Top 10 Times Family Guy Had to be Censored
#10: Couch Indecency
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“Deep Throats” This episode from season four sees Peter and Lois teaming up to perform folk music at a local talent show. Perhaps bowing to the stereotype, the married couple begin consuming some mind-altering substances beforehand. In one scene, Brian and Stewie walk into the living room and find the couple lounging on the couch and acting, well, you know. In the Fox TV broadcast, Lois and Peter have underwear on. But in the uncensored version, both are nude. Furthermore, the uncensored scene adds some extra suggestive dialogue, with Lois asking Brian if she should let Peter perform a certain act.
#9: TV Show Parody
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“PTV” This episode was made to mock the wave of censorship that swept through the TV industry following the infamous Janet Jackson/Justin Timberlake Super Bowl halftime show. Ironically enough, it ended up being censored. In the DVD version, Peter starts a “Jackass” ripoff called “Douchebags.” The clip sees him behaving in an unsavory manner over a highway overpass and traumatizing Stewie in the process. This whole scene was cut from the original TV airing, and it wasn’t for timing reasons. According to the DVD commentary, the censors demanded that some changes be made, so the team decided to just remove it entirely.
#8: Meg’s Outfit
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“Stewie Kills Lois” Sometimes the joke remains the same - it’s just the details that get altered. In the episode “Stewie Kills Lois,” Stewie points his ear towards the ceiling and hears Meg on the floor above him. It’s here that viewers get two alternate variations of the same gag. In the Fox version, Meg is holding a packet of jumbo hot dogs just outside her bedroom door. She then makes a crude comment before going inside. In the uncensored version, the gag is a little more explicit. Instead of standing in the hallway, Meg is already on her bed. And instead of her usual clothes, she’s in a yellow nightgown. Apparently, the point of the change was to be a bit more subtle.
#7: The Dirty Joke
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“The Splendid Source” “The Splendid Source” sees Chris getting suspended because of a particularly dirty joke he shared at school. Peter and the guys then attempt to find where the gag originated, which leads them to an isolated island and a secret cabal of funny people. The full, unedited episode contains an extended ending in which we actually hear the knee-slapper. It is indeed quite crude in nature, and contains a lot of explicit swearing, so it didn’t make it into the initial TV cut. That means viewers who saw the episode on Fox never got to hear the legendary joke that got Chris in trouble in the first place.
#6: The Musical Number
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“Petarded” When Peter takes the test for the MacArthur Fellowship, he discovers that he has an intellectual disability. He goes to Joe for advice, who is forced to explain that he is physically disabled, which is not the same thing. In the uncensored version of the episode, Joe proceeds to call Cleveland and shares Peter’s news. This in turn causes a wave of gossip throughout Quahog. The whole thing is depicted through a musical number that parodies “Bye Bye Birdie.” The song was removed from the original broadcast, however, as it contains repeated use of a certain pejorative term.
#5: The JFK Pez Dispenser
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“A Hero Sits Next Door” It didn’t take long for “Family Guy” to start offending viewers. The fifth episode of the show contains a joke about the murders of both John and Bobby Kennedy. A young boy comes out of a store bearing a Pez dispenser in the shape of JFK. A stray bullet from a cop’s weapon then destroys the head, prompting the kid to whip out his extra Bobby Kennedy dispenser. This scene appears to have been deemed so offensive that it was removed not only from the American DVD, but also many subsequent television broadcasts. Creator Seth MacFarlane told Entertainment Weekly in 2012 that he regrets making the joke.
#4: The Boston Marathon
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“Turban Cowboy” “Family Guy” isn’t afraid to go to some terribly dark places. This episode contains one of the most horrifying cutaways in the show’s history, as it depicts Peter driving through the Boston Marathon and killing many people. The moment is dark enough on its own, but it also aired in March 2013, roughly one month before the Boston Marathon tragedy. The subsequent reaction went far beyond mere censorship. The episode as a whole was essentially banned. While it appeared on the DVD, it was temporarily pulled from television reruns and future streaming services. It wasn’t until September of 2022 that it reemerged on Hulu.
#3: Quagmire Looks for His Car Keys
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“When You Wish Upon a Weinstein” Speaking of banned episodes, Fox originally pulled the release of “When You Wish Upon a Weinstein”, fearing that some would see it as anti-Semitic. It wasn’t broadcast on the network until 2004 - years after its intended air date. However, this entry isn’t about the episode itself, but rather a specific joke within it. Lois asks Quagmire for his car, prompting him to dig around his pockets for his keys. We don’t see Quagmire's lower half and the search goes on for a long time, leading us to conclude that he’s doing something far dirtier. This prolonged segment is reportedly edited down in the censored version of the episode, where he finds his keys quicker.
#2: The Whole Episode
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“Partial Terms of Endearment” Like “Turban Cowboy,” “Partial Terms of Endearment” was deemed so problematic that it was simply banned from television altogether. In the episode, Lois becomes a surrogate mother for a college friend. But when the friend and her husband pass away in a car accident, Lois gets an abortion. This storyline was thought to be far too sensitive for television, and Fox decided against airing the episode. They also requested that other channels, including Adult Swim, honor their wishes. As of 2022, the episode has never aired in its entirety on American television, though parts of it appeared during a 2012 special. It was also not included when the series debuted on Disney+.
#1: Osama bin Laden
“Road to Rhode Island” One of the show’s best known episodes, “Road to Rhode Island,” which first aired in 2000, sees Brian and Stewie traveling from Palm Springs to Quahog. Fans may have seen it dozens of times without realizing that it’s been edited. It involves a scene in which Stewie sings a song and distracts airport security from seeing the weapons in his luggage. He then makes a quip about Osama bin Laden, and viewers see the latter figure employing the same diversion tactic. The scene was enormously controversial - especially after the tragic events of September 11 2001 - and it was removed from reruns and the Volume 1 DVD. Nowadays, it can be seen in a couple different places, including on Hulu.
