Brian Griffin

Brian Griffin
Brian
Name	Brian H. Griffin
Age	7 (human years)/49 (dog years) (debut) 8 (human years)/56 (dog years) (as of Long John Peter) 9 (human years)/63 (dog years) (as of Bri, Robot) 10 (human years)/70 (dog years) (as of Cootie and the Blowhard)
Job(s)	Self-employed "Author" Suicide Hotline ("Workin' for the Man"-"Brian Come Home for Christmas") Pawtucket Brewery ("Return to the Seas"-Present)
Relatives	Coco (father; deceased) Biscuit (mother; deceased) Scout (uncle) Jerry (brother; deceased) Callie (sister) Jasper (cousin) Ricardo (cousin-in-law) Jess Griffin (ex-wife; deceased) Helen Schlotz (mother-in-law) Scrappy Brian (nephew; deceased) Dylan Flannigan (son) Luke (former owner) Betty (former owner) Peter Griffin (owner/former best friend) Lois Griffin (owner/good friend) Chris Griffin (owner/friend) Meg Griffin (owner) Stewie Griffin (owner/best friend)
Voice	William H. Macy("Death Has a Shadow", "A Star is Born... Kind Of", and archival recordings/reprise in "Back to the Pilot") Seth MacFarlane(primarily)

"Whose leg do I have to hump to get a martini around here?"

— "I Never Met Mr. Deaddy"

Brian H. Griffin (born February 5, 1991) is the deuteragonist (alongside Lois Griffin) of Family Guy. He's a talking white Labrador who has lived with the Griffin family since Peter picked him up as a stray. He also possesses various anthropomorphic qualities, such as the ability to speak intelligently, drive a car, and walk bipedally. Earlier in the series, he used the catch phrase "Whose leg do have to hump to get a dry martini around here?".

He also has a particularly sharp wit and is Peter's his best friend, despite Brian's vastly superior intelligence - on several occasions, Brian has had to explain Peter's inability to do various things, such as haggling over prices in "Death is a Bitch". In "Brian Goes Back to College", it is revealed that Brian went to Brown University in Rhode Island, but did not graduate.

Biography

Brian has a cultured background; he loves opera and jazz, and is a fan of John Coltrane. Brian speaks fluent French and Tagalog, and is competent in Spanish. He is also a member of MENSA. He loves to sing and can imitate a barbershop quartet without accompaniment. He is also an avid writer, having once been invited to write for The New Yorker, although he was fired once the magazine learned he did not graduate from college. He has also written a novel, although has made little progress other than the title Faster Than the Speed of Love, and a synopsis similar to the film "Iron Eagle III", for which Stewie and Lois mock him, and this subject has since been brought up several times throughout the series.

He is a smoker (early on), an alcoholic and recovered cocaine addict. Brian discovered that his cocaine habit stemmed from his mother abandoning him for which he saw a therapist. He has also made references to either buying, being in possession of, or smoking marijuana in numerous episodes. In "420", he actually does a whole dance to the song A Bag of Weed. In "It Takes a Village Idiot, and I Married One", it is revealed he has a Ziggy tattoo. It is shown in "Brian & Stewie" that he keeps a gun just in case he wants to commit suicide.

Birthplace and parents

Brian was born on a farm in Austin, Texas, in a litter of five puppies. His father was a guard dog named Coco, his mother was named Biscuit, and the owner of all the dogs were farmers. He was apparently abandoned by his mother, which lead to most of his personal problems. In "Don't Make Me Over", he is embarrassed for hostility barking at a famous rapper and blamed his upbringing by his father Coco. At the end of the episode he becomes enraged because he is thinks that the camera man is shocked because he turned off a black tv program and explains that he only turns it off because he's tired and not because it's a black show.

Around sometime when he was still a puppy, he was adopted by the Hendersons as revealed in "Who's Brian Now?". At some point, possibly when he was four or five (or even earlier) Brian went missing and the family eventually stopped looking for him.

When reunited with his first owner in "Road to Rhode Island", he says "I was the one who could talk.". In the same episode, he discovers that his mother died and was made into a table. Brian and Stewie steal the body and give it a funeral, for which Stewie made a good-intentioned but insensitive requiem of how nice of a table she was.

