How Family Guy's 'Death Pose' Went Viral (And The Weirdest Places It Showed Up)
Everyone loves a good meme! But most of them, even the viral ones, tend to fade into obscurity after a brief stint in the spotlight of social media. Some, however, are so beloved that artists enshrine them in new stories, thereby guaranteeing their longevity. And all that's just a really dramatic way of saying "Family Guy" gets referenced a lot. Seth MacFarlane's animated comedy series is no stranger to meme-able content. Maybe that's one of the reasons the series is still so popular. After all, the "Pepperidge Farm Remembers" bit has been hijacked to air every single grievance under the sun since 2009, so it wasn't particularly astonishing when the "Death Pose" rose to similar acclaim.
For those who might not know, the "Death Pose" is exactly what it sounds like. It appears frequently in the series but, most notably, in Season 10, Episode 11 ("The Blind Side"), Peter Griffin (MacFarlane) discovers that Lois Griffin (Alex Borstein) has replaced their rotting staircase with a newer, more slippery model. And Peter makes this discovery with what can only be described as the most aggressive tumble of all time. When he finally reaches the ground floor, he's splayed out with his back to the camera, a bent leg, and both arms behind his back. It's a bizarre, but memorable visual that gets the pain across and of course, it got made into a meme.
Except, unlike the "Pepperidge Farm Remembers" joke, the "Death Pose" wormed its way into other forms of media. More specifically, the meme wormed its way into video games.
The video game community loves a good Family Guy meme
Apparently, "Family Guy" is incredibly popular among gamers because the "Death Pose" meme gained notable traction within its ranks. As cataloged by Know Your Meme, there are multiple screenshots of characters from "Team Fortress 2," a multiplayer first-person shooter, lying on the ground in a decent approximation of the pose. It's unclear whether these images prove that the creative team behind TF2 likes "Family Guy," if the users modded the game, or if the game's physics engine is simply that versatile.
Speaking of modding, Game Banana modder Robro created a "Death Pose" patch for "Deltarune," Toby Fox's ongoing spiritual successor to "Undertale," that changes Ralsei's death animation to better match Peter Griffin's infamous tumble. And the "Death Pose" is cropping up in fan art, too, with at least one artist combing Bow Kid from "A Hat in Time," a cutesy puzzle-platformer, with the meme.
But nothing's funnier than an official studio including the meme in its content. In 2023, Sega released "The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog," a free-to-play point-and-click visual novel, that features the titular blue blur rocking the "Death Pose." That's right, the meme is still alive and well, even today. It was so important to Sega that fans saw the meme's inclusion that it appears in the official launch trailer posted on Twitter. And that's just kind of neat, isn't it?
Animation studios love Family Guy's Death Pose, too
But this isn't a website for video games, this is a website dedicated to TV shows and movies and, hey, guess what? The "Family Guy" meme shows up in those, too! Elder Kettle (Joe Hanna) mimics the "Death Pose" in Season 2 Episode 11 ("Say Cheese") of Netflix's "The Cuphead Show" ... which is an adaptation of a video game property, but that's not important right now. We've moved on, seriously. Elder Kettle takes it one step further, though, by becoming a horrific spider monster, which might be more than Seth MacFarlane was prepared for when his bit got memed.
Also, Steven Universe (Zach Callison) hits the pose ever so briefly in Season 2 Episode 18 ("Catch and Release") of "Steven Universe. Honestly, this one might be a stretch because Steven doesn't nail the "Death Pose" — only a close approximation. But considering how the series is packed with approximate references, like a copyright-safe Cloud Strife action figure, this feels like a safe line to draw.
The way "Steven Universe" handles the possible reference is more or less how most referential material gets handled. And with how big "Family Guy" is, it's almost a certainty that someone on the creative team of any given project has seen MacFarlane's work. So look for the meme out in the wild, but not too closely.