The first three seasons of Family Guy, in every sense of the word, was an entirely different show.
After it was canceled briefly, it got revived due to excellent DVD sales, and while it did maintain
its quality for a decent while, the charm of those first three seasons was never quite recaptured.
And as many people point out - all of the main characters were very very different during this
period. To the point where, we wanted to dive into their morality from this era exclusively.
I’m Kyle with WickedBinge,
and this is Classic (Seasons 1 to 3) Family Guy Characters: Good to Evil.
As usual, we’ll be starting with the mst noble character
and working our way down to the most evil. These Characters Are The Good.
The Gold Medal of Good was a tough decision, but we’re going to give it to Cleveland Brown.
Cleveland could more or less be described as the “anti-Family Guy character”--even in these
earlier, more tame seasons. In contrast to the show’s sarcastic, over-the-top tone, Cleveland is
the straight man of the group. He’s characterized by being a very nice and passive man. He’s polite,
incredibly forgiving, and an overall good friend who’s always willing to help those
in need. He might just be the friendliest face in Quahog, and we’re giving him the Gold Medal
of Good simply because there’s really nothing bad to say about him, either. Cleveland is a
total sweetheart and a great neighbor–and we hope he’s proud to be our top pick.
For our Silver Medal of Good, we’re going with a deep cut character who hasn’t appeared since
season 3: Dr. Bruce Kaplan. Not to be confused with the soft spoken Bruce who,
although a mainstay, has few early appearances, Dr. Kaplan is Brian’s therapist. A forgotten
aspect of his character, Dr. Kaplan helped Brian to confront some of his issues–specifically his
feelings for Lois and his struggle with addiction later on. Sadly, he was fired
by Brian during his cocaine addiction phase, but he’s a genuinely good man who wants to help Brian,
offering him comfort and support beyond what you’d expect from a typical therapist.
Next up is the first of many–and we mean MANY–characters who fell off from their
early-seasons morality. Bonnie Swanson is utterly unrecognizable from the cold,
downright psychotic wife she’s become in later seasons, Bonnie is Joe’s wife–and in this era, he
couldn’t ask for a better one. Bonnie is actually similar to Cleveland in personality; she’s polite,
passive, and an overall supportive wife who’s always her husband’s biggest cheerleader.
There’s nothing bad to say about Bonnie, really–so we’ve got to place her in an honorable position.
And as the old saying goes, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. On that note, next up are The
Quahog Neighbors’ Kids–Kevin Swanson and Cleveland Junior. Neither of these two had much screen time,
and they’d certainly change quite a bit later on, with Kevin Swanson becoming a
traumatized war veteran and Cleveland Junior being strangled to death and replaced with
someone who looks nothing like him. But in the classic seasons, they both seem like nice kids,
and they have no outwardly negative attributes, so we’re going to let them share this spot.
Speaking of changes, next up is the first of the Griffins,
and perhaps the one who changed the most over the course of the series: Brian Griffin. Brian
is the embodiment of dogs’ status as symbols of “man’s best friend.” But while he’s the voice
of moral reason for the Griffin family, Brian is much more than just an earpiece;
he’s a kindhearted activist who cares deeply for his own rights and learning about who he is,
making strides to work on himself consistently. He’s not perfect–he does have a bit of an alcohol
problem, and can act on impulses sometimes, like the time he breeded with Mr. Pewterschmidt’s
prize race dog Seabreeze during a race. On the whole, though, Brian is a pretty moral guy,
and is ironically the voice of reason for the Griffin family…enjoy that while it lasts.
Oh, and on the subject of dogs, let’s give a quick
mention to Brian’s cousin Jasper. Since he only appears in a couple of episodes,
we can’t say too much about Jasper–but he is a very friendly guy and a supportive cousin
who Brian can always turn to. He’s also the series’ first openly gay rep–speaking of which…
If you’ve mostly watched modern Family Guy, the phrase “Peter’s Boss” might bring Angela to mind,
but before her, there was Mr. Weed. Jonathan Weed is the owner of the Happy-Go-Lucky Toy
Factory. He’s a decent man, looking after his employees fairly well and
making efforts to ensure they’re treated fairly–as evidenced by him sending Peter to
a women’s sensitivity class. There’s not too much to say about Mr. Weed–at best,
he’s a pretty good boss and a nice guy, and at worst, he just comes on a bit strong.
