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It’s because of Tariq I binged the entirety of Family Guy last year. All 400 episodes across a month and a half. I both had a newfound appreciation for family guy and an understanding of what he sees in later seasons. Family guy peaks are really good
@Frog Glen I agree. I can't say I was ever a passionate fan, but I've stuck with it because when it is good, it's usually very good. And the last few seasons haven't been as bad as it got for awhile.
I like to just assume that these characters exist in a strange paradoxical limbo where time keeps moving forward but the cast are a set age group for the most part.
That’s not even a headcanon that’s a canon addressed thing that it’s just how the show runs lol Same with the Simpsons they make jokes out of it all the time
Floating timelines can be funny especially when a show lists the year the episode is in. There were two instances in Arthur where the show did just that. One episode they subtly said it was 2003 and another episode later on apparently took place in 2012 (despite the airdate being 2-3 years prior).
I had a theory that Stewie’s Time Machine has been effecting how everybody ages. Similar to the theory of Kenny effecting how the characters in South Park age.
That thing with Cleveland Jr. reminds me of that spy sub plot in one episode of Cleveland Show where the weightier Cleveland Jr. is actually a spy that killed and replace the smaller one in an operation to assassinate Tim the Bear.
As far as I remember, there was also an explanation that when Cleveland and Loretta began to divorce, Loretta first took her son to herself and fed him, and he was also prescribed pills for hyperactivity, which also contained hormones...
Brian: 8-9-10 Meg: 16-17-18 Chris: 13-14-15 Peter: 43-44-45 Stewie 1-preschool age (presumably at least three, also no discernable differences from Rallo, who's five). Cleveland Jr (most definitely visibly aged from early middle school age to early high school age, unless you want to count the secret agent thing but that's probably just a gag considering Cleveland Jr did the “I'm Tiger Woods" bit again in Cleveland Show, before commenting on his age and weight after quickly getting tired due to being less hyper and energetic) I can safely feel like at *least* three years have passed in Family Guy from the first episode to the current season, despite the show embracing “cartoon ages and years don't make sense" pretty proudly.
Actually I think you missed one. In the episode "Brain Does Hollywood from Season 3, where Stewie was chosen to be on Kids Say The Darndest Things, a show producer asks Stewie "How old is your dad?" and he replies "42." Let's see where that fits in the time line.
There’s also Quagmire who’s 60 like Flanders, but in the parody episodes and flashbacks, he’s always around the same age as the guys when they’re kids.
The outlier is the 60 year old scene. He’s been portrayed to be around as old as Peter and the guys, plus his father would have to be around 80 if that was still the intended age.
I have a theory that Quagmire was using his dad’s ID actually! Cus Ida also mentions in the Transparent episode that she’s been around ‘for 61 years’. It doesn’t add up otherwise
I think the "Stewie being a toddler" thing does kind of track seeing as how not only is he going to preschool, but in the episode where Doug apparently dies they state that Chris and Meg have a roughly 10 year gap between them and Stewie.
I never thought about who was the eldest between Chris and Meg until now lol It never crossed my mind they just both kinda come off as the same age to me i guess. But in American dad you definitely feel the age gap between Hailey and Steve
I think it's because Steve is given much more screen time and has had more episodes focused around him, while Chris is more underused and is often used as a second fiddle to Stewie or Peter.
I used to think Chris was the oldest of the two probably because he was taller. I think took around Meg's 17th birthday that I realized she's the older one
This is the same problem the Simpsons have with their timeline. You can say it's a joke, but after several decades where the fans can't figure out where the parents first met, the joke starts becoming stale.
It is weird Meg apparently graduates off-screen. I've toyed around with the idea of going through seasons 1 through 3 adding time mentioned or counting day/night (vice-versa) scene transitions to get an actual time dilation in the series
Let's not forget that Meg, Connie and Neil has been in High School since 1999 along with Kevin who similar to Cleveland Jr aged in his absence from the show.
That's really the big problem when you're using a "floating timeline": consistency. You need to be able to properly track every character's ages and history, while also trying to adapt and evolve it as the real world changes. The only upside to doing this in shows like The Simpsons or Family Guy (and related shows) is the fact that they're written as comedies; you don't have to worry about consistency or outstanding lore, just as long as what you're doing is in service of the story or joke you're writing. That's why Bonnie was pregnant for 7 years. It's why Maggie's still a baby. It's also why it's not as clear who can understand Stewie. To be honest, you (the fans) are probably thinking about this shit *WAY* more than anyone who's actually working on it.
Well, there are many non-comedy shows and those shows where humor is not a priority, where time is also frozen. Although you are right: this trick is most often used in comedies and satirical shows to suit the modern audience and be able to make fun of modernity.
