Although it began as a rip-off of The Simpsons that focused on not-so-relatable domestic situations, Family Guy has since evolved into a few different shows rolled into one.
When it revolves around Peter and Lois, it’s a dark satire about a failing marriage. When it revolves around Peter, Joe, Cleveland, and Quagmire, it’s a buddy comedy. And when it revolves around Brian and Stewie, it can be pretty much anything. It can be a sci-fi story about time travel or dimension-hopping; it can be a road trip story in the mold of the old Bob Hope/Bing Crosby movies, or it can be something else entirely. So, here are Brian And Stewie’s 10 Wildest Adventures.
10. Road to the North Pole
Easily Family Guy’s darkest holiday-themed episode, “Road to the North Pole” begins with Stewie setting off to find Santa Claus after meeting an impostor at the mall and then another impostor at Lapland.
Fearing that he’ll be abducted by a trucker if he hitchhikes, Brian reluctantly agrees to take Stewie to the North Pole, despite knowing it’s futile.
Against all odds, they actually make it to the North Pole and find that Santa is weak and dying from a lack of Christmas spirit. His elves have been worked to the bone in the years since kids stopped asking for wooden trains and started asking for iPhones. So, Brian and Stewie attempt to deliver Santa’s presents for him.
9. Stuck Together, Torn Apart
In the episode “Stuck Together, Torn Apart,” the A-plot and the B-plot are the opposite of one another. Peter and Lois are advised to spend some time apart by a marriage counselor, while Brian and Stewie are forced to spend some time together when they accidentally hold hands with some extra-strong adhesive on their palms.
The solution to getting them unstuck will take a while to arrive in the mail, so they’re forced to spend a couple of weeks at each other’s side, which leads to plenty of hilarity. After the glue comes off, Brian and Stewie decide to hold hands on the walk home anyway.
8. Road to Europe
When Stewie decides to leave his suburban Rhode Island existence behind and go to London to live on Jolly Farm (without realizing that it’s just a TV setting and not a real location), Brian goes to the airport to stop him but ends up getting stuck on the flight with him.
The plane ends up landing them in the Middle East, not London, and Brian escorts Stewie across the whole of Europe to get to London, where he’s disappointed to find that Mother Maggie is just an actor. Along the way, they stop off in places like Amsterdam and the Vatican for hysterical gags.
7. Road to Germany
Brian and Stewie are not typically joined by supporting characters when they star in their “Road to…” episodes, but in “Road to Germany,” Mort Goldman comes along for the ride. He thinks that Stewie’s time machine is a toilet cubicle, so he unwittingly sends himself back in time to Poland, circa 1939.
Brian and Stewie travel back to join him and find themselves on the run from the Nazis during the German invasion of Poland that started World War II. The episode wrings plenty of laughs out of WWII imagery, from the Hawkmen joining a dogfight to Stewie impersonating Adolf Hitler.
6. Road to Rhode Island
The episode that started Brian and Stewie’s string of “Road to…” adventures, “Road to Rhode Island” sees Brian picking up Stewie from his grandparents’ house and bringing him home. They miss their flight and have to spend the night at a motel. Along the way, Brian learns some truths about his past and finds his mother, dead and stuffed, on the farm where he was born.
Kicking off the grand “Road to…” episode tradition of featuring musical numbers, “Road to Rhode Island” ends with Brian and Stewie riding the rails, singing a song about what makes them such a well-matched pair, despite their differences.
5. Road to Rupert
At the beginning of “Road to Rupert,” the Griffins have a yard sale. Brian accidentally sells Stewie’s teddy bear, Rupert, and Stewie is heartbroken. With the fingerprints from the dollar bill the buyer gave Brian for Rupert, Stewie figures out his address. But when they get there, he finds that the family has moved to Colorado, so Brian and Stewie head across America to track down Stewie’s teddy bear.
It all comes down to a ski race where Stewie loses, then takes out a gun and takes the bear back anyway. He and Brian carjack someone and head back to Rhode Island.
4. Brian and Stewie
Brian and Stewie are such a dynamic duo that they can go on a wild adventure without even leaving the room. Such is the case with Family Guy’s special-length 150th episode, “Brian and Stewie,” which was set entirely in a bank vault where Brian was checking his safety deposit box.
The door locks automatically at the end of the day, and since it’s a weekend, Brian and Stewie end up stuck in there for two whole days. During that time, they go a little stir crazy, getting drunk and threatening each other with a gun that Brian keeps in case he wants to kill himself.
3. Roads to Vegas
In “Roads to Vegas,” Brian wins tickets to see a concert in Las Vegas, so Stewie invents a teleportation device to get them there. They try to use it and think it hasn’t worked, but it actually cloned them and sent the clones to Vegas.
The cloned versions of Brian and Stewie enjoy an awesome night, as they check into their hotel room, win the jackpot in the casino, and watch the concert. Meanwhile, the original versions have a nightmare, as they have to fly in coach, can’t get in their hotel room, lose all their money in the casino, and can’t get into the concert.
They end up getting in trouble with the mob and staying in a miserable motel. When the original Stewie unwittingly takes the cloned Stewie’s backpack and finds his winnings, the duos’ luck is swapped. In the end, one version of Stewie and one version of Brian end up dead, with the other two finding each other at the bus station.
2. Back to the Pilot
The episode “Back to the Pilot” started off as a meta-comment on how much Family Guy has changed since its first season. Stewie takes Brian back in time to the very first episode of the show to see where he buried a bone in the backyard.
However, when they return to the present and Stewie discovers that Brian told his past self to prevent 9/11, Stewie takes Brian to a post-apocalyptic future (complete with smooth 3D computer animation, but much lazier writing) to teach him an important lesson about the butterfly effect. Then, they head back to the pilot episode to fix everything.
1. Road to the Multiverse
Long before the world would be introduced to the interdimensional escapades of Rick and Morty, Brian and Stewie were hopping across parallel realities with a device Stewie invented to explore the multiverse.
In “Road to the Multiverse,” Brian and Stewie visit all kinds of parallel dimensions – one where religion never existed and technology is much more advanced, one where everything is animated in the style of Walt Disney, one where Meg is hot, one where they transcend animation into live-action – before finding one in which dogs are in charge of humans, where Brian breaks the device and intends to stay indefinitely.
