brian griffin

H. Brian Griffinas shown in Brian Griffin's House of Payne is a fictional character from the American animated television series ''Family Guy''. An anthropomorphic white labrador retriever voiced by Seth MacFarlane, he is one of the show's main characters as a member of the Griffin family. He primarily works in the series as a less-than-adept writer struggling to find himself, attempting essays, novels, screenplays, and newspaper articles.

He first appeared on television, along with the rest of the family, in a 15-minute short on December 20, 1998. Brian was created and designed by MacFarlane himself. MacFarlane was asked to pitch a pilot to the Fox Broadcasting Company, based on ''The Life of Larry'' and ''Larry & Steve'', two shorts made by MacFarlane featuring a middle-aged character named Larry and an intellectual dog, Steve. These two are now considered as Peter and Brian. After the pilot was given the green light, the Griffin family appeared in the episode "Death Has a Shadow".

Brian has been featured in many items of merchandise for ''Family Guy'', and he is considered to be one of the show's biggest merchandising characters. He has also made crossover appearances in the other MacFarlane-produced shows, such as ''American Dad!'' and ''The Cleveland Show''.

As a character, Brian was initially very well received by critics although reception in later years has been mixed. When Brian was killed off in the season 12 episode "Life of Brian", the events of the episode received substantial attention from the media and elicited strongly negative reactions from fans of the show. Brian subsequently returned two episodes later, in "Christmas Guy", after Stewie, his best friend, traveled back in time to save him.

Role in ''Family Guy''

Brian is a white-furred anthropomorphic dog. He can talk, generally walks on his hind legs (using his front legs as arms), has opposable thumbs, drives a second-generation Toyota Prius (with the license plate "BRI-DOG"), and is often portrayed as the only sane person in his family. He is the pet dog of the Griffin family, and in keeping with the show's treatment of anthropomorphic characters generally, Brian's human attributes receive little acknowledgment and no explanation; he is largely treated as a human character. Brian is the best friend of Stewie, and many of the show's sub-plots center around them. They are occasionally at the center of the plot, for instance in the "Road to..." episodes. Brian and Stewie have a love–hate relationship in which they constantly argue and humiliate each other, and yet show appreciation for each other several times. In the episode " Brian and Stewie", they admit that they love each other as friends, and give each other's lives purpose.

Brian is an alcoholic and is very fond of dry martinis and is seen to have withdrawal symptoms in various episodes when he is told or forced to stop drinking. He smokes occasionally, although in the episode "Mr. Griffin Goes to Washington", after seeing Peter promoting a corrupt cigarette company, he quit smoking, a habit he resumed at the end of that episode. He also regularly smokes marijuana. After a brief stint as a drug sniffing dog, he developed a cocaine addiction, but after spending time in rehab he managed to achieve sobriety.

He is the son of Coco and Biscuit, who were normal dogs, though Brian's human attributes have been present since he was a puppy. He claims his father was a racist. Brian received an Ivy League education, having attended Brown University, as seen in " Brian Goes Back to College" but was one course away from graduating. He is also an Iraq War veteran because Stewie signed them both up for the Army, in " Saving Private Brian". ''Family Guy'' uses a floating timeline in which the characters do not age much, so the show is always assumed to be set in the current year. However, several of the characters, such as Meg Griffin, have aged two to three years since the show's pilot episode, while others, such as Stewie and Brian, have aged very little. At the start of the series, Brian was 7–8, but is currently 10 years old. Despite his intelligence, Brian has shown conventional dog behavior on occasion. He greatly fears the vacuum cleaner which Lois refers to as "Mr. Hoover", he once ran excitedly into the kitchen when Meg shook a bag of dog food, and in the episode " Bill & Peter's Bogus Journey" it is revealed that Brian can only defecate and urinate on the Griffin's front lawn.

In several episodes, events have been linked to specific times, although this timeline has been contradicted in subsequent episodes. An example of this is when in " Brian: Portrait of a Dog", Peter is shown in a flashback finding a fully grown Brian as a stray. However, in " The Man with Two Brians", Brian tries to regain attention from the Griffin family by showing them home videos of him as a puppy, although none of the videos of him as a puppy showed any member of the Griffin family, so it is possible that the videos were filmed by a previous owner. He also has a human son named Dylan, who was a regular marijuana smoker, before Brian managed to turn Dylan's life around, from a violent, uneducated teenager, to an eloquent and kind-hearted young man. Their relationship becomes strained over time as Brian had become distant with Dylan only until he learned that his son had been cast in a television show, using his son to land a job as a writer for the show. Stewie is very confused upon how Brian as an 8-year-old dog can have a teenage son, and Brian's remark about it being in dog years confuses him even further.

Brian is a political liberal, who supports legalizing marijuana, gay marriage and ending the war on terror. He is also an atheist, although in the episode " April in Quahog" he starts praying out of panic when news anchors Tom Tucker and Diane Simmons announce that the world will end (later revealed to be an April Fools joke). In " Brian and Stewie", Brian revealed that he voted for John McCain.

Despite once being portrayed as having a high intellect, more recent episodes have depicted Brian as having an average-at-best intelligence and being a fraudulent intellectual, such as pretending to be well-read or understanding concepts he does not, such as the multiverse theory in " Road to the Multiverse". He often tries to impress others of how smart he is but is frequently corrected by others, mainly Stewie. After taking the SATS for Meg, it is revealed that Brian actually scored the lowest in the class which causes him to have an identity crisis. (The low SAT score was later explained by Brian having a brain tumor at the time.) He has since been generally insecure about his intelligence and will sometimes take credit for some of Stewie's achievements in order to make himself look smart.