Past Adult Life

He somehow made his way to Rhode Island and attended Brown University as revealed in "The Story On Page One". He is currently one class short of graduating from Brown (The class is Physics 101 - in "Brian Goes Back to College", Brian re-enrolls in an attempt to earn his degree, but fails). Brian has also served in the Peace Corps as mentioned in "Jungle Fever". He has mentioned that he hung out with Andy Warhol in the 1970s, though this particular interlude is most likely one of the show's reality-bending cutaways.

Griffin Family and Current Life

In a flashback seen in "Brian Griffin: Portrait of a Dog", around two to three years before the start of the show Brian spent some time as a homeless stray, washing car windshields for change before he met Peter, who feeling bad for the stray, offered him a home with his family and adopted him into the Griffin family. Prior to Brian, the Griffins had another talking dog named Todd, who was put down at the age of 15 due to illness the same day Peter got Brian.

When Family Guy debuted, Brian was a seven year old dog, forty-nine in human years, which he conformed in Season 1's "Brian in Love" ("I'm seven years old and if I play my cards right, I got seven more years ahead of me.") He then turned 8 in "Long John Peter", 9 in "Bri, Robot" and 10 in "Cootie and the Blowhard"

In "Brian in Love", Brian suffers from incontinence due the stress of repressing his romantic feelings toward Lois. He initially tries to hide this condition by blaming it on Stewie, but is discovered when he has a public accident in the grocery store.

Another example of Brian's "humanity" is his attraction to human women; Brian has dated several since the show began, and is deeply in love with Peter's wife, Lois. No character has ever commented on the bestiality aspects of a relationship between Brian and a human (though in a deleted scene from "Movin' Out (Brian's Song)", a woman is disgusted by the idea of dating him, on account of him being a dog, and in "The Perfect Castaway", Carter, while explaining what is wrong with Lois's temporary marriage to Brian, says "That and, uh, hi? He's a dog."). Brian has also been accidentally been called "Brain Griffin" in "Brian Griffin: Portrait of a Dog", by the dog show announcer.

Vinny

In the Season 11 premiere "Life of Brian", Brian was killed by getting run over by a car and was written off of the main cast. The next episode afterward, "A Filler in Need", Brian was replaced by a dog named Vinny Filipeli, who took his spot as the family dog like a glove. For the rest of said season, Brian was only mentioned in passing a few times and was only seen in two episodes if not counting the season finale: "Replaced: Brian's Story" and "A New Lease on Death". In "Christmas Guy", Stewie traveled back in time and saved Brian from getting run over. And thus, Brian rejoined the main cast while Vinny faded away.

Eviction

In "Don't Trust the D in Apartment 23", Brian was banned from The Griffin House, after attracting an angry mob of SJWs to the house and family, for posting a racist joke on Twitter. Brian moved to a run-down old apartment, where he lived out his days. Brian lived in a crappy old room, with no carpets or even wallpapers. His feet froze on the cold cement floor, and it was painful for him to stand in one place for too long, without a towel under his feet. Running water was a no, and electricity was slim. He also lived next door to an arguing couple, who could be heard beautifully through the thin separating wall.

The apartment manager Lou Spinazola, became somewhat of a friend of his, and his only ally in the new neighborhood. He knew the ins and outs to that side of town and made sure to keep Brian on the safe side, so that he doesn't end up getting mugged or becoming a Bahraini guy's sex doll. He also totally agreed with him on the whole freedom of speech thing and thought those SJWs were just flipping their shit over nothing.

In "Workin' for the Man", a week had passed and Lou got on Brian's case about paying the rent. Brian was obligated to find work, and eventually landed a job at a Suicide Hotline. Unfortunately, this was his last resort, after all of his miserably failed previous job interviews.

In "Petey IV", Brian hit on a new girl named Martha at the Suicide Hotline. His attempts at flirting with her were disastrous, and it got to the point, where she was considering filing a rape accusation against him. Brian knew that because she was a woman in 2017, she would be taken seriously, evidence or no evidence and he couldn't deal with another SJW outrage. He thought fast and decided to plant cocaine in her desk, and get her fired, before she could make any rape accusations. Even if she did make a rape accusation, she wouldn't be taken too seriously if she was in the wrong too, right? Well, he was right. Unfortunately for him, Martha decided against making the accusation the day after, forgave, and went out with Brian, just after he ratted her out to the police. This got Martha taken away right on the spot, where she instantly found out what Brian did. Out of fury, she attacked Brian and sent him falling down a flight of stairs, where he broke his leg.

