Family Guy has sent the Griffin family on plenty of wild adventures, and some of the wackiest and most bizarre are when Stewie and Brian go back in time. Seth McFarlane’s animated comedy blends the mundane aspects of the everyday lives of the Griffins with some more out-of-the-box concepts. Throughout the nearly 20-season run of Family Guy, viewers have had hundreds of opportunities to follow Peter, Lois, Meg, Chris, Stewie, Brian, and a collection of recurring side characters. Time machine Family Guy antics don’t crop up in every episode, however, so those in which Stewie and Brian time travel are always memorable.
There are plenty of adored pairings of the Family Guy characters, but the relationship and dynamic between Stewie and Brian is among the best. The youngest of the Griffin children, Stewie has a wicked sense of humor and is incredibly smart. Brian is the Griffin family’s talking dog who participates in life as if he were a human. Stewie and Brian often go on adventures together and bring out the best (and worst) of each other. The pairing became such a fan favorite that Family Guy eventually started making episodes largely devoted to what Brian and Stewie were up to together. Of course, they aren’t always the most responsible.
One of the duo’s favorite pastimes is time traveling. Despite Family Guy‘s relatively grounded nature, time travel has been part of the show’s world since nearly the beginning. The first season showed Stewie build a time machine to avoid the pain of teething. While different Family Guy characters have used the device to go backward and forward in time, Stewie and Brian’s criminal activities often are at the center of any time travel shenanigans. They’ve used Stewie’s time machine to have plenty of fun and deliver some of the more emotional moments in the show’s history. Here is every instance in which Stewie and Brian go back in time.
The Road to Germany
The first time machine Family Guy adventure on which Stewie and Brian embark came during season 7, episode 3, “Road to Germany.” The episode begins with Mort Goldman stumbling into Stewie’s time machine while at the Griffins’ house after mistaking it for a bathroom. Stewie and Brian decide that they need to follow Mort to the past to bring him back. This takes them to 1939 Germany at the precipice of World War II (which despite the Holocaust jokes, isn’t the darkest place Family Guy takes Stewie). They quickly find Mort but realize that the return pad is broken. Brian, Mort, and Stewie travel to England while being pursued by Nazis to obtain more uranium fuel, which powers this version of the return pad. They manage to get the uranium after Stewie poses as Hitler and return home safely, 30 seconds before Mort originally enters Stewie’s room. To ensure these events don’t repeat themselves, though, Stewie kills the Mort who traveled through time by putting him in the time machine and blowing it up.
The Big Bang Theory
The next moment in which Stewie and Brian go back in time took place in Family Guy season 9, episode 6, titled “The Big Bang Theory.” The episode isn’t a crossover with the hit TBS sitcom of the same name, but instead is like a Rick and Morty/Family Guy hybrid tale about Stewie nearly being erased from the universe. It begins with Stewie using the time machine to make fun of Brian, leading to the two pals fighting over control of it. This takes them outside the space-time continuum and Stewie discovered that he created the universe with the Big Bang. After returning to the right point in time, Stewie’s half-brother Bertram decides to use the time machine to erase Stewie from existence. This forces Stewie and Brian to go back in time again to try and stop him, resulting in Stewie learning that Leonardo da Vinci is his ancestor. Through a twisted turn of events, Stewie has to kill Bertram (one of Stewie’s best rivals) and become his own ancestor before returning to the present day.
Back To The Pilot
Family Guy season 10, episode 5, “Back to the Pilot,” sees Brian and Stewie take a very different trip through time. It begins with Brian wishing he could find a tennis ball he buried ten years before and Stewie offering to take his dog companion back in time to figure out where it is. This takes them back to the pilot episode of Family Guy, but Stewie and Brian mess up the timeline when Brian tells his past self about 9/11. The chain reaction of events that occurred from this detail brings the U.S. into a post-apocalyptic state in the near future. Brian and Stewie go back in time once more to try and fix the timeline. This didn’t work at first either, as Brian’s origin changes and he is now the author of the Harry Potter books instead. The duo goes back in time again and encounters multiple versions of themselves from different futures. It only ends once the original Stewie prevents him and Brian from ever going back in time in the first place.