There could be a canon reason why Peter deaged…though it could be explained with the joke in the episode where the lady tried to replace Lois Peter deages as a gag, but Lois and Peter treat it with some level of seriousness. The fact Peter mentions the harm could imply Peter has a Deaging ability which could link to his regeneration abilities? Though honestly a part of me would kill if you made a video power scaling every family guy character
In my head canon it's been about 2.5 years as Cleveland moved for lil bit and Brian has have 2 birthdays and Meg has her 17th birthday in season 5 and she turns 18 in that "episode" so I think she is 18 in a half and Stewie is 2.5
also susie does age a bit. she is born in season 7 and her first birthday is in season 12 (which means that all of the events from season7-12 happend in a one year. and yep that means that cleveland was gone for about 10 months)
My take on this is like early Simpsons. Back then, you could use some of the jokes to figure out Springfield’s location (MatPat did a video on it), but later on they just didn’t care. Early FG cared about the tone and consistency. Revival FG doesn’t bother (as often anyway).
We see Brian’s ninth birthday in the episode “Bri, Robot” as it’s growing older that prompts Brian to want to write an autobiography, Great vid as always Tariq ❤
I'd probably say it's the same as any long-lasting animated TV show, sitcom or otherwise; Everyone and everything exists at everything everywhere all at once. There was one bit in The Simpsons episode "Behind the Laughter" where Lisa talks about her being secretly given anti-growth hormones, but that could perhaps be taken with only a grain of salt, as would the episodes set in the future. The timeline is fixed, yet flexible, but simultaneously flawed. New issues come up every year, and yet the characters we grew up with back then lived through them all, even the literal babies. To cover the three Fs I think I just made up, using The Simpsons as a base template; *Fixed:* Homer attended high school when he was 18, which is also when/where he and Marge met. Bart was born 10 years ago, Lisa 8 years ago, and Maggie is only 1 year old. In Season 2's "The Way We Was", Homer and Marge's first spoken meet-up is established as being set in 1974. *Flexible:* As society moderns and troubles arise, the long-running series, destined to not permanently be stuck in the late-80s time period (episodes set in the future cast aside), adapts with the growing library of mediums and technologies, coping mechanisms, and whatever else changes/gets made from yesteryear. *Flawed:* With the timeline continuing to adapt to later timelines without progressing in a realistic sense, established flashbacks become partially non-canon to make room for new lore, in attempt to still keep the series making sense. Despite "Lisa's First Word" establishing her birth year as 1983, "That '90s Show" (a Season 19 episode that takes place in a nondescript year of the early 1990s) sees Homer before Bart was born, as he forms a band inspired by Nirvana, and at one point there's a billboard poster with Sonic and Amy on it (the latter using her modern design from since Sonic Adventure). And then one of the newer episodes (I think it was in Season 32?) sees Homer as a teenager before he even met Marge in high school, but now in the mid-90s, which throws out the canon established as early as the shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show, where Homer and Marge's kids were all clearly alive to live through the whole of the 1980s. Despite this, pre-established flashbacks still get occasionally referenced from time to time, even the original years they were set in. Even when some flashbacks get thrown out for new ones, and the it what the Simpsons family is with constantly changes into not being it, there's still one issue that sits, awaiting the very end (and correct me if I'm misremembering)… This honestly only applies to The Simpsons, but it may apply to other shows if they go the same route; One of the show's staff (I think it was either Al Jean or Mike Reiss?) said somewhere that the one plan for the series' end is that the end of the episode would simultaneously be the start of "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire". Whether that means they'll do a timeloop ending or just copy the end of Future-Worm's series finale, I dunno, but if it's the former; Honestly it wouldn't make much sense. They'd have to make a good reason for pre-series events happening endlessly, and deceased characters like Edna Krabappel coming back to life. Also I know it's only a one-off bit, but you missed the part in Season 15's "House Full of Peters" where Meg is shot dead in the head via sniper rifle, and her role is taken over by one of many a Russian clone.
The same thing happens in The Amazing Spider-Man comics, running since 1963 without a reboot. Previous events all still exist but since Peter Parker obviously isn't 80 years old, flashbacks have to be updated with newer technology and such. I'm not sure if or how they deal with concrete events in history like Volume 2 Issue 36 where Spider-Man was at the 9-11 rubble.
Oh, that's because big Marvel events like the creation of the Fantasic Four or Secret Wars or Spider-Man stuff want to happen, so the universe naturally readjusts the creation of the Fantastic Four (The method all Marvel dates from, currently 15 years since.) to later dates so that they're still around, placing them in big events as appropriate or something.@@beipiaosaurus Also, Spider-Man's around 33 because of a few one-year time-skips.
Before watching the video: I think it's fine that different characters seem to age at different rates, little retcons like that let them tell different stories as the show progresses. Stewie had his first birthday, meg went from like 16 to 19, Bonnie was like 8 months pregnant for a decade and a half.
The first time we hear Peter's age (pretty sure) is season 3 ep 2 when Stewie auditions for Kids Say the Darndest Things and the producer(?) asks him "How old do you think Daddy is?" and he matter-of-factly responds "42". I'm assuming this is correct because it's Stewie. A few seasons later, it's announced Peter is 43 after he beats up that asshole kid.
This reminds me of how in King of the Hill, we see the Souphanousinphones move into the neighborhood in season 1, but in the final season Kahn says that he's been in the neighborhood for at least 7 years.