In "Break a Leg", Brian's broken leg kept him bound to his own apartment room. Being in a leg cast, and needing to use a wheelchair for transportation, Brian had to be temporarily laid off from his job. Unfortunately, this meant he had to pay the rent again, and without money, he wouldn't have a room to be bound to. Brian needed a job that a cripple could work at, and decided to become a cop. Crime was high in his part of town and naturally, law enforcement was little and lax. So, Brian didn't need any qualifications to become a cop. At first, this was great because a competent cop was just what that madhouse of a town needed, but this got bad soon, since Brian's broken leg got in the way of a ton of stuff. He just couldn't fight crime in a wheelchair, the way Joe did. Brian quit his job and with just a day left to pay the rent, all the criminals he persecuted, came back to kick him in the ass, breaking many other bones in his body (which would be forgotten in the next episode, unlike his leg, oddly enough). Lou decided after this, that Brian had gone through enough and had the heart to let him stay in the apartment, without paying the rent.

In "Crimes and Meg's Demeanor", Brian's boredom of being in the apartment dragged on into December, with his leg still broken. Brian used binoculars to look out the window and see into the rooms of the apartment next door. There, he could have sworn he saw Principal Shepherd killing his wife. He spent his time, fixated on Principal Shepherd in his room, which got dark, when Shepherd caught him looking in there. He then came over to his apartment and a physical fight broke out, which eventually led to Brian falling off the balcony and landing on the ground, putting him into the hospital again. At this time, the SJW nonsense had finally died down, thanks to Brian's heroism with taking on Principal Shepherd. After this, Brian was allowed back into The Griffin House.

In "Brian Come Home for Christmas", Brian moved back into The Griffin House and his leg healed, just in time for Christmas. He was also able to get revenge on the SJWs, and made himself a bit of a political hero in Quahog. This was, as he claimed, the best Christmas present he ever recieved.

Future Death

In "Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story", which is set 30 years in the future, it is revealed that Brian died (or rather, will die) after "getting into the garbage and eating some chocolate". We see him in Heaven, he tries to get into intellectual conversations with Van Gogh, Ernest Hemingway, and Kurt Cobain, but is discouraged to learn that their deaths were far more artistically noble than his. It should be noted, however, that the future as depicted in Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story may not actually happen, as Stewie takes action to prevent his own future as it is shown in Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story from occurring.

When Stewie traveled to the future he learned that Brian died from eating chocolate. However, because Stewie returned to the present and avoided the near-death experience, this event might never occur. Nevertheless, causality was never established between these events so it is possible that Brian could still die from eating chocolates. Also, in the commentary on the DVD, Seth MacFarlane says that it is logical for Brian to die because he'd be 266 in dog years. So even if Stewie did change the timeline, Brian will still die, even if he does not eat the chocolates.

When Stewie did see Brian dead he called him a "douchebag", though future Stewie said that the meaning of that word was changed after the election of a man with the name Douchebag. Brian is seen in heaven at a table drinking martinis with Vincent van Gogh, Kurt Cobain, and Ernest Hemingway in "Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story" / "Stu & Stewie's Excellent Adventure". He says "Wow, who would have thought it? Me having drinks with Ernest Hemingway, Vincent Van Gogh and Kurt Cobain. Still, feels like we all got here a little early..." They then all say that they killed themselves out of passion for various reasons. He then admits that he ate some chocolate out of the trash can in the back.

Past Life

In "Peter's Progress", Cleveland's cousin, Madame Claude, came to visit Quahog. Cleveland revealed that she was a palm reader. After learning this, she reads all the guys palms. Even though she didn't read Brian's palm, in Peter's reading, he is the court jester for King Stewart III or Stewie after the last jester was killed because he wasn't very funny.

Appearance

Brian is a white Labrador retriever who stands on his hind legs, using his front legs for arms. Like any dog, he is very short, being about twice the size of Stewie. He wears a red collar with a golden, circular tag on it.

Personality

General

Brian Griffin is a very intelligent and sophisticated dog. He is the most human member of the entire family, despite the fact that he's an animal. He serves as the voice of reason to the entire family and is usually the one who stays calm in moments where everyone else is bouncing off the walls and acting crazy. Brian is very poetic and philosophical and he thinks a lot about everything. He's a self-proclaimed writer for a series of books that he's looking to get published and he takes events from his everyday life and puts them into words. As the most sensible member of the Griffin family, Brian often serves as the voice of reason or as a mediator during family arguments. He is also usually the first one to realize that there is impending danger. Because of his intelligence and dry, deadpan manner, Brian sometimes acts as the "straight man" of the show.

