Family Guy is an American animated sitcom originally conceived and created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company.
Set in the fictional town of Quahog, Rhode Island, the show exhibits much of its humor in the form of metafictional cutaway gags often lampooning American culture. The following is an abridged list of characters consisting of the starring family (Griffins) and supporting characters. Characters are only listed once, normally under the first applicable subsection in the list; very minor characters are listed with a more regular character with whom they are associated.
Peter Löwenbräu Griffin Sr. (voiced by Seth MacFarlane) is the boisterous patriarch of the Griffin family and the titular "family guy" of the series. A 45-year-old Irish-American of blue-collar stock, he works at the Pawtucket Brewery and is most often portrayed as an obese, dim-witted, lazy yet energetic, outspoken, immature, and endearingly eccentric alcoholic whose antics drive much of the show's chaotic humor.
Lois Patrice Griffin (née Pewterschmidt), (voiced by Alex Borstein) is the volatile matriarch of the Griffin family and wife of Peter Griffin, serving as the mother of Meg, Chris, and Stewie. Born into the wealthy Pewterschmidt family, Lois rebelled against her privileged upbringing by marrying Peter, much to her father Carter’s disapproval. A 43-year-old housewife and former piano teacher, Lois is typically portrayed as warm, nurturing, sharp-witted, and the family’s voice of reason, but she sometimes displays moral ambiguity, impulsive behavior, hot-headedness, emotional detachment and a darker edge that can out rival Peter’s recklessness. Despite her outwardly composed demeanor, she has shown a taste for sadomasochism, gambling, and kleptomania, and has admitted to occasional bisexual experiences. Over the series, Lois has also been depicted pursuing various careers and hobbies—including theatre director, flight attendant, school board, modeling, church organist, teacher, professional boxing, journalism, and politics (former mayor of Quahog)—and holds a black belt in Taijutsu. Her relationships with her children, particularly Meg, oscillate between affection and coldness, underscoring her complex, satirical role as both caregiver and enabler within the show’s dysfunctional dynamic.
Megan "Meg" Griffin (voiced by Lacey Chabert in seasons 1 and 2 and by Mila Kunis from season 2 onward) is the Griffins’ 18-year-old daughter and eldest child. She is portrayed as a socially awkward and insecure teenager who attends Adam West High School. Throughout the series, Meg is frequently ridiculed and mistreated by her family and peers—particularly by her father Peter, and school bully Connie D’Amico. Her character is often used to satirize teenage insecurity and social alienation. Despite her negative treatment, Meg occasionally displays moments of confidence, assertiveness and talents that contrast with her usual portrayal.
Christopher Cross "Chris" Griffin (voiced by Seth Green) is the Griffins' 16-year-old son. He is a friendly, laid-back and slow-witted teenage boy who is a younger version of Peter physically, but intellectually, he often shows more potential, as demonstrated from moments of coherence and articulation within his speech.
Stewart "Stewie" Gilligan Griffin (voiced by Seth MacFarlane) is the Griffins’ one-year-old youngest child, portrayed as an intelligent, intellectually gifted, sharp-witted, and articulate infant with an upper-class British accent and adult mannerisms. Originally depicted as a diabolical genius bent on world domination and matricide, Stewie has since evolved into a more complex character whose storylines often center on his scientific inventions, time-travel and multiverse adventures, and his close, sometimes adversarial friendship with the family dog, Brian. His ambiguous sexuality is a recurring theme, with creator Seth MacFarlane describing him as "almost certainly gay" but later clarifying that his orientation remains fluid and undefined. A recurring gag involves whether other characters can understand Stewie’s speech, as family members alternately appear to comprehend or ignore him depending on the episode. Stewie has become one of the series’ most recognizable and critically discussed characters.
