigzagged with Peter in "A Star is Born... Kind Of". While he does go to another stag party even after what happened in "Death Has a Shadow", he at least plans ahead compared to last time.
  Peter: Honey look, I know I disobeyed you again, but I at least planned ahead compared to last time. We took a cab home, slept on the table so we wouldn't wake you up, and I called sick from work so I didn't get my ass fired for negligence. Nothing bad will happen this time.
  • "Breadlosers" has Peter spend all his time clowning around at McBurgertown, using his pass to get free burgers for life to the point he gets fired from the Pawtucket Brewery. He ends up working at McBurgertown, with a ton of customers coming, but the demand for food outweighs their food supply and Peter only has himself to blame because of all the free food he took from their restaurant. Peter learns how annoying of a customer he is... but completely unlearns it at the end, clowning around at McBurgertown again, only to get fired again at the end of the episode.
  • Lampshaded by Chris of all people at the end of "An Original Age Old Story" when Peter declares he learned his lesson from pretending to be old.
  Peter: The important thing is that I learned my lesson.
  Chris: Yeah, you're not gunna keep the lesson, but at least ya learned it, Dad.
• Age Lift:
  • More of an age reveal in terms of Randall Fargus, as the adaption reveals that Randall is ninty-six,something that was unexplained in the original show, though the fanfic does lift the years he worked at Buddy Cianci, with him working there for sixty years compared to the thirty two in the original.
  • Played straight with Quagmire. As in "Underage Peter", his age goes from being 61 to being 49, still making him slightly older than the other Beer Bar Buddies
• Age-Gap Romance: "Kimi Stupid Love" has Quagmire - a sixty-one-year-old man - get married to Kimi - a sixteen-year-old teenager. Thankfully, they agreed to have an open marriage, allowing each other to have sex with smash & pass strangers, while still loving each other as husband and wife.
• All for Nothing: The sub-plot of "How Farg is Heaven?" has Chris surrender his art style to learn the anime art style to impress a girl named Keiko. And after all the hard work of learning the style, she laughs her ass off at him and leaves, leaving Chris heartbroken and betrayed. Even worse, he loses credibility with his friends because they all liked his old art style better and hate the anime-style new stuff.
• Alliterative Name: As seen above with Adaptational Name Change, Meg's friends follow this trope. Patty Patterson, Esther Esthederm, Ruth Rutherford and Beth Bethany
• Alternate Continuity: The whole fanon wiki is built around this concept. With completely different changes in seasons, episodes, characters and even events (Ex: The two cancelations are changed around. The first cancelation happens after Season 3 instead of Season 2, and the second cancelation happens after Season 4 instead of Season 3).
• Archive Binge: Done In-Universe with "Peter Runs a Marathon". As Peter binges a marathon of every episode of some series in the Star Trek franchise, and miss the birth of Adam and Carol West's new baby.
• Archnemesis Dad: Francis is a downplayed example of this trope. Since Peter is more willing to stand up to his father, Francis is quite confrontational to Peter. But they'll occasionally put aside their differences to solve a bigger problem.
• Arson Murder And Jay Walking: "Neighbor Pains" has Mr. Fred Rogers, a former neighbor on Spooner Street, get arrested for possession of child porn, abusing his wife, and vandalizing the local mosque.

