It was a week ago that we took a look at the Seth MacFarlane produced American Dad! and I remarked it had been a minute since we did an American Dad! Christmas episode. Well, it’s been even longer for the MacFarlane original, Family Guy, the show that was famously unloved, cancelled, and then brought back from the dead. It’s pretty incredible that Family Guy is now over 400 episodes in total. It’s also somewhat appropriate that we look at another Christmas episode from the show in the year 2024 as, for the first time since its revival, it feels like Family Guy may be in some jeopardy. That’s because Fox kicked it out of its Animation Domination Sunday night block and moved the show to Wednesdays. As of this writing, Family Guy has not been renewed past its current season, but that’s not unusual for the current television landscape. If Wikipedia can be trusted, the show was threatening to dip below 1 million viewers per episode when last season ended, would dropping below that merit cancellation? Basically all shows on TV are seeing gradual declines in ratings (The Simpsons dipped below 2 million for the first time in its existence during the 2023-24 season) so it’s hard to tell just what warrants cancellation or renewal these days, but a major shakeup like moving from Sunday to Wednesday is something worth monitoring for fans of the show.
When I first started doing this Christmas countdown, I had the very first Family Guy Christmas episode in my top 25. It has since been removed, though not because I dislike the episode now, I just feel there are specials out there that are better. I don’t always make it a point to check out what Family Guy is doing around Christmas, but this 2020 episode was one that I did view in its initial run and it remained in my memory because of how similar it is to the very first Family Guy Christmas episode. Any show that has been on for hundreds of episodes is bound to repeat itself, but it’s especially amusing when the subject matter is the same. In the very first Family Guy Christmas episode, Lois (Alex Borstein) does her best to make sure the family has a great Christmas only to be undermined at every turn by her useless, selfish, family. She snaps and goes on a rampage until the family can restore her Christmas spirit. In this episode, Lois is going to basically do the same thing, but the snap comes in the first act. Then we get to see the rest of the family try to have a merry Christmas without her.
The episode begins in standard fashion. No overlays of snow on the song and dance number, no dressing-up of the title. The episode begins with an exterior shot of the Griffin household sparsely covered in snow. Inside, the family is watching The Today Show which features an announcer pointing out that former host Matt Lauer is watching from outside their Times Square studio. The two hosts are shown reading off benign holiday stories while Lauer lightly bangs on the glass from outside and asks if they’re still mad at him. He was fired by the show for being a sex creep.
Lois then comes down the stairs dragging a very heavy box of Christmas decorations. She’s clearly struggling with it as she swears between each movement. What she is saying is a mystery since it’s bleeped, even though I’m watching on Hulu (I guess since it’s not TV-MA they have to bleep it?). When she finally gets to the bottom of the stairs, Peter plainly remarks “That looks heavy,” but Lois just cheerfully announces that the sound of her dragging a really heavy box of Christmas decorations down the stairs can only mean one thing – Christmas! Peter corrects her and says he knew it was Christmas because the “O” in Pornhub changed into a wreath recently and son Chris (Seth Green) responds, “Same” and they share a fist-bump. Father and son bonding over their shared interest in pornography really puts one in the Christmas spirit. I feel the need to point out that Peter made a very similar observation in another Christmas episode, only it was with Instagram Porn Stars in Santa hats instead of Pornhub.
Lois then makes the announcement that she wants the family to help out with Christmas this year. Peter informs her that won’t be happening because they split everything 0 – 100, he being the zero contributor and she 100, like most couples (Peter’s words, not mine). Lois ignores him and continues to say she also wants a real Christmas present this year and not some clearance, misprint, shirt from Marshall’s. Peter then holds up a t-shirt and says, “But you love the Roling Stons,” and he has the defective merch to prove it. We’re doing a bit here. Lois again ignores him and instead hands out a list of chores for each member of the family. Peter’s rebuttal this time is he can’t do any chores because his trick elbow is acting up. He then turns to Chris and pushes a playing card out from between his forearm and bicep and asks, “Is this your card?” When Chris says it is not Peter quips “Oh no it’s worse than I thought!” Lois just keeps setting him up and Peter keeps…knocking them down?