Brian Edward Griffin (voiced by Seth MacFarlane) is the Griffins’ anthropomorphic white Labrador Retriever and the family's 10-year-old pet. Known for his sardonic wit and trademark martini, Brian exhibits humanlike intelligence and mannerisms, including the ability to speak, drive, and engage in complex reasoning. Brian is characterized as a cultured, intellectual figure with a fondness for literature, music, and philosophy, and is portrayed as an aspiring writer who once attended Brown University. He is also depicted as a drinker and smoker who occasionally struggles with substance abuse and romantic failures. A self-proclaimed atheist and political liberal, Brian often serves as the show’s voice of reason, contrasting with Peter’s impulsive nature, though his hypocrisy and insecurities are frequent comedic targets. His close friendship with Stewie is a central focus of the series, explored in numerous "Road to…" episodes. Despite his anthropomorphism, Brian retains several canine traits, such as fear of vacuums and attraction to female dogs.
The characters listed below are the extended family of the Griffin family that come from either Peter's side of the family, Lois's side of the family, and the occasional members of Brian's family:
Throughout the series, mainly during the first seasons, Peter mentions various ancestors of the Griffin family who are shown in cutaway gags.

Cleveland Orenthal Brown Sr. (voiced by Mike Henry from 1999 to 2021, Arif Zahir from 2021 on) is a portly 42-year-old African-American man who is very polite to everyone and has a unique laugh. He was one of Peter Griffin's best friends in Family Guy and also owned and ran a deli. In the "Pilot" of The Cleveland Show, he moves to the town of Stoolbend, Virginia to show his son where he grew up, unintentionally meeting up with his old friend Donna, whom he was in love with despite her being unaware. Eventually re-sparking his relationship with her, they get married and he and his son move in with her and her two children. Cleveland is usually depicted as exceedingly gentle and patient, and it is only on rare occasions that he has been known to lose his temper and resort to violence. However, Cleveland gets visibly annoyed with racist behavior. He often acts as the voice of caution when other characters hatch harebrained schemes. Cleveland's speech is slow and almost elongated in Family Guy, but in The Cleveland Show his voice has a wide variety. Various flashbacks give conflicting histories of his speech patterns. He is a more sexual, obnoxious, unintelligent, selfish, and violent character in his new form than he was originally. After the show was not renewed for a fifth season, Cleveland moved back to Quahog (and Family Guy) in the twelfth season, now working as a mailman.
Loretta Marie Callender Brown (voiced by Alex Borstein) is Cleveland's late ex-wife and the mother of Cleveland Brown Jr. in Family Guy. In early episodes, Loretta had few lines, the bulk of which were "Mm-hmm!". She treated Cleveland harshly, and eventually cheated on him with Glenn Quagmire, leading them to divorce. She had a liking for cricket and the television program Friends. In The Cleveland Show episode "Gone With the Wind", she dies in a freak accident back in Quahog when in her 40s because Peter accidentally swings a Brontosaurus skeleton found by Brian from a mobile crane into her house, destroying it and causing her to fall from the second floor in her bathtub (in a similar manner to Cleveland in a running gag on Family Guy), only for her neck to snap. She was buried in Stoolbend, and left her fortune to Cleveland Jr. in her will.
Donna Lou Retten Tubbs-Brown (voiced by Sanaa Lathan), is the second and current wife of Cleveland Brown and the stepmother of Cleveland Brown Jr.. She is 42 years old and works as the principal's secretary at Stoolbend High School. She has two biological children, Roberta and Rallo, from her previous marriage with Robert Unknown (his last name is literally "Unknown", which is a joke later in the series), and she has kept her maiden name (in "Pilot", Cleveland says, "Back in high school, I would have given anything to spend the night at Donna Tubbs' house."). While one of the main characters of The Cleveland Show, as of "He's Bla-ack!", she has now taken on the former role of the late Loretta as a recurring character of Family Guy.