He does, however have a lot of internal distress and problems with himself. In "Brian & Stewie", he admits to Stewie that he can't find a purpose in his life, and keeps a gun in his safety deposit box in case he ever decides to commit suicide. "It's a Dog's Life" however, cements how important Brian is to the Griffin family, and makes him realize that his existence has meaning to them. Brian is notably intelligent, enjoying renowned works of art such as the opera Carmen and the works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. He has also heavily invested in the stock market, and collects first editions of literary classics. In "Meet the Quagmires" he is shown to be able to play the guitar and keytar, although this may have just been another play on the scene in Back to the Future. Also, he is shown playing drums in "McStroke". His intellectual bent makes it very difficult for him to form romantic relationships with people, which may be one reason for his substance abuse as a coping mechanism.

Douchey Behavior

See also: Brian Griffin's Douchey Behavior

Although he seems to be very flawless and perfect, in comparison to the rest of the Griffin family which are a giant mess of a family, as the series progressed it is shown that deep down, Brian is a very self-centered, egotistical man who sees himself as a much better person than he is, and thinks very little about the feelings of others. He is a pretentious douchebag who likes to describe himself, using flowered dialogue, in attempt to make other people see him as an amazing person in order to receive that kind of respect. A lot of the time, he just uses this persona in order to get women to sleep with him. He'll often times to go a bar or a restaurant and use a bunch of douchey, cheesy, cringe worthy pickup lines on them, and try to woo them over with his self-righteous descriptions of himself. He claims to love women for their personalities, but it's obvious he only wants to have sex with them. Sometimes, he doesn't even know what it is he's talking about and just acts like he does because his ego feeds off of the appreciation of others.

In his defense, though. His egotistical need to be appreciated could come from the fact that he barely had any time to spend with his mother and father, so he never received any appreciation from them. That, and he is often being ignored in his current family no matter how right he is. Because the way politics work in the Griffin family is that when stupidity faces off against intelligence, stupidity always wins big time. Plus as seen from his original owners in "Who's Brian Now?", Brian's tendencies might have come from them as the patriarch has the same personality. But regardless of an excuse he may have for his egotism, it doesn't excuse the fact that he's ungrateful to Peter, who allows him to live in his house with him and pays his own money to keep him pampered and well-fed. Brian never pays for his own purchases and lets Peter handle all of it. Brian also always condescends down on him and treats him like an idiot. Granted, Peter Griffin is, in fact a total idiot and he does a lot of stupid things, which is undeniable, but Brian acts very rude toward him when he does this stuff, while other members of the family, are a bit more respectful.

Brian is also way too open about his political and religious beliefs, always going around spouting a bunch of reasons why being a Democrat and a Left-Wing Liberal is the way to go and why he's a genius for doing that. He is also very douchey about being an Atheist, believing that religious people are stupid for believing in their "childish fantasies". On several occasions, it is heavily implied that Brian isn't an actual bookworm, but he pretends to be one to impress those around him. He is also very proud of being a Prius owner and needs everyone around him to know that he's being "helpful to the environment" by owning one. As the seasons have been going on, Brian's negative personality traits have only been getting more and more noticeable, to the point where he basically knows what he's doing is wrong, but he does it anyway.

Brian for most part is very well liked by a majority of the characters. It appears the only exception is Quagmire who it is revealed in "Jerome is the New Black" dislikes him completely. When Brian asks why, Glenn proceeds to points out every single mistake, hypocrisy and selfish actions Brian has ever presented, from being a hypocritical hyper-liberal, to mocking anyone for believing in religion, to neglecting his teenaged son Dylan. A few of Quagmire's statements towards Brian are considered ironic, as Quagmire himself has done actions he berated Brian for. For example, Glenn points out Brian's romantic fixation for his best friend Peter's wife Lois as a reason, despite the fact that Glenn himself has been stalking Lois for many years now with more selfish intentions, though he also mentioned that it was a bad way of repaying Peter for taking in him in the house. Also, Brian showed genuine love and care for his neglected son Dylan when they reconciled in "The Former Life of Brian", while Quagmire pretty much ignored all of his children born from the women he has had sex with, such as Anna Lee Quagmire in Quagmire's Baby. But in the end, the difference is that Quagmire knows he is a nasty piece of work and doesn't ever pretend to have the moral high ground, unlike Brian, who does pretend to have it. He said himself that he could forgive all the flaws he pointed about Brian (having many of them himself) if not for Brian's attitude.