Easily the nicest of the Griffin kids, we’re giving the next spot on our list
to Chris Griffin. Debatably Peter’s favorite kid, Chris is a softhearted guy with brains that rival
Peter’s–-but…not in the best way. As dull as Chris is, he’s a sweet kid–often trying way
too hard to please others even at his own expense. There are times where he lets the typical teenage
lust for popularity take over, and he can be a little unstable at times, but Chris is still a
nice dude. Dim-witted and slow, which is why he earns him the Sloth Medal… but a good guy
One of the DVD boxes summed up his character pretty well:
Chris wouldn’t hurt a fly…unless it landed on his hot dog.
But even though he’s got a leg up on our next entry, we still wheely think this next one’s
a great neighbor. So let’s roll Joe Swanson to the next spot. While later seasons have
given him something of a pitiful reputation, Joe was originally the resident cool guy of
Quahog. A wheelchair-bound policeman who was paralyzed after a standoff with the Grinch,
he’s a good-natured and friendly guy who’s always ready to defend the innocent and uphold the law.
He’s probably the most outwardly heroic character in the cast–so why isn’t he number one? Well,
he’s got a bit of a temper, appearing as rather controlling over others and on one occasion
revealing that he attacked his son for winning in a game. We’ll say that Joe has a lot of pride,
and for that reason earns him the Pride Sinner Medal. He does his best to keep it all in check,
though–and his willingness to put himself in harm’s way for others is still worth a lot.
Rounding out our good characters is the character the show ironically wants us to
hate the most–but Meg Griffin is actually pretty darn okay. Being your typical teenage wallflower,
she’s desperate for popularity and will follow just about any crowd to
achieve it. Meg is generally a nice girl who loves her family,
and her worst moments really begin and end at her being a typical social-status-pursuing teenage
girl. That jealousy earns her the Envy Sinner Medal. She might not exactly be a superhero,
but Meg is pretty A-OK–even if the later seasons think she’s anything but.
Here’s where things get interesting–this is The Gray Area.
Now, this might be a surprise, but even in the earlier Family Guy seasons,
we have to put Lois Griffin in the Gray Area. Lois Griffin’s original characterization
was that of a loving, hardworking mother. She shows impressive patience with Peter’s antics,
sticking by him through even his absolute worst moments. That said, Lois isn’t perfect either;
she might be much more responsible than Peter, but she also tends to lose her temper a lot
quicker. This ranges from her being a general nag to her losing complete control of her temper over
her house being out of on Christmas, even trying to ruin the town’s Christmas tree.
She also lets power go to her head when she learns self-defense in kung fu class. While
we’ll submit that she’s a decent person overall, we still feel she needs to be in the Gray Area.
Aw jeez, Lois, you’re in the Gray Area? Man, that sucks–but it’s not as bad as the time we
had to put Peter Griffin down there. While he is a FAR cry from the comical sociopath he’s
become in later seasons, Peter Griffin’s original design was more or less a parody of Homer Simpson.
Peter is reckless, childish, impulsive, and often selfish–and amps all those traits up to eleven.
Peter’s immense stupidity also earns him the Darwin Sinner Medal. But there’s a difference in
these early seasons, and that difference is that Peter pretty much always means well. The first
episode is a perfect example of this: he ends up committing welfare fraud, which isn’t good,
but he only did so to give his family the life they deserved. He also took Brian in
when he was a stray on the streets, and despite his ignorance, he’s a genuinely loving husband
and father. He causes his fair share of trouble, often preventable, but when push comes to shove,
Peter always does the right thing by the end of the day. We can’t call a guy who’d masquerade
as a cool high-school student to stop a drug epidemic, stick up for his best friend and pet
dog so he won’t be neutered, or offer to take a bullet for his wife anything close to a bad guy.
We’ll sum up Peter and Lois like this; while they are far from beacons of morality, they’re mostly
harmless and are genuinely loving parents and spouses. But in Peter’s case, he’s just too darn
chaotic–and occasionally thoughtless–to place him anywhere but the Gray Area.
