The ninth season of animatedtelevision seriesFamily Guy first aired on the Fox network in eighteen episodes from September 26, 2010, to May 22, 2011, before being released as two DVD box sets and in syndication. