Chris Griffin
Christopher Cross Griffin, known almost exclusively as Chris, is the fictional son of Peter and Lois Griffin in the popular television cartoon series Family Guy. He is voiced by actor Seth Green. He lacks intelligence and common sense but is shown to have enormous hidden gifts, particularly as an artist, and occasionally makes a single very insightful comment from out of nowhere, as in the episode "Fifteen Minutes of Shame". He is often tormented by the evil monkey in his room.
From birth Chris was overweight (a newspaper clipping on the Griffins' fridge shows Lois holding a baby Chris with the headline "Local Woman Gives Birth to Elephant Baby"). In the episode "He's Too Sexy For His Fat", Chris started an exercise regimen with Peter's help with no results. Peter took him to a cosmetic surgeon, but Chris eventually rejected the idea of liposuction, though Peter did not. Chris has an extremely large penis, a fact of which Peter was envious ("And the Wiener is...").
When the Griffin home seceded from the United States in "E Peterbus Unum", Chris was head of their "space program", albeit an unsuccessful one. In the fourth season episode "Brian the Bachelor", Chris developed a pimple that could speak and even, at one point, hold a gun. It compelled him to commit various acts of mischief around Quahog. The plotline is a loose allusion to the plot of Little Shop of Horrors, yet another Family Guy reference to musical theater. Amusingly, in the episode "Breaking Out Is Hard To Do" Chris is pulled into a-Ha's "Take On Me" video and is drawn in the same style.
Chris was originally given a "punk" image, according to creator Seth McFarlane's various DVD Commentary tracks. He wore earrings, and his painful akwardness was not as emphasized as it was later in the series. Lois and Stewie were other characters to undergo major yet gradual character changes in this manner.
Chris' talent for painting was discovered when Peter used a painting Chris gave him as a birthday gift to patch up a broken window in his car. When Antonio Monatti, a snobby New York gallery owner, sees this painting, he takes Chris to New York, dresses him in different clothes and renames him Cristobel. The gallery owner also distances Chris from his father. The unveiling of Christobel's latest piece, an Andy Warhol-esque portrait of his father, dashes Chris' career as a painter, and the family returns to Quahog.
Quotes
- Chris: Hey Meg, I'm thinking of a word right now, but it's not "kitty".
Meg: Is it "kitty?"
Chris: GET OUT OF MY HEAD! GET OUT! - (in reference to a children's arcade and pizza parlor) They have this game where you put in a dollar and you win four quarters. I win every time!
- Peter: Whoever invents the best toy this winter gets a big raise!
Chris: Hey dad, why don't you invent the frisbee? That's an awesome toy!
Meg: That's already been invented, doofus.
Chris: Then how come I never heard of it? - Mom, I'm afraid if I fall sleep the hurricane's gonna sneak up and give me a vasectomy!
- Lois: Where have you been?
Chris: (After falling out of the a-ha spoof video to the "normal" Family Guy world) I DON'T KNOW!