If you want an example of said chaos, look no further than his iconic fights with
Ernie the Giant Chicken. He’s well known for his series-long beef with Peter, all of which
started because of…an expired coupon. While we’ll submit that Peter certainly overreacted,
none of it would’ve happened if Ernie hadn’t done something so cruel. He’s complicit in
multiple counts of assault, property damage, et cetera. But maybe he’s a perfectly nice guy
outside of these fights–ironically, that would place him right alongside Peter.
So we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and let them duke it out amongst themselves…
Before Mort Goldman became a recurring character, we saw much more of his son,
Neil Goldman. His character more or less begins and ends at being that guy in high school. Ladies,
you probably know what we mean–he’s that guy who won’t take no for an answer,
obsessively asking Meg out no matter how clear she makes it that she’s not
interested. He’s the embodiment of a guy who can’t respect someone’s boundaries to save
his life–but other than this, he’s pretty much harmless. Just very, very creepy/.
But that probably isn’t news to you. Speaking of news, up next we have two of the most iconic
recurring gag characters in Family Guy: Tom Tucker and Diane Simmons. These two act as
Quahog Channel 5 News’s primary anchors. There’s little to say about them, really;
they bicker with and insult each other constantly and make insensitive comments
quite often. That said, they’re not outright evil–in Tom Tucker’s case, he seems to care
about his son, Jake Tucker, being upset at those who insult his facial disfigurement.
As for Diane…well, at least she wasn’t a murderer at this point. That’s nice.
Every good news anchor needs a good story–and every good story needs a mayor–and there’s never
going to be another mayor like Mayor Adam West. The fact that Adam West is Quahog’s
utterly unpredictable mayor is honestly a testament to classic Family Guy’s sense of
humor–and he really does capture the spirit of these earlier seasons. There’s absolutely no
rhyme or reason to most of the things Adam West does–he’s the embodiment of the “Chaotic Neutral”
alignment. His scatterbrained nature leads to him acting irresponsibly as Quahog’s mayor,
like wasting the taxpayers’ money on an investigation on water theft. He might
be stubborn and irresponsible, but he’s not an outright bad person–he’s just legitimately insane.
But at least if the Noid ruins your pizza, you know you can count on him to avenge it.
If you thought having Adam West as the mayor of Quahog was strange, what if we told you
Norm Macdonald was its Grim Reaper? Death is one of Family Guy’s most memorable guest
characters. Even though he’s taking people’s souls, we’re not going to call him a bad guy,
since he’s the literal embodiment of death. It’s not like he can just…stop being Death, right? His
job is to take the souls of people who have died. He can even be nice sometimes–helping Peter learn
the lesson he needs to in order to prevent Lois divorcing him in the future. That said,
he’s also not above abusing his power–on one occasion, he kills his date just for
not being a good conversationalist. So while he’s not a villain, he’s certainly not a hero.
Rounding out the Gray Area is a character who, given our guidelines, is just a few episodes
short of a spot in the Bad section–Loretta Brown. Fans probably remember Loretta as
Cleveland’s unfaithful ex-wife, which is quite understandable given that it’s the only thing
really memorable about her character. But that episode came out in early season four,
meaning it’s just outside of our range of discussion for today. So while we
can still call Loretta rude, brash, and overly controlling of her husband, we wouldn’t call her
a full-on bad person, per se–she’s just really off-putting. You deserve better, Cleveland.
But these next characters really don’t–this is The Bad to Evil.
High school bullies are no rare occurrence, even in cartoons. Connie D’Amico is Family
Guy’s answer to the archetype, and she fits it pretty darn well. As the resident popular kid
of James Woods High, she’s the envy of all the other kids at school. Most often Meg,
who would be ecstatic if she even noticed her at some point. Connie isn’t as bad as characters down
the line for the simple reason that she isn’t a murderer, sex offender, or criminal. That alone
separates her from most of the characters beneath her–but Connie is still downright mean, using her
status to push Meg around and sometimes even lead her on into thinking they’re friends–like
the time she tricked her into kissing a pig on the mouth at one of her famed parties. She’s shallow,
mean, and never really shows any remorse for it–if you ask us, she really needs to repent.
If we were to tell our next character about her, he’d surely agree–but don’t let that
fool you into thinking Francis Griffin is innocent. If “Ned Flanders” is an example
of a good religious man… Francis Griffin is the opposite. Imagine everything that a good,
Christian man is supposed to be–generous, compassionate, patient, loving,
et cetera–and make sure absolutely NONE of those traits are present. Amp the negative opposing
traits to 11, and you’ve got Francis Griffin. We don’t have anything nice to say about Francis;
he’s mean, spiteful, stubborn, and downright cruel. As far as we’re concerned, his claim that
he loves Peter is nothing more than an attempt to save face; there’s just no evidence for it.