Human and canine traits

In the Family Guy universe, dogs can walk bipedal and talk like Brian, his cousin Jasper and the dog the Griffin family got in "The Man with Two Brians", New Brian, or more true-to-life, such as his mother, Biscuit, his father Coco, and his one time lover, Seabreeze. Both classes are subject to the same rules, such as not being allowed inside certain shops or to wander the streets without an owner.

Brian shares certain traits and attributes with real dogs though. For example, he cleans himself with his tongue and scratches at fleas with his hind leg. On the commentary of "Road to Rhode Island" he confirmed that he sees in black and white. He has a fear of the toilet flushing and of the vacuum (which is ironic, considering that he was actually vacuuming in "Fore Father"). He also couldn't control his urges for the prized Pewterschmidt dog, Seabreeze. Furthermore, although his maturity and broad range of experiences seem to imply that he is as old as a middle aged human, as a dog he is only eight years old. Peter has been known to tease him about his shorter lifespan. In "Brian Griffin: Portrait of a Dog", he seems to have a 'midlife crisis'. He is also shown to have a liking for dog food at times. In "Chitty Chitty Death Bang", he chases the chuck wagon from the commercials for Purina Chuck Wagon and in "Barely Legal", he comes running with joy when Peter's daughter Meg shakes a bag of Dog Chow. In "The Thin White Line", Peter points out that Brian will die some 50 years before him. In "Blue Harvest", Brian, in character as Chewbacca, uncontrollably chases a pig's ear in a fit of barking. In "Breaking Out is Hard to Do", Brian is shown to have difficulty keeping his balance while riding in the back of a van; when questioned by Peter, Brian responds by pointing out he can't stand up straight due to him being a dog.

In "Bill & Peter's Bogus Journey", it is revealed that Brian is not potty trained but rather defecates outside like other dogs. Tired of stepping in his feces, Lois forces him to wear diapers, which he finds extremely humiliating. Amused, Stewie says that he looks "silly" in his diapers but tells him that it won't be so bad once he gets used to them. Brian eventually gets out of diapers by simply defecating in Mayor West's garden instead, leading Lois to think he is potty-trained.

Brian seems to not like being bossed around. In "Brian Griffin: Portrait of a Dog", he refused to perform degrading pet tricks for Peter during a dog show, despite it being necessary to win the money needed to buy the family a new air conditioner. He also chastised Lady and the Tramp for acting in typical dog-like behavior, saying that "that's just what they want you to do." He suffers mistreatment as a dog, and is humiliated when the Griffins catch him with canine pornography.

Brian exhibits typical dog behaviors like rolling around in trash, eating it, licking himself, defecating on the lawn, leaving dead birds on the porch, intensely fearing the vacuum cleaner, sleeping at the foot of Peter's bed, barking uncontrollably at black people for which he blames his father, and having a tough time standing up in the car.

Subconscious Racism

Brian occasionally displays racist tendencies, which he claims he gets from his father. In "Chick Cancer", Stewie asks Brian a rhetorical question along the lines of "What kind of man would I be if I ran off now?" to which Brian replies "You'd be a black man," which shocked Stewie. However, in "Peter's Two Dads", Brian is taken aback after Peter says that he acquired crack cocaine "from Black's," referring to a "white guy selling crack behind Black's Hardware Store." Brian seems normally comfortable around Cleveland and the Brown family. However, when working as a cab driver, Brian gets in trouble anyway for not picking up Cleveland, stating his hurry to run an errand for Lois as an obvious excuse. Brian tells Lois he'll pick up the milk at the end of his shift because he's "gotta go... first fare of the night." When he pulls over and looks at Cleveland, he changes his mind and remarks "I should really pick up that milk now before I forget." Cleveland calls Brian a "son of a bitch," throws a rock at the cab, and smashes it later in the episode. In "Peter's Got Woods", Brian dates a black woman named Shauna Parks, to whom he often nervously rambles about how much he likes African-Americans. He even requests to change "James Woods High School" to "Martin Luther King High School" in order to impress her. Also, in Something, Something, Something, Dark Side, when it was noted that Lando Calrissian, portrayed by Mort Goldman was a black person, Brian, portraying Chewbacca said, "Let's hope the only one, right?"

