Season 12 · Episode 11 · First aired 26 January 2014
Brian's a Bad Father
Episode 11 of Family Guy season 12 (S12E11), the 221st Family Guy episode overall. Written by Chris Sheridan and directed by Jerry Langford. First broadcast on 26 January 2014.
Story
Brian's teenage son Dylan comes back to Quahog. Brian keeps him at a distance until he learns that Dylan is in a new Disney Channel series, then uses the connection to get himself onto the writing staff. The network sacks Brian for pushing adult material into a children's show, and Dylan, seeing that he was only ever a means to a job, refuses to see him. Stewie auditions for the programme and breaks character on set to pass on Brian's apology, and Dylan meets his father in the park and forgives him. Meanwhile Peter shoots Quagmire in the arm on a hunting trip, Quagmire ends the friendship and Joe sides with him. Peter offers Quagmire a free shot in return, Joe shoots Peter in the arm to stop the argument, and Quagmire then shoots him in the head.
Production and reception
- Nielsen figures gave it a 2.0 rating among viewers aged 18 to 49 and an audience of 4.11 million, the largest in Fox's animation block that evening. Recorded playback took the total to 5.83 million and the rating to 3.0. Wikipedia, Brian's a Bad Father
- Eric Thurm of The A.V. Club graded it C minus, arguing that the story of Brian's parenting was hard to believe and carried too few jokes. Wikipedia, Brian's a Bad Father
Voices
| Voice | Characters |
|---|---|
| Seth MacFarlane | Peter Griffin, Brian Griffin, Stewie Griffin |
| Alex Borstein | Lois Griffin |
| Seth Green | Chris Griffin, Dylan Flanigan |
| Mila Kunis | Meg Griffin |
| Mike Henry | Cleveland Brown |
| Ashley Benson | Dakota |
| Jim Breuer | Joe Pesci |
| Jon Daly | Lion |
| Ralph Garman | Michael Chiklis |
Principal voice credits as recorded by IMDb, which lists up to ten credits per episode, so recurring characters can be missing here. Guest voices below come from Wikipedia and TVmaze.
Guest voices
- Ashley Benson as Dakota
- Jim Breuer as Joe Pesci
- Lucas Grabeel as Cameron, Anthony
- Liam Neeson as himself, Liam Neeson
- Emily Osment as Cheyenne
- Kevin Michael Richardson as Marvin Gaye
- Patrick Warburton as Joe Swanson
- Scott Grimes as Kevin Swanson
- Seth Green as Dylan Flannigan
Season 12: episode 11 of 21
- E1Finders Keepers
- E2Vestigial Peter
- E3Quagmire's Quagmire
- E4A Fistful of Meg
- E5Boopa-dee Bappa-dee
- E6Life of Brian
- E7Into Harmony's Way
- E8Christmas Guy
- E9Peter Problems
- E10Grimm Job
- E11Brian's a Bad FatherYou are here
- E12Mom's the Word
- E133 Acts of God
- E14Fresh Heir
- E15Secondhand Spoke
- E16Herpe the Love Sore
- E17The Most Interesting Man in the World
- E18Baby Got Black
- E19Meg Stinks!
- E20He's Bla-ack!
- E21Chap Stewie
SourceFacts from Wikipedia: Family Guy season 12 and the episode's article (CC BY-SA 4.0). Spotted an error? See corrections.
Provenance
Facts only- Data refreshed
- 6 September 2026
- Verification
- Checked against Wikidata and IMDb: title, date, numbering and credits agree
- Licence
- Facts are not copyrightable. Source text on Wikipedia is CC BY-SA 4.0; Wikidata is CC0; IMDb data is used for verification under its non-commercial terms.
- Note
- The story summary and notes were written for this site from the sources listed, by Claude in Claude Code on 2026-09-08, awaiting editorial review. Facts only; no dialogue is reproduced. Voice credits: Information courtesy of IMDb (https://www.imdb.com). Used with permission. Guest cast data from TVmaze (https://www.tvmaze.com), CC BY-SA.