B

• Back to School: "The Education of Elmer T. Bags" has Dr. Hartman lose his job because he never graduated high school. So, he started going to James Woods Regional High School to get his qualifications for his back.
• Badass Boast: Randall Fargus has one in "E. Peterbus Fargnum".
  Randall Fargus: Come on you bastards. GIVE US YOUR BEST SHOT!
• Bad Boss: Hennessey proves to be one to Peter, with him constantly tricking Peter into failing his fisherman job.
• Bait-and-Switch: "Replaced: Brian's Story" has God reading out all of Brian's sins he's done in life, with the audience (and Brian) believing he'll be sent to Hell. However, God says it's basically a typical normal person in Heaven and leads Brian in... only for the subversion to be subverted when Brian blurts his Atheism after getting too comfortable and costs him his ticket to Heaven and right down to Hell.
• Baseball Episode: Season 3's "Peter Griffin's All-Stars" and Subverted with Season 21's "The Sandloss".
• Berserk Button:
  • A lot of Francis' buttons are still here, but do not light his pocket Bible on fire. Peter learns this the hard way in "Between Sanity and Madness".
  • Thelma's new berserk button is to never, if you value your life, steal her cigarettes as shown in "Power Over Peter".
  • If you value anything, do not bullying one of Bruce' friends or loved ones in front of him. Connie learns the hard way in "A Thug's Life"
• Beware the Nice Ones:
  • As said above in Berserk Button, Bruce is a very lenient and mellow guy who pretty much never gets mad about anything unless you mess with his friends or loved ones. "A Thug's Life" has Bruce get mad at Connie for bullying Meg and beat the living crap out of her, scaring her away.
  • Peter has shown when around his parents to be as caring as possible. However, he does still show to ha
• Beware the Silly Ones:
  • Randall Fargus is shown to be a goofy guy, but does have a cunning nature as seen in "E. Peterbus Fargnum", where he tricked Peter into giving him Petoria.
  • Retep is a big one. For a throwaway gag character that's nothing more than a color swap character in his debut episode, he shows a surprising amount of cunning and intelligence.
• Big Brother Instinct: Non-family example, but Kevin strangely shows a subtle and unexplained bit of extra care for Chris.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Brian manages to track down Peter and Lois and save them from drowning in "Between Sanity and Madness".
  • Quagmire of all people pull one in "Poly-hu Akbar!". With him saving his wife Kimi before Yousief decapitated her.
• Big Storm Episode: Season 16's "Winter is Dumbing" is centered on a surprise snowstorm hitting Quahog and seeing multiple sketches from residents. Some include Peter gets cabin fever, Stewie gets stuck with Doug, Cleveland continually wants to shovel the driveway, Bruce tries to cook winter-themed dishes for Jeffery, among others.
• Birthday Episode:
  • "The Fat Man and the Sea" has Cleveland celebrate his 40th birthday.
  • "Long John Peter" is rewritten to start on Brian 8th birthday, as a way to age him up compared to have it off-screen in the original ^note In "Brian in Love" he revealed to by 7 years old, but in "The Man with Two Brians" got aged up a year off-screen.
  • "Life of Brian 2: Revival Reversal" takes place on Stewie's second birthday. However...
• A Birthday, Not a Break: Stewie celebrates his second birthday on the same day Brian commits suicide in "Revival Reversal".
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing:
  • Ellen, the Down Syndrome girl that Chris dated once in the original show but had a role changed, is made into this in "A Play on Turds". When she replaces Anna in the Romeo and Juliet play Chris auditioned for just to kiss Anna, Ellen is shown to be sweet and kind to the Drama Teacher. However, when she leaves, Ellen shows herself to be extremely demanding and bossy person, often rudely asking the cast members to do things for her, belittling the cast (mostly Meg and her friends) and was uncooperative towards them.
  • Implied with Keiko from "How Farg is Heaven?", when she laughs at Chris' anime art, even after he went through hell and back to learn the new style.
  • Emily from "Don't Fall in Love With a Streamer" reveals to be this to Chris, when after becoming Chris' girlfriend, Chris discovers messages that Emily is cheating on him with Kevin.
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • "The Guyfathers" ends with Paulie dying and Peter and Francis being upset, but despite it are thankful he saved them and wouldn't forget him.
  • "Full Metal Jackass" ends with Kevin leaving to go fight in the Iraq War and Meg refusing to tell him her true feelings for her, but she does this as she finally sees Kevin as a friend, and not as a boyfriend. Though Kevin does give a Ship Tease by revealing he had feelings for Meg too and gives her a kiss before boarding.