| Cleveland Brown Jr. | |
|---|---|
| Family Guy / The Cleveland Show character | |
First appearance | "Love Thy Trophy" (2000; Family Guy) "Pilot" (2009; The Cleveland Show) |
| Created by | Mike Baker Matt Weitzman Seth MacFarlane |
| Designed by | Seth MacFarlane |
| Voiced by | Mike Henry (2000–2008; 2013) Kevin Michael Richardson (2009–present) |
| In-universe information | |
| Full name | Cleveland Raj Rerun Dwayne Brown Jr. |
| Alias | Agent 14 |
| Nicknames | Junior, Chubster Dumbdumb |
| Family |
|
| Spouse | Cecilia Brown (née Moreno) (m. 2012) |
| Home | Quahog, Rhode Island |
| Nationality | American |
Age | 14 |
Cleveland Orenthal Brown Jr. (also referred to as Cleveland Raj Rerun Dwayne Brown), better known simply as Junior (voiced by Mike Henry in early appearances in Family Guy, Kevin Michael Richardson in The Cleveland Show and later appearances in Family Guy), is the obese 14-year-old biological son of Cleveland Brown and his late ex-wife Loretta. He debuted in the second-season episode "Love Thy Trophy" on the animated TV show Family Guy. During his time in Family Guy before The Cleveland Show he was skinny, hyperactive, and athletic. He was presumably taken into Loretta's custody after she and Cleveland divorced in "The Cleveland-Loretta Quagmire" and has since become severely obese. He suffers from mild seizure-like episodes, which he calls "brainstorms", and takes medication to control them. The episode "The Hurricane!" reveals that he "doesn't believe in God", although he claims he is not an atheist either, which he calls "another religion". Junior is one of the main characters of The Cleveland Show and returns to the Family Guy cast as of "He's Bla-ack!" as a recurring minor character.
At 14 years old, Junior is the only child of Cleveland, the stepson of Donna Tubbs, and the stepbrother of Roberta and Rallo Tubbs. Upon his parents' divorce, Loretta gave custody of Cleveland Jr. to Cleveland and forced him to move. Cleveland and Junior left for California. However, en route, they decided to live in Stoolbend, Virginia, instead, where Cleveland married Donna Tubbs, and Rallo and Roberta became his stepsiblings. Junior's most prominent character traits are his laziness, obesity, and low social intelligence (although there are occasional references to him being academically bright).
Cleveland Jr. is a frequent target of weight-related jokes from a variety of characters in the series, in particular his stepbrother Rallo. When Rallo met Cleveland Jr. and his father, he often called them "fat". In the second episode, Cleveland Jr. served as a door in the bathroom so that he could earn his classmates' respect, which angered Cleveland. He exhibits a nervous and overly sensitive nature.
While Junior is not as active as he was in Family Guy, he has other hobbies and interests; he enjoys science and playing the tuba in the Stoolbend High School band, and is the leader of a troop of Freedom Scouts, Stoolbend's version of the Boy Scouts.
Cleveland Brown Jr. is married to Cecilia, as shown in "Y Tu Junior También", to prevent her deportation.
Cleveland Jr. debuted in the season 2 Family Guy episode "Love Thy Trophy", but only made minor appearances thereafter. He was presumably taken into Loretta's custody after she cheated on Cleveland in "The Cleveland–Loretta Quagmire" and had since undergone a major character reinvention upon becoming a leading character in The Cleveland Show. After Cleveland and Loretta's divorce is finalized in the pilot episode of The Cleveland Show, a now-overweight Junior is placed in Cleveland's custody, and they move out of Quahog, Rhode Island to Stoolbend, Virginia where Cleveland rekindles a relationship with, and subsequently marries, his high school sweetheart, Donna Tubbs.
In Family Guy, Cleveland Jr. was a hyperactive child of average size, but in The Cleveland Show, he had aged, gained weight, appeared potentially smarter, and wore glasses. In Family Guy, he wore a pink/light purple T-shirt, blue jeans and white sneakers, but in The Cleveland Show, he wears a red T-shirt, blue shorts, sneakers and glasses. He is also notably shorter, as Family Guy shows him to be of average height for his age, while in The Cleveland Show, he appears to be no more than 5 ft. at the age of 14.
