25 Most Popular Family Guy Characters Ranked Worst To Best

The television industry is going through a seismic change at the moment. Passionate and vocal online fandoms have given a new dimension to how divisive shows can still find success. However, it wasn't always like that. In the ancient times of 10 to 20 years ago, a show that did not immediately appeal to a large swathe of its potential audience, and maybe even alienated some viewers, likely didn't have a bright future ahead of it.    

That is what makes the success of "Family Guy," which kicked off back in 1999, all the more impressive. Created by Seth MacFarlane and David Zuckerman for Fox, "Family Guy" was initially seen as a clone of "The Simpsons." Instead, "Family Guy" managed to carve out its own identity with a brutal, no-holds-barred approach to adult humor that made "The Simpsons" look like a kids' show.

Throughout its years of getting canceled and brought back to air after fierce petitioning from fans not just once but twice, "Family Guy" has built up an elaborate cast of compelling characters. Some of these characters are only used for brief side gags, while others take center stage in most stories. Let us take a look at some "Family Guy" characters who deserve most of the credit for keeping the show going so long while ranking them from worst to best.    

Authority figures have a hard time being interesting in comedy shows. They usually play the straight man to the actually funny character in a scene, preferably someone they have power over. Principal John Shepherd walks a fine line on "Family Guy" between being a boring straight man and someone with deeper, darker depths that occasionally come to the surface. 

Shepherd is the principal of the school that two of the show's main characters, Meg and Chris Griffin, go to. As the head of the establishment, Shepherd is often seen in an adversarial role, even though he is not an out-and-out evil guy. Not much is known about Shepherd's personal life beyond the fact that he went through an ugly divorce in the fifteenth season and then got back together with his ex-wife. 

While Shepherd works well enough on occasion with the right punchline, he doesn't have much of a personality to stand out in a particular manner from the rest of the background characters on "Family Guy." Shepherd's characterization also suffers when compared to another school principal created by Seth MacFarlane, the far more interesting raging lunatic Principal Lewis on "American Dad." Still, Shepherd's presence works on the show when, much like Consuela, not too much time is spent focusing on the character during jokes and gags.

As the title suggests, Ernie is a character on "Family Guy" who happens to be a giant chicken. We don't know a lot about Ernie. We don't know if he is a mutant experiment or an alien or a higher life form or something Dr. Hartman cooked up in his lab one day. What we do know is that Ernie hates the lead character of the series, Peter Griffin.

The history behind their feud is a long and confusing one. It might have started after Ernie gave Peter an expired coupon once. Or it might have something to do with Peter's time-traveling shenanigans that included punching Ernie at a school dance. The reason is not important. What matters is that at some point, Ernie will wander into the plot of an episode and have a prolonged, surprisingly well-choreographed fight with Peter. 

Over the years, the two sworn enemies have fought each other across the town of Quahog, in space, and anywhere else the writers can think of. While the fights are funny at first, and extremely well-made, they tend to drag on near the end. Ernie also does not have much personality beyond his bizarre appearance and habit of fighting Peter for the stupidest of reasons.     

The world of "Family Guy" gets most of its news from the Quahog 5 News team, and their chief field reporter is Tricia Takanawa. She is a Japanese-American journalist who can be relied upon to tell the most interesting news items in the detached, monotone voice that has become her trademark on the show. The only time Tricia loses control of her monotone composure is in the presence of David Bowie. 

Due to her role as a commentator for the news, Tricia often gets to set up or deliver the punchlines on "Family Guy." Over the years, Tricia has interviewed Jason Voorhees, gone undercover to bust Carter Pewterschmidt's illegal businesses, and tripped on acid in the middle of a news segment. Although Tricia is usually shown as an emotionless professional, it has been hinted that she has her own set of family problems in the form of a "tiger mother" who constantly berates her and criticizes every aspect of her life. 

There is only one doctor of note in the entirety of "Family Guy," and that is Dr. Elmer Hartman. Not that it's a good thing. Hartman often seems like someone who wandered into a hospital when they were giving out free lab coats and decided to take up the profession on the spot. 