  • The Cleveland Show's newly added finale "Cleveland Moves Out" becomes one. The Brown-Tubbs family is able to successfully blow up the meteor, saving the Earth, but one of the blown-up pieces of the meteor crushes The Brown-Tubbs House and there's no hope in repairing their house because Cleveland and Donna got fired from their jobs and can't get money anymore. And to add salt to the wound, Roberta and Rallo are now social outcasts at school and can never show their faces in public again. With Cleveland deciding to move back to Quahog, Rhode Island with his family so he can go back to his old house and get his old job as a deli worker back again. Then, they can live their lives normally.
  • "The Quagmire Show" ends with Quagmire and Kimi divorcing after being together for seven years, but both parties are on better roads from when they started out as. Quagmire became a better man and ditched his pervert ways while Kimi gets her life back together with the help of her sister Kira, heading to a new high school to return to her normal life as a teenager.
  • "Karma's a Bitch", despite being a far-off Distant Finale, still has one. The episode ends with the Griffins losing their home, their lives and essentially are banned from Quahog for all the hell they caused. However, Peter remains hopeful and tells the family they'll start a new life somewhere else in the world, whether under fake identities or not.
• Blatant Lies: In "Between Sanity and Madness", Francis tells Peter he quit his job as the Pope’s special assistant and did some soul searching with Thelma and decided to make amends with Peter. In reality, Francis got fired due to being a nuisance and went with Thelma to gamble in Las Vegas until they lost their money. And went to Peter to Blackmail him into giving him more money, considering he’d did so in the past.
• Bleak Abyss Retirement Home: Subverted. Francis and Thelma dread getting sent to the Quahog Acres retirement home, so much that they actively make the Griffins' lives a living hell enough for Peter to change his mind. But when they go, they admit it's not so bad.
• Bookends:
  • "Between Sanity and Madness" begins with the Griffins hurrying into the car and driving off to avoid Francis and Thelma. The episode ends with them again hurrying into a car, but instead with Francis and Thelma, and to avoid Francis' father.
  • The Cleveland Show's newly added finale uses a bookend naming scheme. The show's first episode is called "Cleveland Moves In". Whereas the show's new finale, "Cleveland Moves Out" is the inversion of the show's first episode.
• Breakout Character:
  • Peter's old science teacher from middle school Randall Fargus, who originally only appeared in "Running Mates" (not counting his cameo in "The King is Dead"), gets way more expansion in this. Appearing in multiple episodes throughout the second to seventh seasons and is expanded to be a bit of a Mad Scientist...that's a somewhat Genius Ditz
  • Francis and Thelma heavily, thanks to their increased screentime. Especially the former, who takes Took a Level in Kindness (albeit small) and shows a more softer and playful side.
• Breather Episode: More of a Breather Side-Plot. In the side plot to "Neighbor Pains", an episode that had Brian and Lois discover the horrible truth of their new neighbor Herbert the Pervert (who falls in love with Chris), sees the Beer Bar Buddies look for a fourth member with a far more jokey and comedic direction compared to the more serious direction of the A-Plot.
• Brick Joke:
  • "Neighbor Pains" has Mr. Fred Rogers escaped the police when arrest for multiple crimes. Later on, he's seen coming out a strip club, drunk off his ass and was greeted by a bunch of cops surrounding him who murdered him.
  • When Carter tells a tasteless joke at Peter's "funeral" in "The Perfect Castaway", it cuts to Peter having the feeling of kicking Carter's ass if he gets home. At the end of the episode, when he does return and gets his welcome home hugs, Peter beats the crap out of Carter.
  • "Poly-hu Akbar!" Kimi goes to the farmer's market with her friends, Lois, Bonnie, and Donna to find someone, with Bonnie planing on cheating on her husband with someone because she hates him. Later at the Drunken Clam, Joe complains about Bonnie cheating on him, but everybody ignores him.
• Bungled Suicide:
  • "Between Sanity and Madness" have Francis and Thelma attempt to jump off the Holy Christ Church after Peter tells them he'll never love them again. This however, causes Peter, who was acting cold throughout the third arc, to melt and save them from death.
  • "The Truth About Meg" has Lois, being put under the pressure of what to do with Meg, attempt at committing suicide, but luckily failed.
• Butt-Monkey: Brian, Meg and Joe are the main monkeys as usual, in fact the Meg's butt monkey traits are being something seen more in the first few seasons rather than something that comes up more overtime, but also Francis sometimes, mostly thanks to his cantankerous behavior and mistreatment of Peter.