Brian sees himself as a romantic and has had several relationships over the years, mainly with human women. Brian will often abandon his own personal beliefs and personality in order to make himself more appealing to the women he's attracted to and sometimes resorts to lying in order to make himself look good. These relationships often end badly due to his inflated ego or being caught in a deception.

His longest lasting relationship was with Jillian Russell, a beautiful but dim witted girl who Brian dated in season 5. He eventually moves in with her but is unable to pay rent. This eventually leads to a fight when Brian reveals he did not want to move in with her. He later tries to win her back but discovers she's now dating Adam West, leaving him heartbroken.

Brian's most significant relationship was with Jess Schlotz, a woman diagnosed with terminal cancer who Brian meets in a bar. As Jess had only a little time left to live, Brian agreed to help her with her bucket list and the two fall in love. The couple eventually get married as Jess' time grew shorter, a decision Brian later regretted when Jess' doctor said she'll make a full recovery. Brian became deeply depressed following the marriage, becoming overweight and emotionally distant to the point where Jess brings him to the pound to be put down. The two remain married until Jess' death, which occurred during a commercial break.

Writing career

Brian is an aspiring but struggling writer – this is said to be a reference to Snoopy from ''Peanuts''. Brian is unemployed, but he is often seen writing various novels, screenplays, or essays. His difficult writing career and apparent lack of talent is used as a recurring joke throughout the series. In the episode " Play it Again, Brian", Brian won an award for an essay he wrote, though he later admits that he plagiarized the piece.

In the episode "Movin' Out (Brian's Song)", Brian starts writing his book ''Faster Than The Speed of Love'', which is revealed to be a rip-off of the ''Iron Eagle'' films, specifically '' Aces: Iron Eagle III''.

In the episode "420", Brian finally publishes ''Faster Than the Speed of Love'', and the novel is shipped, but it is critically panned and does not sell a single copy. In the episode " Dog Gone", he receives an invitation from the Rhode Island Society for Special Literary Excellence to an award ceremony celebrating his novel. Brian, convinced that he is a great writer, attempts to gain the family's interest in this piece of news but fails to do so. Once he arrives at the "award ceremony", however, he discovers that he has misunderstood the meaning of the word " special".

In the episode "Brian Griffin's House of Payne", he writes a television script entitled "What I Learned on Jefferson Street", and it was shown to CBS who picked it up after reading it. Although the script was good, the finished product was not, as James Woods intervened and turned Brian's script into a farcical comedy piece revolving around Woods going back to college, where he is roommates with a monkey named Mr. Nubbins. In the episode " Brian Writes a Bestseller", Brian writes a bestselling self-help book, ''Wish It, Want It, Do It'', which he wrote in a few hours and consists mostly of blank pages. The book is an immediate success, but Brian lets the fame go to his head. He eventually causes the downfall of his book's popularity, and things go back to normal. It is mentioned again to get a girl in " Yug Ylimaf".

Brian's latest literary attempt came in the episode " Brian's Play", where he writes a play titled ''A Passing Fancy''. The play becomes very popular in Quahog; however, Brian is upset when he realizes that Stewie had since written a play which was better than his. Stewie's play was eventually shown on Broadway. Brian became depressed, as he only wanted to be a good writer for the few years which remain of his life, and not have to be overshadowed by Stewie, who has his whole life ahead of him.

Character

Creation

''Family Guy'' creator Seth MacFarlane created a cartoon short entitled '' Life of Larry''. The short centered around a middle-aged man named Larry and his anthropomorphic dog Steve. In 1997, when MacFarlane was working for Hanna-Barbera Studios, writing for shows such as ''Johnny Bravo'', ''Dexter's Laboratory'', and ''Cow and Chicken'', he made a sequel to ''Life of Larry''. The short caught the eye of 20th Century Fox representatives, who asked him to create a TV series revolving around the characters. MacFarlane received a US$50,000 budget to develop a pilot for the show, which was, as MacFarlane stated in a 2006 interview, " about one twentieth of what most pilots cost". MacFarlane claims to have drawn inspiration from several sitcoms, namely ''The Simpsons'' and ''All in the Family''. Several premises were also carried over from several 1980s Saturday morning cartoons he watched as a child, namely ''The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang'', and ''Rubik, the Amazing Cube''.

In three months, MacFarlane created the Griffin family and developed a pilot for the show he called ''Family Guy''. Brian's character was largely based on Steve, and Larry would be the main inspiration for the Peter character.

Voice

The voice of Brian is provided by series creator Seth MacFarlane, who also provides the voices of many other characters including Peter Griffin, Stewie Griffin, and Glenn Quagmire. Brian's voice is MacFarlane's normal speaking voice. William H. Macy auditioned unsuccessfully for the role.

In the episode " Road to the Multiverse", Brian was voiced by Japanese actor Kotaro Watanabe in a scene in an alternate universe where everything is Japanese (due to an American defeat in the Second World War).

Reception

Ahsan Haque of IGN has given Brian a positive review, calling him the best talking man-dog. He also praised Brian's adventures with Stewie calling them, "center of many of the show's best bits". Haque later made a list titled "Family Guy: Stewie and Brian's Greatest Adventures", where he stat