As a result, most of what Hartman does at the hospital turns out to be dangerous and terrifyingly wrong. Like the time he left his cell phone in Joe's back during a surgery. Or when he declared that since it was such a beautiful day, all surgeries will be outside today. Or when he started to examine a patient's foot to ascertain her wrist injury. 

The highlight of the Dr. Hartman character is the number of times during a consultation that he says dire things, only to reveal that he had been talking about something other than the patient's body. For instance, he tells a patient the test results are much worse than he thought before explaining that he is talking about his son's report card. Hartman's habit of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time is one of the better running gags in the show's history. 

Bonnie is the long-suffering wife of Peter's close friend Joe Swanson. An attractive, low-key character with a remarkably breathy voice, Bonnie spends a lot of her early days on the show being pregnant. After her daughter Susie is born, Bonnie quickly loses her pregnancy weight and, apparently, her patience with being Joe's wife.

It largely falls to Bonnie to take care of Joe in his paraplegic state, and it becomes increasingly clear that Bonnie is getting tired of being her husband's caretaker. She actively seeks to have an affair outside of her marriage on more than one occasion. It is also revealed that Bonnie's method of stress relief is going to the gun range to fire at a silhouette of Joe in his wheelchair.

Despite their problems, Bonnie comes back to Joe time and again, and their marriage is still working, at least to an extent. In recent years, Bonnie has also branched out from being Joe's caretaker to having her own adventures with Lois and the other women on the show. In a strange way, Bonnie is one of the nicest characters on "Family Guy" — when she's not being portrayed as a straight-up psychopath for the sake of a gag.

Move over, Hannibal the cannibal. There's a new old man menace to society with a rhyming name in town, and that is Herbert the pervert. As his title suggests, Herbert is a man who lives on the same block as the Griffins and is strongly implied to be attracted to children, specifically Chris Griffin.

Herbert affects the mannerisms of a mild older man while secretly being a crafty and scheming human being who is always looking for ways to lure Chris into his house. Despite his highly advanced age, Herbert's libido seems to be firing on all cylinders. Thankfully, despite his lewd desires, the man is never successful in actually being able to trap Chris or any other kid. 

In fact, more often than not, Herbert is depicted as a minor annoyance, and in some rare cases, straight-up heroic, like the time he fought a Nazi that was also trying to prey on Chris. Due to his nature, Herbert is responsible for some of the darkest jokes and storylines on "Family Guy," and it is kind of fascinating to see the writers pulling off a tricky balancing act between making Herbert amusingly twisted and straight-up villainous.   

Another of Peter's closest friends is Joe Swanson, a paraplegic cop who lives next to Peter and is stuck in an unhappy relationship with his wife Bonnie and his adult son Kevin. Joe is known for his deep voice, prominent chin, and surprisingly buff physique, characteristics that once led Stewie to confuse Joe with the lead character of Seth MacFarlane's other popular cartoon show, "American Dad." 

Joe is usually depicted as a cheerful and reasonably content family man. However, some scenes show a starkly different side to his personality, like his habit of yelling at Bonnie in an overwrought manner over the smallest things. In later seasons, Joe is also shown to experience depression due to being paralyzed from the waist down, even once appearing eager for Stewie to shoot him and put him out of his misery.

Despite his troubled personal life, Joe tries to put on a brave face in public for the sake of his friends and family. A lot of the jokes center around Joe dealing with his failing marriage and the difficulties of living as a person with paraplegia. Joe remains one of the nicer characters on the show, whom you can genuinely feel sympathetic towards despite having his own set of vices, just like all the other "Family Guy" characters. 

With the exception of Stewie, the Griffins are not an intellectual family, and Chris is the least intelligent of the bunch — an impressive achievement considering Peter is also on that list. However, while Peter does show occasional flashes of intelligence that explain which side of the family Stewie might have gotten his brains from, Chris' whole thing is being the "slow one" in the family.

Like any teenager his age, Chris' main preoccupation is with girls, school, and trying to fit in with his peers. Unfortunately, Chris' lack of brains often gets in the way of all three. It also does not help that Chris is self-conscious about his weight and prone to bouts of rage if he feels overwhelmed.