Religious Beliefs

Brian is a rationalist and is often critical of organized religion; when Francis Griffin physically threatens him in "The Father, The Son, and The Holy Fonz", Brian sarcastically replies, "That's very Christian; believe what I say or I'll hurt you." It is revealed in "Not All Dogs Go to Heaven" that he is an atheist like one Seth MacFarlane himself, who claims that this character represents him most. In that episode, he comes out to the Griffins about his belief or lack of, and Meg and Francis, in a drastic effort to convert Brian to Christianity, makes his atheism public knowledge, making him a social outcast until near the end of the episode. It was mentioned again the next episode after in "Love, Blactually", with him being seen at the library and looks for The God Delusion by avowed humanist Richard Dawkins.

Strangely, in earlier episodes, Brian showed some belief in God: In "If I'm Dyin', I'm Lyin'", when Peter was in denial about God's plagues and insisted that there was a logical explanation for them, Brian slapped him repeatedly and stated, "You want an explanation? God is pissed!"; in "Mr. Griffin Goes to Washington", he is shown reading a Bible; in "The Thin White Line", he thanks God for giving him his sense of smell; in "Lethal Weapons", he calls Stewie an antichrist.

Before revealing to the other Griffins that he was an Atheist, Brian attended church with the family in "Holy Crap", "Meg for Mercy", "Neighbor Pains", "Power Over Peter", "Lethal Weapons", "The Father, The Son, and The Holy Fonz", "Boys Do Cry", and "Not All Dogs Go to Heaven".

Additionally, in "April in Quahog", he is seen praying, but is quick to deny it when questioned by Stewie. After the doomsday threat is revealed to be an April Fools joke, he leaves to go to perform charity at a local soup kitchen as he had apparently promised God.

Relationships

A running joke on the show is Brian's inability to maintain a human girlfriend. Most of time this is usually due to bad advice given to him from Stewie, whose constantly insists to nose around in his relationships though other times it due to his own insecurities and ego getting in the way. The longest girlfriend he has had so far was Jillian, but the relationship ended after an attempt to move in together ended badly partially due to Stewie. When Jillian was announced to be married, Brian took one last shot to try and get her back but in the end she let him down gently and the marriage goes on as planned much to Brian's dismay.

List of Girlfriends

• Seabreeze Pewterschmidt in Screwed the Pooch
• Brooke Roberts in Brian the Bachelor
• Pearl Burton in Brian Wallows, Peter Swallows
• Shauna Parks in Peter's Got Woods
• Jillian Russel-Wilcox started in Whistle While Your Wife Works and ended in Movin' Out (Brian's Song)
• Carolyn in Love, Blactually
• Tracy Flannigan in The Former Life of Brian and again in Brian is a Bad Father
• Nichole Silver in Brian's Got a Brand New Bag
• Rita Silver in Brian's Got a Brand New Bag
• Rita Lanson in We Love You, Conrad!
• Lauren Conrad in We Love You, Conrad!
• Kate in The Blind Side
• Denise in Tiegs for Two
• Cheryl Tiegs in Tiegs for Two
• Ida Quagmire in Quagmire's Dad
• Cindy in Yug Ylimaf
• Chloe in The Book of Joe
• Padma in Road to India
• Martha in Petey IV
• Ellie in Brian Dates a Bitch
• Jess Schlotz started in Married ... With Cancer and ended in Dead Dog Walking
• Amber in Carny Knowledge

Employment History

Brian is generally a lazy ass, who mooches off of Peter Griffin, but he's had his working moments. He is a self-proclaimed author, who sells his books online, but they're mostly pretty shitty and he procrastinates his ass off a lot. He's also a "journalist", an "actor", and an "activist", but those fall into the same thing as the former and the latter doesn't pay the bills, now does it?

He was a cab driver in one episode and was racist against black people, when doing so.

He was a radio guy on Weenie and The Butt, being the host of The Lunch Hour and co-host of Dingo and the Baby in "Mother Tucker".

Show dog in "Brian Griffin: Portrait of a Dog"

Co-Owner of pLace in "Tales of a Third Grade Nothing"

Soldier in United States Army in "Saving Private Brian"

Police officer in "The Thin White Line"

Adult film Director in "Brian Does Hollywood"

Producer of Class Holes! in "Brian Griffin's House of Payne"

Santa Claus in "Road to the North Pole"

Suicide Hotline receptionist from "Workin' for the Man", to "Brian Come Home for Christmas".

