Throwback Thursdays - Family Guy (Part 1)

August 31, 2017

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With Family Guy starting its sixteenth season in October, it’s fairly safe to say the show has made an indelible mark on the pop cultural landscape. Devotees of the series love it for many reasons – quirky humor, wry and flawed characters who are somehow also lovable, countless pop cultural references. But time travel fans have an additional reason to explore it. Although time travel is not central to the show’s premise, it does make many appearances throughout the series.

A good handful of episodes involve actual time travel, generally via genius toddler Stewie’s time machine. But sometimes we also see the bumbling Peter leverage his casual friendship with Death (you know, bony guy in a hooded robe who carries a sickle?) to visit his own past or view alternate timelines. The show also makes many references to Back to the Future, with occasional nods to other time travel classics like Bill & Ted and Mr. Peabody’s Improbably History.

Looking through all fifteen of the seasons released so far, the Time Travel Nexus team has identified twenty-two episodes with content that every discerning time travel enthusiast will want to track down. Video clips from the first eleven of these are outlined below, and we’ll bring you the second half of the list next month. In some cases, the clip is the entirety of the time travel content in that episode, while in others the clip just captures a fun moment or two from the larger story.

Season 1, Episode 4 - Mind Over Murder

Time travel was a part of Family Guy from very early in the series. In this episode, Stewie invents his first time machine, which he would go on to perfect in later seasons. The majority of events in this episode are erased near the conclusion when Stewie finally finishes his time machine and tests it out for the first time.

Season 2, Episode 9 - If I'm Dyin' I'm Lyin'

Family Guy makes several references to Back to the Future over the years. In this episode, we see scenes from a "blaxploitation" film created by Peter's cousin Rufus Griffin, called Black to the Future. IF you can imagine a mashup between the first Back to the Future film and Shaft, it might look like this. Or maybe not. No time travel in the larger episode, just this fun interlude.

Season 3, Episode 6 - Death Lives

This is first of several occasions throughout the series in which Peter interacts with Death. In this episode, While Peter is having a "near death experience", Death takes Peter back to witness earlier points in his life when he was first meeting Lois. He's not merely seeing visions of his past, he's actually standing on the sidelines, watching his life unfold.

Season 3, Episode 8 - The Kiss Seen Around the World

The clip here is an aside when Peter mentions that teaching Stewie to ride his tricycle is going to be "even more exciting than that time that Brian taught me about Christopher Columbus. The single scene features Brian and Peter in a parody of Mr. Peabody and Sherman from Peabody's Improbable History. They travel back in time to 1492 to visit Columbus.

Season 4, Episode 12 - The Perfect Castaway

In another aside, Peter muses that he must be pretty smart because he once built a time machine out of a DeLorean. We then see the disastrous results of what he assumes is time travel to the fifties. Includes some visual references to the Twin Pines mall scene from Back to the Future.

Season 4, Episode 16 - The Courtship of Stewie's Father

This episode includes Family Guy's third reference to Back to the Future. In this scene, none of the regular Family Guy cast appear, but animated versions of Marty McFly, Jennifer and Doc reveal a hitherto unseen outtake from Back to the Future II. Marty and Jennifer will never look at Doc the same way again.

Season 4, Episode 30 - Stu and Stewie's Excellent Adventure

The majority of this episode involves time travel. The adult Stewie visits from the future and baby Stewie tags along for the return trip. Stewie is none too impressed with his older self's life, so he tries to change it for the better. And, of course, he only ends up making it worse. According to this episode, people thirty years in the future regularly take vacations in other time periods.

Season 5, Episode 18 - Meet the Quagmires

In this episode, Peter has another encounter with Death, who allows him to relive a day in his youth. The decisions Peter makes while in his past changes his current life dramatically. Includes more strong visual references to Back to the Future (the Enchantment Under the Sea dance) and Back to the Future II (Doc's blackboard explanation of alternate timelines.). And, in case that wasn't enough, Brian sings the Rick Astley song "Never Gonna Give You Up" in its entirety. Oh yes, and a mention of the Butterfly Effect.

Season 7, Episode 3 - Road to Germany

In this episode, We first see Stewie's greatly improved time machine. While visiting the Griffin home, Mort thinks the time machine is a bathroom, and accidentally winds up in Poland during the Nazi invasion of 1939. Brian and Stewie follow to bring him back, and hilarity ensues.

Season 8, Episode 1 - Road to the Multiverse

This episode gets an honorable mention, because it's not techincally time travel. Using another of Stewie's inventions, Stewie and Brian travel through many different alternate universes. In the clip here, they visit a Disney-like universe, a robot chicken universe, and a universe that is essentially an alternate timeline of their home universe.

Season 9, Episode 10 - Friends of Peter G

In this episode, Peter has his third encounter with Death, who shows him several alternate timelines, including one in which he never drinks alcohol. Apparently Death has some pretty handy powers to pinpoint specific timelines that will teach Peter the life lessons he needs to learn.

We’d love to hear your comments on these episodes! What’s your family Family Guy time travel moment? Don’t see your favorite here? Perhaps its one from seasons 9-15 that we’ll be including next month in second half of our list. Think perhaps we’ve missed one? Please let us know, and we’ll add it here. In the meantime, enjoy!

Note: All of these clips are subject to copyright. For the time being, Twentieth Century Fox has seen fit to allow us to continue to display them on our fledgling YouTube channel. However, that’s always subject to change. If you see clips here that have become unavailable, please let us know and we’ll do our best to provide alternative content.

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Craig Richardson

Craig is the founder and creator of TimeTravelNexus.com. He first stumbled upon a time machine in Boys Life magazine in the early 1970's, and many time trips later, he has lost track of his original timeline. He spends his days with his wife and young son in the timeline he now considers "home". A chance encounter with a future self alerted him to one possible future in which he becomes a published novelist, although whether or not that is a future of his current timeline remains to be seen.

@ChrononautOne

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craig@timetravelnexus.com