We cut to downtown Quahog which is tastefully decorated for the upcoming holiday. Peter and the kids pull into a strip mall to do their shopping. Brian (MacFarlane) asks why they’re doing their shopping here and Peter informs him it’s because the gas ran out here. Chris tells him he needs to get that gas gauge fixed, but Peter rhetorically asks him “Do you want the gas gauge fixed or a year of Quibi?” Chris, wisely, chooses the gas gauge. Remember Quibi? Crazy how dated an episode from 2020 can already feel. Meg (Mila Kunis) assures the family they can find everything on their mother’s list here, while Stewie decides this is the right moment for him to get a line in by saying this place better have Baby Yoda toys or else…he’ll probably just get something with Spider-Man on it. Peter then leads the group to a freestanding ATM and points out how dangerous and terrible an idea it is to use such things. It eats his card and he gets a phone call to which he answers “Peter Griffin. Oh, not anymore?”
Peter leads the family into a greeting card store and announces that this is a place to look at cards while releasing tiny farts. The family does this, until Meg unleashes a more pronounced fart that the clerk (Chris Parnell” objects to announcing that this store is for tiny farts only and directs her to Lids for her big, juicy, farts. Peter then heads to an H&R Block to get what I suppose is a very early start on his taxes. He addresses the clerk (Mark Hentemann) and asks how much the H charges, then how much R charges, then inquires if R knows that H has a side thing going on with M? He then mentions the store H&M suggesting he is not entirely confident in his joke being understood. The clerk seems concerned and suggests he has no idea what Peter is talking about. Then a giant, letter, R (Rachael MacFarlane) with lipstick comes out of an office and asks if H is back yet? Then H (Ralph Garman) enters wearing a designer shirt purchased at a fraction of the price with lipstick on the collar. R accuses H of cheating on her and H suggests he wanted to get caught and we suddenly have a suicide joke as R blows her brains out. H drops to his knees wailing “Why? Why?” A letter Y then emerges from the bathroom and asks, “What’s up? I was just taking a pee” Then a letter P pops in and says, “Someone called?” Peter then looks at the camera and informs the audience that sometimes the writers let him write his own skits. It’s an attempt to save this half-cooked idea of a joke, but doesn’t exactly redeem it.
We then return to the Griffin house and Lois is watching CBS This Morning with Charlie Rose lurking outside. It’s the exact same joke as the Lauer one, only now it’s Charlie Rose. The family enters the house noticeably empty-handed. Lois is pissed and starts listing off all of the stuff they were supposed to either purchase or put out. Peter assures her he has everything under control and then takes off. Time passes and it’s night time. The Griffin house is now covered in snow and the family is inside enjoying a quiet moment by a roaring fire. Peter then enters dramatically with a big tree at his side. Lois runs over and gives him a hug. As she tells him she loves him, the word “Peter” just keeps repeating. We dissolve to find it’s Lois calling his name while beating on the window of the family station wagon while Peter sleeps in the driver’s seat.
Lois demands to know what’s going on as Peter wakes up. He explains he fell asleep after rubbing one out to Madonna’s “Santa Baby.” He then announces that tonight’s “Date Night” has been cancelled due to lack of interest. Lois storms back into the house irate that no one is stepping up and helping her out with Christmas like she wanted. She directs her anger at Brian claiming he’s supposed to be the smart one and punctuates it with a “Bad dog!” He whimpers on the floor like an actual dog – I do always find it amusing when Brian behaves like a dog would. Lois then demands to know who got candy cane all over the couch and Peter begins to mimic Brian by whimpering on the floor. Lois declares she’s had it and will be leaving the family for Christmas to spend it in Cabo with her cousins. Quagmire (MacFarlane) then cartoonishly just pops in thinking she’s leaving Peter, but she corrects him. Then Mort (Johnny Brennan) shows up in a manner identical to Quagmire thinking that Lois plans to ruin Christmas by covering over the town’s decorations. This excites him on account of him being Jewish. When Lois corrects him, a deaf woman (Marlee Matlin) pops in to inquire if she’s doing deaf jokes. Lois says no to the deaf jokes and the woman has to break the news to the classic character Greased-Up Deaf Guy (Mike Henry), who also just pops into the house unannounced. Peter then corrects them and says “I think we are doing deaf jokes, at this point.”
We next find the Griffins seated on the couch in front of the TV without their matriarch. Lois has seemingly followed through on her threat to spend Christmas in Cabo with family so Peter decides that to get revenge they’ll delete all of her favorite programs from the DVR. Chris announces that he would like to be the one who gets to delete The Crown, claiming his mother never watched it and was just stockpiling all the episodes on the DVR preventing him from watching Modern Family. Again, crazy how dated something from just a couple of years ago can feel. When Chris tries to delete The Crown he’s just confronted with a never-ending assortment of prompts confirming that he actually wants to delete the very prestigious show. This eventually leads to a prompt that tells Chris that he actually can’t delete the program so he rips out the cable box and smashes it on the floor in a fit of rage. We then hear the television impossibly announce “We now return to The Crown,” even though television stopped doing that 30 years ago, if not more. Some unintelligible British voices filter out of the TV and Chris is forced to confess he kind of likes it. Peter says the same and adds “It’s because I’m trash and I love how fancy it is.”