I like to sometimes imagine that maybe episodes from later seasons are earlier in the timeline and most cutaways are not canon just so the continuity makes more sense, though I know the writers definitely don't have this same head canon lol
I hate to “ummm actually”, but in season 3 episode 2(?) where stewie goes on “kids say the darndest things” or whatever, stewie says Peter is 42. But that’s before the episode where Lois says Peter is 43, so I guess he had a birthday between then haha
i decided to google "current ages" to the family guy characters and was given this.. the last line about brian got me a little: Family Guy ages In the first/second season, Peter was 42 (if memory serves) w/ Lois stating she's two years younger so 40. Meg was 16, Chris was 13, Stewie 1 & Brian 7. Obviously w/ math, add 20 years (20 seasons) to those ages so Peter's 62, Lois 60, Meg's 36, Chris is 33, Stewie's 21 & Brian's 27 and dead.
A correction to Brian's first confirmed mention of age: There's an episode where he goes to be in The Bachelorette in Season 4, and his age(7) is listed under his name in the confessional
The writers room probably puts -18 seconds of thought into this at any point but it's always fun to think about and try to make some sense of a continuity like this, even if only for a moment.
Honestly they should just make Meg like a freshman is college, move into a dorm/apartment & stay. It opens up for new stories & new characters. I’d like to think she’d have a really nice place, she’s secretly rich from publishing stories or poems based on the family. Carter is her publisher because 1) it makes money. 2) it talks crap about Peter
7:45: It’s worth remembering Mayor Adam West’s eccentricities. He did once use a cat launcher on a pizza delivery guy when he brought him a pizza he didn’t like😂
Me answering the question, yes and no. Yes because you have moments such as Meg turning 18, Stevie’s teeth growing, and Susie being born, but also no because you have people being the same age and never aging in the run of the show.
They've been pretty explicit that time passes but the characters (mostly) don't age. In "Back to the Pilot", Brian and Stewie specifically say that they're time traveling back to 1999, which at the time was twelve years ago. Stewie is still a one-year-old baby in both 1999 and 2011. This is just treated completely matter-of-factly, and really that's as much thought as we should give it. With some exceptions, the characters don't age, and that's that. Except some people do age. Like Cleveland Junior. Why? Who knows. Let's leave figuring out the biology of how that all works to the doctors and scientists in their world. After all, they're FAR from the only cartoon characters who don't age. Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury works a bit similarly, come to think of it. For its first twelve years, the characters didn't age, except for Mike's younger brother Benjy, who went from a preteen to a high-schooler. Then from that point forward, most of the characters have aged in real time. But there have been many exceptions to that rule, with some characters aging much slower than others, and some not aging at all. Zonker basically hasn't changed one iota since the 1970s, despite being the same age as Mike, Mark and B.D., who are all visibly entering their senior years. On the other hand, poor Bernie somehow aged very rapidly between 1995 and 1998, for no particular reason. Then there's the strange case of Duke, who has been in the strip since 1974, and was specifically mentioned in 1979 as being 42 years old. Yet today, in 2023, he continues to both look and act exactly the same as he always has, even as many other characters have aged around him. Including his own illegitimate son Earl, who was nine when we met him in 1995 but is now an adult. Then from the opposite end, there's the bizarre case of Alex and Leo's twin sons, who were born at the end of 2012 yet within just a couple of years appeared to have already aged to about five or six. And speaking of Alex, she was born in 1988 and pretty much aged in real time, yet Sam was born in 1992 but seemed to age much more slowly.
i think it is also intresting thinking about the christmas episodes. there have been 10 christmas episodes which does mean 10 years (but maybe some episodes are happening the same christmas)
I feel like Family guys ages are just the episodes taking place in different time periods, similar to them being older and just telling story's in the past. Like yeah, she's canonically 19, but season 23 episode 2 (saying a random episode), she might be 16 that episode, and the next, she's 20 rather than being in the same year or time period it could all be cannon but not in order by age rather than time period. I could tell you a story about me be 12 today, and the next day, I could have a story about me being 19
when it comes to shows where time moves forward but characters don't age I try to think of it like we're getting like a misremembered version of events where the characters were "around that age" rather than exactly that age. At least that helps when I'm overthinking things like Bob's Burgers having multiple Halloween episodes but Tina is always 13
I think they are just on a floating timeline.... like the Simpsons.... They world around them matches up with current times but they just don't age. On Family Guy, I'm pretty sure all their holidays match up with real life, so I don't think everything happens within a one year period
Actually the producers said the reason for Cleveland Jr.'s drastic change is that after Loretta divorced Cleveland, Cleveland Jr. gave up on life, turned to eating and became overweight.
When Stewies' trying to get on Kids Say the Darndest Things, they ask him how old daddy is and he says 42, before correcting himself and saying "daddy's old! I think he's seven!"
i cannot describe how much joy these vids give me,, im autistic n black and american cartoons are my special interest, your content makes me soso happy! thanks for this for real
ohhh im so late to checking this out, was a great video! also that re-animation u did with peter and meg was so expressive wow!! :D thank u for making another great video
There’s one episode where Meg tricks Lois into saying when she was born, Dwight D. Eisenhower was President. Look up when his term was, because that would imply she’s anywhere from 62 to 70! O_o
