Lois Griffin

Lore & Background

Lois Griffin was born to affluent WASP multibillionaire parents, Carter and Barbara Pewterschmidt. The episode "Family Goy" reveals that her mother Barbara is actually Jewish, and Lois was raised Protestant. Lois and the rest of the Griffins live in the fictional city of Quahog, Rhode Island, which is modeled after Providence, Rhode Island. Lois speaks with a distinctive nasal New England accent. In "A Lot Going on Upstairs," Lois’s drivers license reveals her height is 5 feet 8 inches (1.73 m). Lois primarily works as a housewife throughout the series, though she did give piano lessons in early episodes. She has also had various jobs in single episodes: in "FOX-y Lady," she becomes the new reporter for Fox News Channel; in "It Takes a Village Idiot, and I Married One," Lois is elected the mayor of Quahog; in "Call Girl," Lois gets a job doing phone sex; in "Take a Letter," Lois works at the Post Office; and in "Dammit Janet!" Lois gets a job as a flight attendant. Lois is a championship boxer who retires after losing her final match to Thelma Griffin in the episode "Baby, You Knock Me Out," ending with a record of 17–1. Lois is also a Black belt in Tae Kwon Do, which she quickly achieved in the episode "Lethal Weapons." In "The Fat Guy Strangler," Lois is revealed to have a brother named Patrick Pewterschmidt, a mentally unstable man who was institutionalized.

In Their Own Story

Lois Griffin is voiced by producer and staff writer Alex Borstein, who also voices recurring characters such as Asian reporter Tricia Takanawa, Loretta Brown, and Lois' mother Barbara Pewterschmidt. Borstein has been part of the main voice cast from the beginning of the series including the pilot, and has voiced Lois from the start. At the time when *Family Guy* was being developed, Borstein was working on the sketch comedy series *MADtv*. She was asked to audition by a member of the *MADtv* staff who was helping MacFarlane develop the show. She had not met MacFarlane or seen any artwork and said it was "really sight unseen." At the time, she was doing a stage show in Los Angeles, in which she played a redhead mother, whose voice she had based on one of her cousins from Long Island, New York. She took the voice of the character to the set and used it for Lois. The voice was originally slower; when MacFarlane heard it, he asked her to make it faster and higher. Borstein has noted that the voice of Lois has been changing from the slower original voice to the quicker up tempo voice of the present episodes. There have been rare occasions where Borstein does not voice Lois, such as in the episode "Road to the Multiverse," where Lois is instead voiced by Japanese actress Kei Ogawa, who was required for a scene where everything in the world was Japanese (she also did the voice of Meg for the scene).

Reader's Guide

Lois's personality has evolved throughout the episodes. She is commonly the voice of reason to Peter's tomfoolery and shenanigans, but in some episodes she can act darker than normal and sometimes shows a taste for sadomasochism. In the episode "The Son Also Draws," Lois had a gambling addiction when the family went to a Native American casino and lost the family car. In the episode "Model Misbehavior," Lois becomes a bulimic model. However, in "Sibling Rivalry," just the opposite happens where Lois gains a ton of weight after Peter has a vasectomy and loses his sex drive. After outgrowing Peter's size, she discovers she enjoys being fat, leading to a new sex life where she lets Peter force feed her junk food so she can continue to grow bigger and fatter. "Stuck Together, Torn Apart" shows Peter and Lois splitting up because of Peter's jealousy, only to discover that Lois has the same jealousy. The two then decide to live together again despite their mutually jealous nature. Several episodes have suggested that Lois is bisexual or, at least, bi-curious. In an interview, Borstein stated that Lois became "a little more snarky and sassy and sexual" since the first season, to challenge "those sitcom rules that a woman is supposed to be a total wet blanket and not like sex and is no fun." In the first straight-to-DVD feature, *Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story*, Lois also states, "women are such teases. That's why I went back to men." She reveals in "Partial Terms of Endearment" that she had a lesbian affair with Naomi while they were students at Salve Regina University, and she passionately kisses Meg's lesbian classmate Sarah in "Brian Sings and Swings." Lois fantasizes about running away with Target cashier Esparanza in "Prescription Heroine." In the pilot episode for *The Cleveland Show*, she and Bonnie make out to fulfill Cleveland, Peter, Quagmire, and Brian's wishes.

Did You Know?

• Lois's drivers license in the episode 'A Lot Going on Upstairs' reveals her height is 5 feet 8 inches (1.73 m).
• Lois is a championship boxer who retires after losing her final match to Thelma Griffin in the episode 'Baby, You Knock Me Out', ending with a record of 17–1.
• Lois is a Black belt in Tae Kwon Do, which she quickly achieved in the episode 'Lethal Weapons'.
• In the episode 'Family Goy', it is revealed that Lois's mother Barbara is Jewish, and Lois was raised Protestant.
• In 'The Fat Guy Strangler', Lois is revealed to have a brother named Patrick Pewterschmidt, a mentally unstable man who was institutionalized.