Meg is the one who points out that none of this will help them save Christmas. The kids turn to their father for advice, but his only suggestion is for everyone to go kneel in front of the holes he dug for them suggesting a murder-suicide is on the table. Brian emerges removing a baseball bat from Peter’s hands and tries to convince everyone they can handle this. Peter just announces his Plan B, which is to take opiates and listen to records. We cut to him drooling in his lounge chair listening to some bad jazz or something. The camera zooms out to reveal Stewie and Brian standing next to him with Stewie announcing, “It’s been four days.”
We next head to the outskirts of town to check-in on Lois. She is not in Cabo as she threatened, but actually at a cheap motel that’s high enough in elevation that she can view her family through the window with binoculars. After remarking just how good her binoculars are, she spies Peter bringing in a very dead tree into the house and the family looking excited by it. She suspects that she’ll get a phone call any minute now from them begging her to come back and save Christmas. While she waits, she decides to relax on the bed and turns on the TV. A voiceover (John Viener, I think) coming from the TV welcomes her to the hotel and announces their stationary is the best in the industry for recording suicide notes. More suicide jokes – hooray! Lois announces her plan will work perfectly and intends to “Wait like a cobra.” This is the spot for a traditional Family Guy cutaway gag of a Cobra (Alec Sulkin) waiting for his table at the bar. A waitress (Rachael MacFarlane) asks if he would like her to bring his drink to his table for him and he replies that he would and points out his lack of hands. This might be the worst cut-away gag I’ve ever seen on this show.
Back at the house, everyone is outside putting up the decorations. Peter announces it’s time to put out the 2020 version of their decorations and then begins listing off the figurines he’s placing in a manger scene: ethnically accurate baby Jesus, Father Mary, Mother Josephine, the three genderless wise people on their scooters, Tig Notaro (for some reason), and the Little Drummer Them. He then adds, “Because, God forbid, we call a boy a boy.” Chris tries to confront his dad on his apparent transphobia and he erupts shouting “I don’t like what the world is! I’m white! When’s it going to be our turn?!” This does feel pretty authentic for the Peter character. Brian tries to calm him down, but Peter doesn’t see how that’s possible without “the woman who normally takes care of all of this.” He either doesn’t appreciate Lois to the point where he can’t remember her name, or he’s so mad at her that he doesn’t even want to address her by her name. Both seem plausible. Brian asks if he means Lois and he just refers to her as the redhead with the voice. He then starts tossing decorations over his shoulder as he goes through them remarking how she would put them up until one of the kids points out that he did it.
The family turns to look at the house and the decorations are shown to have miraculously landed precisely where they were supposed to. Peter declares it perfect as the whole family basks in the festive glow of the holiday display. His cell phone then goes off and it’s Quagmire. He requests Peter dim the lights because he’s presently in bed “with a three and light isn’t doing her any favors.” We then cut to Lois in shock as she views the family’s accomplishment. She is then interrupted as the letter H from earlier mistakenly enters her room with his side piece, M. He sees Lois and then apologizes adding, “We’re excited because my wife just killed herself.” Why are we returning to this joke?
It’s time for a holiday montage! Set to an instrumental version of “Deck the Halls” that’s heavy on saxophone, we find the Griffin family in their living room as Peter holds up a holiday movie: Christmas with the Kranks. He inserts it into the DVD player and we then see the family relaxing with the glow of a fire cast on them. We zoom out to see that Peter actually set the movie on fire. As someone who has seen the film, I approve. We then check out Peter hanging the stockings. The kids nod in approval before Peter hangs up the last one which is for “Dad’s gym friend Emilio who he goes to Greece with every summer.” Apparently, Peter is a closet homosexual who cheats on his wife – I suppose that explains his disinterest in her. We pan out and Emilio (presumably) is revealed to be standing behind Peter in just his boxer shorts. He gestures to Peter who playfully waves him off to the shock of his children. It’s now time for Christmas dinner and Peter is preparing to cut the ham. As the camera moves across the table it’s revealed that there is a live pig in one of the chairs. Peter reacts with surprise and runs to the oven only to find he mistakenly cooked Meg instead of the pig. Whoops!