C

• Cannot Spit It Out: The big problem with Meg during the Meg & Kevin arc. She feelings for Kevin, but was too shy to admit them. Even during the one time she had the perfect opportunity to in "Full Metal Jackass". That said, Kevin revealed to also be the same way towards her.
• Call-Back: When Brian is shot dead in "Nanny Goats", Vinny immediately enters, in reference to Brian's famous death in "Life of Brian" and his being replaced by Vinny.
  Vinny: Ay! Anyone in need of a pet dog slash false babysitter-assasin?
• Calling Parents by Their Name: Owing to their strained relationship, Peter in the adaptation often calls Francis "Francis" or "Howard" instead of "Dad". Compared to Homer's frustration with it, Francis normally shrugs it off.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Peter does this more often than the original to Francis, and on a more upped angle
• The Casanova: Big Fat Paulie is revealed to be one in "The Guyfathers" to the surprise of Peter and Francis (who placed a bet on him that he owes them $20 if he can score a chick).
• Characterization Marches On:
  • A strange case. While Herbert does still retain his original personality, early appearances have him written as more of an antagonistic Chessmaster. With his debut episode "Neighbor Pains" have him hire Chris for chores so nobody would get suspicious.
    • Another example of different characterization in early appearances that change to the more well known portrays. Bruce, the timid Token Good Teammate of the cast, is surprisingly more snarky towards Meg in Season 1's "Meg for Mercy", and even bluntly admits his dissatisfaction with her progress. Traits of him that seem off in a modern reading and even get removed in the second season get phased out to have him be in his more original personality.
  • In early episodes, Francis talks very well about Karen and seems to hint at him having Parental Favoritism to her. With him even mentioning he likes her more than Peter and even does a playful tease to Peter by trying to call her at the end "Between Sanity and Madness" to have her come for a visit, to which Peter tackled Francis to avoid said visit. This comes off as really jarring when Season 14's "Handling Karen" reveals that Francis kicked her out of the house when she came out as a lesbian, practically disowning her.
• Chekhov's Gag:
  • In "Mad Mex", Peter wants to build a borderwall to keep all the Mexicans out. So, he gets a Peter Mixer, which is a Peter Griffin version of a Cement Mixer. He later on uses the Peter Mixer, to let the Mexicans back into America again by using it as a cannon for firing balls of concrete at the border wall and it's guards.
  • In "A Woman Walks Into a Bar", Randall buys a ham-radio from a junk sale, and fiddles with it from time to time, thinking he can use it to help save the family attraction and through some messing around with it. Around the end, it becomes useful when he contacts Ronald Regan from the radio.
  • In "Fattest in the West", Zephyr comments on how Wild West put the old audio equipment in the shed outback instead of throwing it away and still has it linked to the speakers throughout town, and the two get into an argument about Wild being lazy to take care of it. Later, it becomes useful for them to use it as a distraction for the angry mob. Speaking of...
• Chekhov's Skill: Throughout "Fattest in the West", Wild summons his horse Ginger and alerts townsfolk of his presence by whistling, which he can't do when he becomes obese later on. It however becomes important in the third act as him and Zephyr use his whistle to drive the angry mob away.
• Collector of the Strange: Edward Louis, one of Carol's Poly. Husbands, collects alcohol beverages like wine and beer. Despite this, he doesn't drink alcohol, which Edwin Erickson, another of Carol's Poly. Husbands, lampshades in "Vat Man and Rob 'Em", when the two go out to the after-hours Pawtucket Brewery bar just for Edward to not even drink there.
  Edwin: Edward, aren't you gonna drink that?
  Edward: Nah. This is for my beer collection.
  Edwin: So, you took me to this bar at one in the morning to collect beer from some company's vat, and not even gonna drink it?!
  Edward: Yep.
• Composite Character: In the adaptation where it readapts certain episodes, it has a few times where characters share traits with characters seen in the original
  • "Ready, Willing, and Disabled" has parts of Peter's part in the A-Plot split. Bonnie plays the side to help Joe train, while Kevin plays the Comic Relief, taking some of the slapstick and gags Peter had in the episode (as well as being the one to drug Joe's drink)
  • Due to the rewritten Season 11 making the whole season have Brian killed off, episodes where Brian appeared in the original ("Encyclopedia Griffin", "Boopa-Dee Bappa-Dee", "Vestigial Peter", "Baby Got Black", "Grimm Job",

"He's Bla-ack!", "A White for the Coloreds", "Turkey Guys" and "Hot Pocket-Dial") have Brian written out and has Vinny take his spot and most of Brian's lines are readapted to be for Vinny.

• "A Bottle Episode"'s B-Plot now has Change for a Buck and Seamus taking the stage instead of Brian and Stewie. With them actually having the same type of dynamic Brian and Stewie had in that episode.

• Cool Old Guy: Randall Fargus becomes one. An old guy that's a fun-loving guy, has many ways to teach his kids, makes tons of inventions and is completely spry and lively despite being in his ninety's.

---