Every Season Of Family Guy Ranked Worst To Best

It's hard to believe that everyone's favorite insufferable buffoon, Peter Griffin, and his unstable family have been on television since 1999. But here we are. Surviving two cancellations, the Griffins beat the odds and managed to create a legacy that may rival "The Simpsons." In fact, the two families have even met in a wild crossover episode. The misadventures of Peter, the mostly straitlaced Lois, their brainiac infant and two outcast teens are aplenty. The family have lived through the apocalyptic events of Y2K, traveled to a galaxy far, far away, and even discovered the multiverse.

Let's get the elephant in the room out of the way. Peter Griffin is an idiot. And in his idiocy, he manages to treat his wife and children horribly with his antics. We are intended to laugh at Peter, not with him. Often, however, the show causes us to reflect upon and even chuckle at our own failures and weaknesses as human beings. Anything is fair game in the world of "Family Guy." With that said, try getting the tune of Peter Griffin signing "Surfin' Bird" out of your head while we rank the seasons of the series from freakin' worst to the freakin' best.

After years of cutaway gags, fart jokes, and inane Peter Griffin antics, the twelfth season of the show attempts to inject a tad bit of humanity into the whole "Family Guy" rigmarole. That moment comes with the death of the longtime fan-favorite character Brian, the family dog. A dour scene plays out as the entire family mourns the loss of their best friend. Brian's passing is especially hard for Stewie. The family obtains a new dog named Vinny, voiced by "Sopranos" actor Tony Sirico, to help ease their pain. Surprisingly, Brian remains dead for two episodes before Stewie obtains the ability to time travel and saves Brian's life. In a cartoon rife with comedic death, it was a little hard to truly take Brian's death seriously. Of course, the general public considered the moment a bid for shock value to bolster viewership.

The season gives Brian further attention when it demonstrates what an awful father Brian is in the episode "Brian's a Bad Father." Brian's teen son hits it big as a TV star and Brian exploits his son's career to boost his own profile. The season also sees Cleveland Brown return to the "Family Guy" lineup as a regular after the cancellation of his own spinoff series. Season 12 ultimately managed to manufacture some upheaval but mostly falls into a rut of regurgitating previous gags that signal a creative slump for the show as a whole.

Season 17 makes the characters of "Family Guy" look even worse than they typically do, and it's not always in a funny way. Brian demonstrates how spineless he can be when he marries a woman battling cancer only to regret that decision the moment she goes into remission. Meanwhile, Peter becomes a purveyor of fake news who dukes it out with a local news anchor and becomes Donald Trump's press secretary. Peter's complete idiocy doesn't stop there as he poses as a transgender woman in order to gain benefits from his workplace. Of course, things go south when he finds himself in an accidental coma and his employers put him through confirmation surgery. The humor of "Trans-Fat" is mostly directed at Peter's clueless attitude about transpeople, rather than transpeople themselves, but the semi-well-intended clumsiness of the episode conveys a distinct "I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry"-type of energy that feels significantly dated and out of touch just three years later.  

This is yet another season that still has plenty of jokes to chuckle at, but the overall offering will likely leave most avid viewers of the show exhausted by the end.

The eleventh season of the show marks "Family Guy" heading in directions a wee bit darker than what its usual audience was used to in 2013. Plots such as Carter Pewterschmidt's company withholding the cure for cancer for profits, Meg attempting to drug Chris in order to get him to sleep with another boy, and Peter becoming a meth dealer are among some of the season's least optimistic storylines.

Of course, there's still some beaming "Family Guy" whimsy lighting up the shadows. Such moments include Stewie and Brian's trip to Las Vegas where the teleporter mistakenly creates two sets of Stewie and Brian. One of the Stewie and Brian partnerships has a blast in Vegas while the other suffers from a disastrous vacation. The Griffin family also takes a trip to space and Stewie meddles with a space shuttle's flight controls. There's even a retelling of the Christian nativity story using the characters of "Family Guy." Just like life, Season 11 of "Family Guy" has its ups and downs.

In Season 10, many of the comedic punches the show is known for begin to fall a bit flat, but some of the overall plots are still fun and thoroughly enjoyable for longtime fans. The adventures of the Griffins never stop or slow down, that is for certain.

The season kicks off with the Griffins finding themselves multimillionaires after Peter makes a significant investment in lottery tickets. In another episode, Meg becomes infatuated with an Amish boy while the Griffins are on a road trip. As you might expect, the Griffins finds themselves very much at odds with the Amish community. Brian falls for a blind woman, and the relationship is going swimmingly until he finds out she hates dogs. Perhaps one of the standout episodes of the season involves Ryan Reynolds visiting Quahog. After the actor and Peter meet, the two become best buds. However, Ryan begins to let on that he might have deeper feelings for Peter than simple friendship.

There's a lot to enjoy in Season 10, even if the moment-to-moment jokes and cutaway gags sometimes feel a bit ham-fisted and unsatisfying.

At the very beginning of this season, the minds behind "Family Guy" put it all out on the table and admit this show is never going to win an Emmy. Technically, it actually did that a few times but let's not water down a funny bit with confusing details. Peter and the gang make a few wild attempts to gain attention from the powers that be at the Emmys with progressive nods that echo shows like "Modern Family" and "Transparent," as well as regressive nods to sitcoms with awards-catching track records like "The Big Bang Theory" and "Cheers."  