His current job is taking over Peter's workplace at the Pawtucket Brewery since "Return to the Seas"

Deaths

In "Stewie B. Goode", Stewie time traveled to the future and saw that Brian had died and was up in Heaven, drinking martinis with other great writers, such as Vincent Van Gogh, Kurt Cobain, and Ernest Hemmingway, who all say they've amazingally killed themselves out of passionate reasons. Brian embarrassingly admits his laughably lame death of eating chocolate out of the garbage can.

In "Back to the Pilot", Brian and Stewie travel back in time to the first episode of Family Guy, where a bunch of other versions of them traveled back from other futures. One of the future Brians had his throat slit and he was dead for some odd unspoken reason. Brian was afraid that this dead version of him meant he would die but Stewie assured him that this wasn't the case but he was too tired to explain how.

In "High School English", Brian was killed three times in all the stories he was playing (four if you count the deleted scene). In "The Great Gatsby", Brian played Jay Gatsby and got shot in the pool by George Wilson. In "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", Brian played a pig that Huckleberry Finn killed to fake his own death. In "Of Mice and Men", Brian played a puppy that Lenny crushed to death. In a deleted story, for "To Kill a Mockingbird", Brian played the titular mockingbird and pointed out that there were no actual mockingbirds in the story, so Scout had to kill him off to stay true to the story and so she snapped his neck and stomped on him.

In "Life of Brian", Brian got his by a car and died, shortly after Stewie destroyed his time machine, making it impossible for him to coma back. This episode played it out straight, having Brian officially die. After a few months passed, The Griffin Family replaced Brian with another dog named Vinny, who assumed the role of the family dog for the rest of the season before Brian's return in "Christmas Guy", when Stewie happened to see his past self at the Christmas store, buying a toy that he went to the future to buy shortly before he destroyed the time machine in the first place. Stewie greeted his past self and borrowed his return pad to go back to the moment where Brian died and save him from dying in the first place, undoing pretty much the entire canon of the past season.

In "Nanny Goats", The Griffins got a maid named Natalia who turned out to be a Russian spy, who went on a killing spree. She shot Brian in the head and killed him and then Vinny came through the door, saying that he had returned to the family.

In "Undergrounded", Brian, along with the rest of the Spooner Street neighbors, died when the ground caved in and killed them all. Patrick Star told this story in his book.

In "Rich Old Stewie", a flash forward to 2070 showed a now eldery Stewie Griffin blowing up The Griffin House, killing everybody, inside, including Brian, so that they wouldn't try to inherit his money. Brian was the last to die, as his mutilated body took the longest to burn to a corpse. Brian begged and pleaded for Stewie to let him live as he was the only person who didn't want his money but Stewie said the only way he could bring him back was with some revival pills that he left in the house by mistake so Brian died and Stewie didn't give a shit.

In "La Famiglia Guy", Brian was killed three times. First, he drank Peter's cream soda so Peter drove him out into a field and got out of the car to take a whizz. While he was peeing, Peter's hitman, Quagmire shot Brian dead. Brian died again later in the episode, Brian ate Chris' leftovers and so Chris took him out fishing and shot him and dumped his corpse in the ocean, himself. At the end of the episode, Brian once again, made the stupid mistake of eating Lois' leftovers, promoting Lois to take Brian out into the forest and throw him into the woodchipper.

Episode Absences

Brian Griffin has appeared in every episode of the series, except for the following:

When Brian died in "Life of Brian", he was replaced by a dog named Vinny Filipeli and he stayed dead for the entire season, before being revived in "Christmas Guy". Between those episodes, Brian never actually appeared, minus two appearances, with the exception of being occasionally mentioned in dialogue.

• A Filler in Need (Mentioned)
• Mobsters Inc. (Mentioned)
• Encyclopedia Griffin
• Boopa-Dee Bappa-Dee
• Vestigial Peter
• A Play on Turds
• Ganging Down
• Baby Got Black
• It's in the Yard (Pictured; Video)
• Grimm Job
• One of the Girls
• Road House
• He's Bla-ack! (Mentioned)
• Death of a Mailman
• 3 Acts of God
• Italian Stu
• A White for the Coloreds
• Into Harmony's Way
• Turkey Guys (Mentioned)
• Hot Pocket-Dial
• Wacky Races
• Road to New York
• Candy Quahog Marshmallow!
• Dr. C and the Women (Pictured; Name Typed)
• Friends in Dry Places (Voice Heard)