But as far as cruel father figures go, even Francis Griffin can’t beat Carter
Pewterschmidt. Father to Lois and father in law to Peter, Carter is every man’s greatest
fear as far as in-laws are concerned. He doesn’t approve of Peter at all,
as shown best in the episode “Death Lives” where it’s revealed that he dumped Peter in the ocean to
try and keep Lois from marrying him. He not only cares more about his own pride and status than
his daughter’s happiness, but he’s willing to use his immense wealth and resources to
exploit others and even get them “out of the picture” as needed. Carter is a greedy man,
and for that reason he earns the Greed Sinner Medal. Carter is also extremely spiteful–when
Brian breeds with his race dog, Seabreeze, he tries his hardest to get him neutered and keep
him from seeing his kids. Really, his only saving graces are that he does love his daughter and
isn’t as evil as he gets in later seasons. At least he hasn’t hidden the cure to cancer yet.
Who else but Glenn Quagmire could take the bronze medal of evil? While he might be one of the most
hilarious characters in Family Guy, Quagmire is far from a good guy. How do we put this lightly…?
Well, let’s start with his good traits. Quagmire does care about his friends and neighbors,
to an extent. He’s a reliable confidant to Peter, Joe, and Cleveland. And…yeah, that’s honestly it.
While Family Guy has made a genuine effort to give Quagmire more positive traits in the later
seasons, his original character is really just honed in on him being a perv and even someone who
commits assault. He earns the Lust Sinner Medal for obvious reasons. He seems almost proud of
this, and has practically no limitations–he even goes after high school girls on a few
occasions. Remember that party of Connie’s we mentioned earlier? As a way of getting back
at her for bullying Meg, Lois sent Quagmire an invitation…and he sure liked where it was going.
It might be controversial to put the (somewhat) lovable Quagmire above someone as vile as Carter,
but while later seasons might have revealed Carter as being an even worse man than he originally was,
Quagmire was at his peak of immorality from the very beginning of the series.
Since we’re talking classic seasons here, he’s got to place near the top for sure.
But next we have a character who started at peak evil….and just stayed right there. Herbert the
Pervert takes home the Silver Medal of Evil. On the outside, Herbert is a soft spoken,
gentle old man, but as his nickname suggests, Herbert is a disgusting child predator.
Constantly scheming to lure kids into his basement with the promise of popsicles–we
don’t even wanna KNOW what’s in those, by the way–his character begins and ends right there.
He only debuts in the latter half of season 3, but honestly, that doesn’t change much about his
placement considering his character doesn’t really go deeper than this. Whether you love
him for his antics or hate him for his…well, everything, really, there’s no denying that
Herbert is the scum of the earth. The only real question is how on earth he isn’t number one?
Call it controversial if you will, but pure evil deserves credit where it’s due–with that,
we’re giving our Gold Medal of Evil to Stewie Griffin. Stewie has grown a lot over the
course of the series. He’s better known now as flamboyant, sarcastic, and an absolute gay icon.
But his classic personality is that of an evil genius straight out of the womb. He might not
fully understand the world yet, but he’s already quite dangerous. He regularly attempts to kill his
mother, Lois, which is already enough to put him pretty darn low on this list, but he doesn’t stop
there. He’s not above infiltrating Peter’s body to keep their future children from being born,
controlling Chris’s mind to effectively make him into his robot, and even freezing a friendly
airport security guard in carbonite just for seemingly no reason at all. He was so nice,
too! All this anger and violence more than earns him the Wrath Sinner Medal.
Stewie does also have good moments, but they’re generally only done out of his own necessity.
He may be hilarious–and honestly pretty darn lovable–but Stewie is still constantly scheming
to take over the world, kill his own mother, and get anyone(or anything) who happens to
get in his way or even inconvenience him out of the picture. And honestly,
we feel like we’d be doing a disservice to classic Stewie Griffin if we labeled him
anything but the most evil character in classic Family Guy. But there was that one time he used
his birthday wish to revive disco–whether that’s a mark for or against him is up to you guys.