Cleveland Jr. was a minor character who had a short time with Peter Griffin in the episode, "Fore Father", where he showed a talent for playing golf. After that episode, he made short appearances later in the show, with his last on Family Guy, until 2010 at his father's supposed funeral, along with Loretta.
Junior's voice is provided by Kevin Michael Richardson, who voiced other characters on The Cleveland Show, including Lester Krinklesac, Julius, and P-Hound. Prior to The Cleveland Show, Junior's voice was initially provided by Mike Henry in early Family Guy episodes.
Richardson stated that he describes voicing Cleveland Jr. as "a character he did on ER named Patrick, who was mentally impaired and wore a football helmet." Before the show aired in 2009, the show's panel appeared at the 2009 Comic Con International, and held a discussion about the show. When describing Junior's change in physical appearance and age, Mike Henry said "Cleveland Jr. really didn't have much to him and so he didn't appear for a while and so we sort of aged him up and made room for Rallo to be the younger one for a while." The show's creators later gave an explanation of Junior's altered look in "A Rodent Like This".
Roberta Coretta Tubbs (sometimes Roberta Benigni Tubbs; voiced by Nia Long in earlier episodes, Reagan Gomez-Preston in later episodes) is the 15-year-old biological daughter of Donna and her ex-husband, Robert, Rallo's sister, Cleveland's stepdaughter and Cleveland Jr.'s stepsister. She looks up to Tyra Banks, hoping to one day become her co-hostess. A relatively popular girl in school, Roberta is often seen socializing with her friends, both in person, and using phones/social networking websites. She has been dating a less-than-respectable boy named Gabriel "Federline Jones" Friedman. Donna does not approve of Federline, though Cleveland has since managed to bully him into submission. As with many popular students, Roberta often acts as a bully and a self-centered character, even towards her own family members. She is revealed to be a genius in The Cleveland Show season 3 episode "B.M.O.C.", when she went on a college tour to Cleveland's alma mater, State.
Neither Roberta nor her brother Rallo are initially pleased with the arrival of Cleveland and Cleveland Brown Jr., though both appear to accept their mother marrying Cleveland without much issue. Roberta and Cleveland seem to fall into a rather stereotypical stepfather/stepdaughter relationship, with Roberta being embarrassed by her stepfather's behavior when he attends social functions at her school. Eventually she accepts Cleveland as her father. While one of the main characters of The Cleveland Show, as of "He's Bla-ack!", she is now occasionally referred to and less frequently seen on Family Guy. She is the only member of the Tubbs family that has yet to speak in Family Guy.
Montclair "Rallo" Tubbs (voiced by Mike Henry from 2009 to 2014)) is the 5-year-old biological son of Donna and her husband, Robert, Roberta's brother, Cleveland's stepson and Cleveland Jr.'s stepbrother. Despite his age, and the fact that his father has been mostly absent most of his life, Rallo acts much like Robert, at times very articulate, yet hormonally charged. He seems to get along fairly well with his mother, Donna, and has a normal love/hate relationship with Roberta, who at times seems to neglect him, yet at other times speaks to him as an intellectual equal.
In The Cleveland Show season 3 episode "American Prankster", Cleveland asks Donna why his name is Rallo. Donna replies that it was from "that guy from Sanford and Son" (referring to Rollo Lawson). One of the main characters of The Cleveland Show, as of "He's Bla-ack!", he is now an infrequently appearing cast member of Family Guy.

In The Cleveland Show, a number of characters live on the same street as the Brown family. All attended the wedding of Cleveland and Donna Brown.
The following characters have worked with Peter and Cleveland at different jobs:
The following characters make up the school body of Adam West High School (previously named James Woods Regional High School):
This poor gentleman used to speak in long, eloquent sentences. But after years of drinking, he can only speak in short, choppy utterances.