Yug Ylimaf
The next time travel adventure with Brian and Stewie takes place in Family Guy season 11, episode 4, “Yug Ylimaf.” It begins with Brian using Stewie’s time machine to pick up women and unknowingly increasing the trip counter. He tries to reduce the counter but breaks the machine in the process (this underhandedness is typical behavior for the disgruntled canine and one of the many reasons Quagmire hates Brian). When he and Stewie try to fix it, the machine explodes and causes time around them to begin moving backward at exponential speeds. They race against a ticking clock to fix the flow of time before Stewie becomes unborn. Stewie runs out of time as his birth nears and tasks Brian with finishing the repairs. Brian manages to fix the time machine and the flow of time, and he arrives at the hospital just as Stewie is born again.
Life of Brian
Family Guy season 12, episode 6, “Life of Brian,” is one of the show’s most memorable because it’s the Family Guy episode where Brian dies. The episode begins with him and Stewie on another time travel adventure, though. They return to Jamestown after a previous adventure saw them give Native Americans guns to protect themselves. Once the original versions of Stewie and Brian leave, the new ones approach the Native Americans and take back the guns. They then return to the present day and destroy the time machine after having too many near-death experiences. Unfortunately, Brian is hit by a car not too long after and Stewie is unable to go back in time to prevent this from happening or rebuild the time machine.
Christmas Guy
The next time-hopping adventure in Family Guy comes just two episodes later. It technically doesn’t see Brian join Stewie on the trip to the past, but the dog is an integral part of the plot nonetheless. Stewie is at the mall meeting Santa when he sees another version of himself from before Brian’s death at the store. He gets the idea to take Stewie’s return pad so that he can go back in time and save Brian. Stewie successfully goes back in time and saves Brian from being hit by the car. Stewie then sends the return pad to the present and fades from existence after altering the timeline.
Stewie, Chris, & Brian’s Excellent Adventure
The most recent time travel adventure between Stewie and Brian in Family Guy came in season 13, episode 7, titled “Stewie, Chris & Brian’s Excellent Adventure.” The episode revolves around Chris (voiced from season 1 onward by Seth Green after leaving Buffy the Vampire Slayer) being on the verge of failing the 9th grade unless he can pass his upcoming history test. Stewie and Brian eventually try to help Chris study and realize that normal studying techniques will not work for him. They later take Chris on a trip throughout history that allows him to learn about the Lousiana Purchase, meet Ernest Hemingway, and board the Titanic. While Chris didn’t retain any knowledge from this adventure, it did result in the death of an ancestor of his history teacher, giving him a new one who doesn’t care as much about grades.
The Family Guy 9/11 Episode Featuring Time Travel Caused Huge Controversy
Family Guy isn’t a stranger to controversy and until the adult animation boom of the late ’00s onward was rivaled only by South Park in terms of outrage-inducing moments. One moment that continues to rile audiences, however, is Brian and Stewie’s 9/11-focused time-travel episode, season 10’s “Back To The Pilot.” The episode sparked uproar when it first aired in 2011 and would continue to make headlines for years afterward when it was rerun on live TV. Lines like “We did it, Brian — we made 9/11 happen! High-five!” and the general premise of having to cause the September 11th attacks were deemed unpalatable by huge swathes of viewers and many more who’d never seen the show but still took to the internet to voice their concerns. Even though the Family Guy writers made efforts to keep the barbs self-referential, with Stewie quipping, “Wow. That probably wouldn’t look good out of context!” directly after the aforementioned joke, many felt that this was the moment Family Guy finally went too far.
However, this controversy wasn’t enough to stop Family Guy, and the show remains on the air well over a decade later. Family Guy was canceled for a while, but this was long before “Back To The Pilot” aired. While many found the time travel Family Guy 9/11 episode to be in poor taste, many commentators rightly pointed out that the intent was clearly a social commentary. The episode wasn’t off-brand for the show, as the edgy Family Guy was already no stranger to 9/11 jokes. This matters, because complaints of this nature have a lot more merit when viewers are tricked into ingesting difficult topics in their media diet by shows that usually avoid such subjects. “Back To The Pilot” also made some astute observations about 9/11’s impact on the United States and how the 21st century might have played out if it had been prevented – it’s uncomfortable, certainly, but nothing too taboo for the inevitable post-episode discussions. Family Guy may have tackled the topic in a controversial way, but that’s to be expected from a show that gained its following from dark and edgy humor.
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