Time to check-in on Lois once again. She is aghast to find the family having a snowball fight in the front yard. Tom Tucker (MacFarlane) and a news van are even onsite to document this. Lois then observes the family standing hand-in-hand while Peter says “I love you,” to his kids, but in slow-motion. Lois suggests the kids better not return the sentiment in slow-motion as well to emphasize her horror so of course they do. “That’s it,” she shouts as the camera zooms in on her rage with a rack focus technique so that she can inform us that she must stop Christmas! She’s interrupted by the sound of a fart from the room next to hers. She pounds on the wall and shouts “What do you think this is? A Lids?!” The logo for the store is superimposed over the screen while the announcer voice chimes in with “Lids: come get a camouflaged Knicks hat and let one rip!” The clerk from earlier told Meg to go fart in Lids. Did someone have a particularly bad experience in a Lids? I don’t get it. I don’t think I’m supposed to.
Well, there is only one place for this story to go. Lois shows up at the house decked out in Grinch attire. Before she can get down to business, her cab driver (Viener) has to bid her farewell while sharing his unprompted racial stereotypes about people from Turkey. She enters through the chimney intent on ruining Christmas, but then spies all of the dirty dishes left out. Lois does the dishes and then tells herself she won’t even think about the grocery situation, but then of course she open the fridge to find it nearly empty. We cut to her coming through the back door with two bags of groceries, but now she’s dragged in mud so she has to mop the floor. Once finished with that she seems ready to resume (well, start) ruining Christmas, but then she tells herself not to think about checking the washer to see if they left the wet clothes in it without transferring to the dryer. Of course she checks and finds what she expected and remedies that situation like she did the others.
With the clothes properly sorted, we can finally go into the “You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch” parody segment we all expected. It’s an instrumental version of the song and as it plays Lois creeps around miming the Grinch from the far more famous television special. There aren’t really any jokes as she just does exactly what the Grinch does, though she does pause to do a hideous version of the Grinch smile so there’s your joke. As she stuffs up the tree, she’s interrupted by a little girl asking “Santa Claus?” Well, actually, it’s Stewie and he’s dressed like little Cindy Lou Who from the special. He asks why Santa is taking the tree, but Lois just responds by asking why he’s in pigtails and a little girl’s nightgown. Stewie, realizing he’s in over his head, just suggests they both forget what they saw tonight and heads back up the stairs.
We now head outside and the house looks to be in disarray now that Lois has effectively stolen Christmas. We see her creeping down the sidewalk with all of the Christmas stuff as the show decides that now is the right moment to check-in on Quagmire. He’s all alone in his house and remarks how he dislikes being alone on Christmas so he whips out his phone and calls someone named Joan. He asks if he has a payment due on his Discover card. Based on what follows, we can assume that Joan asked if he’s alone on Christmas and Quagmire denies it. He says he’s with his very large family, but she asks him for names. We don’t actually hear anything from Joan, just Quagmire’s responses, but he basically repeats all of her questions so we don’t have to guess. He lists off obvious fake names (Bloofus and Klunt) for his kids and when she doesn’t believe him he starts smashing stuff around his house and blaming the kids. She doesn’t buy it and Quagmire is forced to hastily retreat from the conversation and hang up. I’m guessing the episode came in a little short and Quagmire was called on to fill some time.
The next morning, the family rises to find that Christmas has been stolen. They’re pretty shocked, but Peter has a solution: everyone kneel in front of daddy’s pre-dug hole. That’s his solution for everything! Brian then tells Peter this is all his fault for getting rid of the Ring camera. We jump back via cut-away to Lois entering the house wondering who crapped in front of their door. She pulls out her cell phone to check the Ring camera, but Peter slaps the phone out of her hand and smashes it. He tells her that whoever it was probably had no choice because their family was using all of the bathrooms.
Lois is shown arriving via cab, and before she enters the house she puts on a sombrero and poncho to play up the ruse she was on vacation. The family is watching a Tony Bennett (RIP) Christmas special and we see Tony badly singing “Jingle Bells” and falling asleep mid song. The bit continues with an announcer saying to stay-tuned for a duet with Willie Nelson. We then cut to the two of them asleep. They wake up and start performing different songs. They’re both very old. Lois enters the home and Peter welcomes her back by pointing out he cleaned and bought groceries, but unfortunately Christmas was stolen. Lois has to feign shock, but then is really surprised when she finds out that not everything was stolen. It turns out, they got her a present, but since they didn’t think she’d be home for Christmas it was kept upstairs. The kids retrieve it and Lois is forced to read the card out loud. It’s played straight and thoughtful, but the gag is that it’s going to just go on and on. She has to read the inner card, the back, and even some stuff hidden by a black light while sad music from This is Us plays. I’ve never watched the show so I don’t know if the sad music is authentic, but whatever.