Still, despite all the things working against him, Chris is at heart a sweet and well-meaning kid who usually tries to do the right thing, at least so far as he can understand it. Over the years, Chris has traveled through time, dated Taylor Swift, and made his own girlfriend out of a mop. As often as Chris is the butt of the joke on "Family Guy," you can't help but root for him to improve his lot in life and hopefully become a better man.

Over the years, "Family Guy" has come in for repeated complaints about the supposedly anti-semitic nature of its comedy and depiction of Jewish caricatures from outlets including Haaretz, The Jewish Chronicle, and The Sydney Morning Herald. Defenders of the show, as seen in one response printed in the St. Loius Jewish Light, have often pointed out that "Family Guy" is an equal-opportunity offender that brutally makes fun of every cultural group, not just any particular one. 

No matter which side of the argument you fall on, Mort Goldman is the most prominent example of how "Family Guy" uses Jewish stereotypes for humor. Mort is depicted as physically weak, mentally neurotic, chronically hypochondriacal, and eternally stingy. Stewie once followed Mort for an entire day waiting for him to open his wallet, and it never happened. 

Despite his less-than-flattering depiction in just about every aspect, Mort manages to lead a reasonably happy life with his first wife Muriel and second wife Rachel while operating Quahog's pharmacy. The kindest thing that can be said about Mort is that he causes less active harm to other characters on the show than most others and is usually depicted as a victim rather than the instigator.       

Brian is the Griffin family's pet dog who has been with them since the start of "Family Guy." Unlike other cartoon pet characters who are meant to be non-verbal, Brian is an eloquent speaker and ostensibly the most mature member of the Griffin household, who likes to think of himself as the voice of reason on the show. 

Unfortunately, Brian's true nature is far removed from his self-perception. At the start of the series, Brian is genuinely highly intelligent, well-read, and cultured. Over time, that characterization changed to make Brian into a faux-intellectual who is secretly vain, self-centered, and not well-read at all. However, he still likes to pretend to be a true intellectual to feel superior to others. 

Apart from his hypocritical moralizing and political posturing, Brian is also remarkably selfish and surprisingly callous about the plight of others. While he is occasionally shown in a better light, the modern incarnation of Brian is usually held up as an example of a guy who desperately wants everyone to believe he's smart. This is in stark contrast to his constant companion Stewie, who is an actual genius but doesn't feel the need to rub that fact in everyone's face.

As the mother of Chris, Meg, and Stewie, Lois is the matriarch of the Griffin household. She's also Peter's better half — most of the time. Some of the time. Occasionally. The truth is, Lois frequently competes with Peter for the "worst parent" award. Other times, she can be seen catching up with her budding alcoholism or actively making life more difficult for her loved ones.

Lois initially belonged to a super-wealthy family but had to give it all up to marry Peter and start their life together. While Lois and Peter are generally shown to be in love with each other, there is plenty of animosity between the two due to past differences and disagreements. While Lois tries to be a conscientious parent to her three kids, she has admitted, on occasion, that the responsibilities of motherhood are not a particularly important part of her life.  

Lois has grown increasingly bitter over the state of her family through the years while at the same time denying any responsibility she might have for the state of chaos that always seems to exist within the Griffin household. Lois is far from perfect, but she is also one of the most compelling characters on the show, with more personality than cartoon wives are typically afforded. 

By his own admission, Peter Griffin is sometimes seen as a knock-off version of Homer Simpson who tries to be more gross, stupid, and lazy in every way. Yet over the years, Peter has evolved into his own personality. Not necessarily a better one than Homer, but an important figure in the history of cartoons for adults nonetheless. 

As the lead character of "Family Guy," Peter is responsible for most of the chaos that unfolds across the series over the years. Peter cheats on Lois, bullies Meg to the point of an emotional breakdown, belittles Chris, ignores Stewie, and treats his friends like garbage. Peter also commits larger crimes against society and refuses to ever own up to his mistakes or change for the better.    

Yet despite his many, many shortcomings, Peter remains a compelling protagonist, perhaps because Peter's misguided adventures and deeply troubled temperament are a starkly satirical reflection of the real world itself. The problems Peter deals with in every episode are related to society as we know it, and Peter's behavior in his adventures is a black parody of the way real men and women respond to the same problems. Like Homer before him, Peter's true importance lies not so much in what he does but what he represents as the satirical face of the modern everyman.