In other Quahog news, Carter gifts his grandson Chris a single dollar bill for his birthday. Offended about the cheap gift, Chris loses sight of the bill and it's passed all over town during several random exchanges. It's a creative episode entitled "Follow the Money" in which the show does just that — focuses on the journey of this particular dollar bill.

Vladimir Putin comes to town, Peter experiences the story of "A Christmas Carol" with the ghost of Patrick Swayze after losing his own Christmas spirit, and Sherlock Holmes receives a proper "Family Guy" parody with Stewie fulfilling the role of the intrepid detective while Brian joins him as Dr. Watson. There's even an imaginative episode that depicts the series as if it has been on air for several decades, looking back at "Family Guy" episodes from the '50s and '60s. It's got a few noticeable filler episodes, but Season 16 also has plenty of gems to offer fans.

In a show that almost always reverts back to its status quo at the end of every episode, it's a rarity when a change on "Family Guy" doesn't get undone pretty much immediately. This season begins with one of the most memorable episodes of the series — a well-written murder mystery in which the major players in Quahog are all in attendance. Someone begins picking off characters one by one, including Muriel Goldman and James Woods. The killer is revealed to be Diane Simmons, Tom Tucker's co-anchor on the nightly news. Diane's plot is ultimately foiled, and a certain notoriously homicidal baby makes sure she doesn't survive the ordeal. The deaths in this episode, "And Then There Were Fewer," actually stick in future episodes.

Lois also gets some much-needed attention in this season as she aspires to become a champion boxer and winds up defending her husband's honor. Of course, the season ends with "It's a Trap!" — Family Guy's parody of "Return of the Jedi."

The ongoing bit where Peter randomly begins sings "Surfin' Bird" begins in Season 7. After buying the record, Peter annoys the pants off his entire family with his obsession. Later, Stewie and Brian take a trip to Poland ... in 1939. That's right — they travel through time and find themselves amid Nazi occupation.

In another episode, Peter is injected with a gay gene during a medical experiment. It works like a charm and throws a wrench in the Griffin family household as Peter leaves his family behind, only to return once the gene therapy wears off. Later, Peter wins a day of golf with O.J. Simpson, and remains completely ignorant to the infamous NFL star's grisly past. Peter becomes friends with O.J. despite the judgements of others. After the episode takes a heartfelt turn with a commentary against assuming the worst about people, O.J. brandishes a knife and stabs three people before fleeing Quahog.

Of course, the premiere season of "Family Guy" is a hallmark set of episodes since it introduced the world to the Griffins. The season only contains seven episodes, but it immediately establishes many of the "Family Guy" tropes we know and love. Thinking about this season even brings back memories from a bygone "Family Guy" era, including Stewie's more villainous and maniacal tendencies. "Victory is mine!" is a quotable one-liner "Family Guy" fans haven't heard for quite some time.

In "Family Guy" Season 1, we learn what a wild character Peter can be as he concocts plans to distribute the surplus of a mistaken welfare check to thousands at the Super Bowl using a blimp. Meg heads to a party, which sounds odd, given that we know her popularity levels aren't all that impressive. It turns out the party is full of doomsday cultists. We're also introduced to the fun-loving Joe Swanson as he moves in next door to the Griffins. He even tells the story of how he battled the Grinch on Christmas Eve and fell off a roof leaving him paralyzed from the waist down.

There are plenty of memorable moments from Season 1, mostly because it establishes many of the characters we've known for the life of the show. Even though the animation may not be the greatest, the humor is still vibrant and fun.

Season 3 premiered in 2001 and took viewers back into the zany world of Quahog after the post-Season 2 cancellation and reversal by the Fox Network. This season excels at squeezing humor out of zany, wild plots.

Brian moves to Los Angeles with his cousin Jasper to look for fame in showbiz. Peter learns that Chris has a much, much larger male sex organ than he does and spends an entire episode unloading his self-consciousness as a result. In the early days of "Family Guy," Peter works at a toy factory instead of the brewery we see in later seasons. His boss at this time, Mr. Weed, is a bit of a stick in the mud. In one episode, Mr. Weed suddenly dies while at dinner with the Griffin family. The toy factory is shut down and Peter finds himself jobless. The Griffin patriarch humorously seeks out employment but feels that his dream job is to be a renaissance fair jouster.

Peak "Family Guy" arrives in Season 4. The show was cancelled once again following Season 3, but due to insanely high DVD sales, Fox was forced to take another look at "Family Guy" and grant it a fourth season. The writers behind the show came back swinging and offered viewers some of the best comedy the animated series has ever produced.

Quagmire upsets life in Cleveland's home when he's caught having sex with Cleveland's wife at the time, Loretta. Of course, Loretta and Cleveland get divorced. A later episode sees Peter, Quagmire, and Joe helping Cleveland get back into the dating scene and he auditions for "The Bachelorette." In another wild episode, Peter takes on the FCC by creating his own TV station called PTV where he can be as raunchy as his heart desires. Of course, the FCC steps in.

The season is also home to one of the series best parody episodes unrelated to "Star Wars" — "Petergeist," an obvious play on "Poltergeist." When Peter decides to build a home theater that will rival Joe's next door, he digs up a Native American burial ground. Soon after, Stewie begins talking to the spirits in the television. Anyone who's seen "Poltergeist" has a good idea where the story goes from there. Season 4 is "Family Guy" at the top of its game.