Lois is moved to tears and finally opens the gift to find a misshapen bowl. Meg tells her they all took a pottery class and made it for her. Despite the bowl looking terrible, it affects Lois. This is the part where the narrator comes in to inform us that Lois’ heart grew three sizes that day complete with overlay as seen in The Grinch. We then smash cut to Lois unconscious in a hospital bed because your heart tripling in size is actually a bad thing. The doctor (MacFarlane) is there to tell us she’s lucky to be alive, and then soon leaves the scene allowing the family to all hug Lois while Peter declares it the best Christmas ever! The narrator returns to inform us that Lois is happy this medical emergency covered up her crimes. We’re told Lois never came clean and instead their Muslim neighbor was arrested for the crime and deported back to Turkey. Another voice chimes in, “See? What did I tell you? Always Turkey!” It’s the voice of Lois’ cab driver from earlier who shared his views on race unprompted with her.
We’re not done yet! We return to the Griffin house and everyone is seated in the living room by a replaced Christmas tree. Peter says he’s glad to have Lois back so he doesn’t have to keep doing dishes and buying groceries, much to her annoyance since it was Lois who did those things. The family then challenges her on her alibi and asks her to come up with names for the cousins she was supposedly visiting the whole time. Predictably, she hastily comes up with the same names Quagmire did earlier: Bloofus and Klunt. She even says she thinks she hears them upstairs. She runs upstairs and we stay with the rest of the family as they listen in on Lois narrating the carnage being spread by Bloofus and Klunt. She smashes a diorama Meg made which was due the next day and also Stewie’s aquarium containing the fish you have to feed so damn much and they die anyway. Stewie is apparently buying this charade as he remarks, “Fricken’ Klunt, man.” She then gets to Peter and his discreet box of pills. He races upstairs, but can’t beat “Bloofus” to the toilet who flushes them away.
And that’s how Lois stole Christmas and got away with it! Well, she did get hospitalized as a result of her scheme and I bet the resulting medical debt was crippling to a family like the Griffins, but she still technically got away with it. I like this one as a companion to “A Very Special Family Guy Freakin’ Christmas” as it’s a 2020 take on that 2001 episode. The show and the depiction of the family has changed so much since then. They’re basically all worse people, though really only Peter and Lois are on display in this episode. The kids are mostly window dressing and Brian is still in his role of arbiter and moral compass. It’s still a familiar premise of underappreciated mother figure getting the shaft at Christmas. Only Lois tries to combat this with subterfuge and is basically punished for it. Just not all the way punished since her family is basically none the wiser. Though they do border on accusatory in that final scene, but then appear to accept Bloofus and Klunt.
There are some good jokes here and some not so good ones. Family Guy is a show that tries to overload its running time with as many jokes as possible. It’s quantity over quality. If I’m being honest, the strategy doesn’t work too well here as there’s a lot of groan-inducing jokes. And this particular episode apparently either didn’t know which ones were going to land, or felt that a bad joke could be improved by repetition. We return to the stupid joke with the personified letters as well as the discarded television show hosts. The observational humor the show tries for with the ATM machine is just okay, while Peter’s insecurity via the nativity scene was decent. The suicide jokes were numerous and even American Dad! loves those in their Christmas episodes so I guess it’s a MacFarlane thing? I liked the repeated gag of Peter’s suicide solution, but not so much the rest.
If you are a fan of Family Guy then I think this episode lands as “just okay.” The show has better Christmas episodes like its inaugural one and “The Road to the North Pole.” Those are the only two I watch each year and if it weren’t for “The Road…” being an hour long I’d have covered it in this space by now. Instead, I did the one that parodies The Grinch because I am a sucker for that. In terms of Grinch parodies though, this one isn’t that great because it just doesn’t use the opportunity to make a new joke. We just get a visual gag of Lois trying to smile like the Grinch and Stewie being confronted by his choice of evening wear. The Quagmire bit that followed was pure throw-away too, but I guess we needed it to setup the final scene.
If you would like to watch “The First No L” then the easiest way to do so is via Hulu or Disney+ depending on where you reside or subscription plan. Family Guy still airs in syndication as well for you cable subscribers and this episode is likely being shown somewhere this December. If you, however, only have room in your schedule for one Christmas episode with the Griffins, then you can probably do better than this one.
Can’t wait until tomorrow for more Christmas? Check out what we had to say on this day last year and beyond:
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