For Christmas, Mrs. HeyHomie got me, among other things, the entire series of Family Guy on DVD* (see NOTE). Hooray and all that!
When the show was on TV, I only managed to see a few episodes (because of the way it was jerked around by the network). I’ve managed to watch about four episodes on my new DVD’s, so all told I’ve seen maybe eight episodes of that show.
What I’m confused about is the relationship between Stewie and the human characters on the show (Stewie’s relationship with Brian is much more clear). In the episodes I’ve seen, when they speak to Stewie they don’t seem to respond to what Stewie says as much as to what he does. Here’s an example: Mom takes away Stewie’s death ray. Stewie says something like “Contemptible wench! You are not worthy of touching my ultimate weapon of doom! Return it to me at once!” Mom says something like “Oh Stewie quit pouting.”
In this conversation and others, human characters respond to Stewie’s statements with ambiguity. IOW, their responses would make as much sense as if Stewie had just cried, or laughed, or spoken in gibberish, or whatever. This ambiguity leads me to wonder whether they are supposed to understand Stewie, or if only the audience (and Brian) are supposed to understand him, and that the human characters are responding to his moods and actions and not to his words.
Is this resolved (or made more clear) at any point during the series? Or is Stewie’s language ability deliberately kept ambiguous throughout the series?
*NOTE: I’ve read that the DVD set is selling so well (WAY above projections) that there is talk of bringing the show back to TV. Here’s hoping!
Excellent question. I’d always assumed that Lois understood him but didn’t take him at all seriously, but now that I think about it, I can’t come up with an instance where she responded specifically to something he said. (Then again, I have a poor memory.) I’ll have to pay closer attention!
Anyway, I think they should just make it The Stewie and Brian Show. The rest of the characters I could take or leave.
Understandingness of Stewie is just a big running gag. Basically, they understand him when it’s convenient. Lois treating him like a baby when he talks like a supervillain is also a common theme.
Wait till you see E. Peterbus Unum. It pays off in the end.
Brian responds specifically to what he says, but it seems only he does. On the other hand, everyone can understand Brian. Odd, that. Stewie seems to only be understood when convenient, as an above poster stated. Once, he was being held by a security guard that absolutely ignored everything he said. Other times, he’s performing stand up comedy or discussing the stock market with fellow blue bloods.
Seth MacFarlane himself is on public record, on many occasions, as stating that EVERYONE understands Stewie when he talks; they just never take him seriously. Everyone can understand Stewie, without exception.
He always found it amusing that kids could say crazy things and adults would just play along or ignore then, so he ramps up Stewie’s talk by an order of a zillion to play it up.
Heck, didn’t Stewie form a song-and-dance duo with a girl from that performing arts school? They were quite successful, until the two of them broke up over battling egos. It was perfectly clear that everyone, including the audiences, teachers and other performers, could understand Stewie’s speech and singing.
There was an episode where Stewie threw some darts at Lois (or something along those lines) and then the conversation went something like this:
Lois: Stewie, why don’t you go play in the livingroom?
Stewie: Why don’t you go to hell!!
Lois (taken back): Well, someone won’t be having any dessert tonight.
In the episode where the Griffin house becomes its own country, the ending reveals the episode to be a school video on history for kids of the future. When the teacher asks if there are any questions, one of the kids asks “Yeah, so…can they, like…understand the baby…or what?”
Of course, at first I thought it meant that only animals and those of limited intellect could REALLY understand him, sorta like Al in Quantum Leap, but the evidence in the rest of this thread convinces me otherwise.
In the episode that had the Willie Wonka spoof, Peter turns into a virtuoso piano player, Stewie asks Peter to play “that sad walking away music from The Incredible Hulk TV show” and Peter does as told.
Stewie then begins to walk to the horizon, pathetically trying to hitch a ride. It was so spot on, that I almost died laughing.
Lois stumbles upon Stewie’s cache of superweapons hidden behind the closet. She says something like “My God! My baby’s a homicidal maniac bent on world domination! All these months I should have been listening to what he was saying!” At which point Stewie reveals himself, slowly clapping, “Bra-vo, Lois. You’ve finally figured it out. Too bad you won’t be around to see my crowning victory. Cheery-o,” and then he drops her down a bottomless pit.
Lois then wakes up screaming, looks around, and says “What a nightmare… something about Stewie… and Cheerios… Oh well, never mind.” and then forgets all about it.
I believe in the E. Peterbus Unum episode, at the cookout, Stewie is speaking with a terrorist and says something along the line of, “So, what’s that delightful noise you make right before you assasinate an infidel?”, and the man responds by screaming. That seemed to answer it for me.
The somewhat inconsistancy of Stewie is one of the many quirks on the show. Another example is Brian (and his flamboyant cousin) are the only talking dogs, and no one thinks much of it.
One great scene has Brian pouring his heart out to Peter at a bar, and after Peter takes a drink, he looks Brian, and says “Holy crap, you can talk!”