Trivia

• This is the only character for which Seth MacFarlane uses his natural speaking voice, as opposed to the voice changes for other characters such as Peter Griffin, Glenn Quagmire, and Stewie Griffin.
  • Seth MacFarlane says that the easiest character for him to voice is Tom Tucker, which is weird because he literally uses his normal speaking voice for Brian.
• Seth MacFarlane has revealed that Brian is his favorite character. He say he feels comfortable while playing the part of Brian, he also has a picture of Brian to the side of his name on his office door.
• A running gag in the show for Brian to want to have sex with Lois. There's also a bit of character development that comes along with it. Every time Brian tries to have sex with Lois, but fails, his feelings for her get progressively more angry and intolerant.
• In "Brian Griffin: Portrait of a Dog", it's revealed that Brian became a Griffin during his adulthood, when Peter offered him a home with his family in Quahog, but in "The Man with Two Brians", Brian shows the family videos of him as a puppy, already living in the Griffin's house.
• He drives a 2004 Toyota Prius., as it is seen in "The Juice Is Loose" pulling up on the Griffins' driveway while Stewie was stuck on the roof. The license plate reads "BRI-D0G" and it has a 'Kucinich 04' bumper sticker.
• Of all the main characters of Family Guy, Brian was the only one to appear in every episode, until the episode "Life of Brian", where his omnipresence in the show was finally justified, by having him get killed off the series for an entire season. He only appeared in two more episodes, "Replaced: Brian's Story" and "A New Lease on Death", and did not return until the season's finale, "Christmas Guy", meaning he appeared in only four episodes of Season 11 .
• Brian is the first Family Guy character to appear in an episode American Dad!. He appears in "The People vs. Martin Sugar", where Stan names his top ten fictional dogs, and Brian is named number one. He is seen drinking a martini on the courthouse steps, and claims Stan does not exist. Stan berates him for the claim.
• Brian has dated mostly human beings in the show (which is straight up beastiality), but on rare occasions, Brian has also expressed sexual attractions for other dogs.
  • He had an unquenchable sexual interest in Seabreeze Pewterschmidt in "Screwed the Pooch".
  • In the same episode, he was seen masturbating to a dog porn magazine called Kinky Coeds.
  • In "Underage Peter", Brian went to a strip club and got a lap dance from a dog.
• The DVD commentary for "Brian Griffin's House of Payne" explains that the "H" in "H. Brian Griffin" does not stand for anything and was a way to express Brian as a pretentious douche.
  • However, this could be a reference to Brian's original voice actor, William H. Macy
• In "Death Has a Shadow", Brian says that he doesn't vote. However, in "Brian & Stewie", it was revealed that he voted for John McCain.
• Brian's catchphrase is "Whose leg do I have to hump to get a martini around here?" which originated in "I Never Met Mr. Deaddy". O'Brian the sheep uses a variation of this in regards to a pint of Guinness in "Peter's Two Dads".
• Brian held several jobs while living in Los Angeles including being a waiter, car wash attendant, screenwriter and pornographic film director. He does not hold steady employment in Quahog, although did once become a substitute teacher at Buddy Cianci Junior High School as well as short stints as a taxi driver in "Deep Throats and police officer for the Quahog police department as a drug sniffing dog in "The Thin White Line". He left the police force after becoming addicted to cocaine. Nevertheless, he is able to afford a car, pay bills to which some are payed to supposedly another family, and maintain a credit card.
• Brian is one of the few characters on the show who can remember events that transpired in previous episodes. In "The Fat Guy Strangler", Brian remembers Peter encouraging him to jump into the closed window of the General Lee in "To Love and Die in Dixie" and throws a rock at him. In "Airport '07", Brian recalls Stewie beating him up mercilessly in "Patriot Games" and lets him swallow Peter's tobacco spittle in retaliation.
• Brian has been the victim of a few story arcs.
  • Brian died in the episode "Life of Brian" and was replaced by another dog named Vinny Filipeli. Brian was revived in the episode "Christmas Guy".
  • Brian moved out of the house in "Don't Trust the D in Apartment 23", and lived in a crappy old apartment. He didn't move back into his old house until "Crimes and Meg's Demeanor".
  • Brian got married to a woman named Jess Schlotz in "Married ... With Cancer". He had a horrible time with her and just waited for her to die. She finally did, but it wasn't until "Dead Dog Walking".