Peter Griffin (seasons 1-7)

Peter Griffin is the main protagonist of the Fox adult animated comedy series Family Guy. He is an overweight man who is the husband of Lois Griffin, and the father of Meg, Chris, and Stewie. Usually, he's depicted as being innocent and stupid; however, he is not as nice a character as some may imagine. In fact, throughout the course of the series, Peter has caused much misery for those around himself: often this is due to stupidity but there have been times when Peter has deliberately caused harm or misfortune on others to better himself, which only backfires, leaving Peter the raw end of the deal.

Peter is not alone in this respect as he is shown to have an "evil" brother known as Thaddeus Griffin, suggesting antagonism runs in his family, that explains about his son, Stewie (though in fairness, Peter does have some moments of being a caring individual, though they are rare).

He is voiced by creator Seth MacFalane.

Why He Was Our Family Guy

 * 1) He's a very caring father to Meg, Chris, and Stewie. He is also a very well-meaning husband to Lois. He is also a good owner to Brian.
 * 2) He also has shown to be great friends towards Brian, Quagmire, Joe, and Cleveland.
 * 3) He has many funny moments and has spawned many hilarious memes, a good example is the “You know what really grinds my gears?....” meme.
 * 4) Seth MacFarlane does a fantastic job doing his voice, and it sounds very funny.
 * 5) He's a lot more understanding than he appears to be. Despite having his flaws and wrongdoings, he usually will learn something at the end of an episode and will realize the error of his ways in that episode. Much of these moral realizations he learns tend to be family-oriented such as how much Lois really means to him and how he regrets risking away their relationship.
 * 6) Even when Peter is doing something idiotic or ridiculous, it'll still come off as hilarious.(Most of the time).
 * 7) His iconic laugh never gets old.
 * 8) In the first three seasons, as crazy as it can sound like, he could arguably be considered better than Homer Simpson, since Peter never abused his children back then (though this would sadly change in season 4 episode 10 "Model Misbehavior" onward, where his abuse of Meg began and only got stronger and more tasteless), while Homer always strangled Bart (though not as much as in later seasons), which, while funny depending on your view, is still child abuse nonetheless, even though he never abused Lisa or Maggie. It's kinda ironic how Peter went from being slightly more likable than Homer to waaaaaaaaaaaay worse than Homer.
 * 9) His fights with Ernie the giant chicken are very entertaining and hilarious.
 * 10) He does give some bad people the punishment they deserve, like in "Peter's Daughter", where he savagely beats Connie D'Amico against a fire extinguisher for her awful behavior towards his daughter, which is satisfying.

Intentional Bad Qualities
NOTE: These traits were likely made on purpose
 * 1) Him, along with the rest of his friends and family, have been flanderized horribly in later seasons, though there are some instances where he is funny and likable and reverts (temporarily) back to his old self, like in "Peter-assment" and "Meg and Quagmire" (despite both being bad episodes).
 * 2) Likewise, he does have some unlikeable/out of character moments before season 8:
 * 3) *In "Fore, Father", he gives away Chris all because he believes he failed at being his father.
 * 4) *In "Play It Again, Brian", he acts neglectful towards Lois and decides to hang out with his friends instead. He basically acts like a complete idiot and is childish in this episode. Granted, this blame goes on the writers for trying to make Peter the villain and Brian the good guy. Although he was absolutely right to call out Brian for his actions in the episode.
 * 5) * In "Long John Peter", he acts even more childish than he already was by stealing a parrot from the vet and pretends to be a pirate, he is also extremely unlikable for misinforming Chris bad relationship advice that he should treat his girlfriend Anna horrible for no reason, which causes her to break up with Chris, and Peter gets off scot-free.
 * 6) **He talks down Meg and controls her future saying that she'll gain weight and write fan fiction, rather than let her be a vet like she wants.
 * 7) **He tells Chris that if he wants a relationship with a girl to work, he shouldn't treat her like a human-being, which is misogynistic.
 * 8) **The last seven minutes of the episode where Peter tries to help Chris find a new girlfriend by practicing a date with sock puppets, humming "Down Under" by Men at Work are all horrible attempts at comedy to where the scene where Chris reconciles with Anna is less than a minute long and the episode ends there. Thus making the last seven minutes with Peter and Chris unfunny filler and a waste of time.
 * 9) *His mistreatment of Meg already began in season 4:
 * 10) **In "Model Misbehavior", when Lois starts a modeling career, Peter states that he will pleasure himself to Lois' pictures, followed by Chris and Meg both exclaiming "Me too!" to which Peter shouts "Oh God, Meg, that's sick! That's your mother!", ignoring the fact that Chris said the same thing first. Meg responded by saying "I was only trying to fit in!" Peter immediately kicked her out of the house. Later, during an unrelated conversation, when she tried to insight Peter on how Lois' behavior from modeling made a poor example for women, he said "Meg, who let you back in the house?"
 * 11) **In "Petergeist", he reminds Lois, "We agreed that if we could only save two, we'd leave Meg!".
 * 12) **In "Peter's Daughter", he randomly shot her when she simply said "Hi Dad" in a cutaway gag.
 * 13) **In "Not All Dogs Go to Heaven", he treats Meg horribly after she gets the mumps and he never gets punished for his actions.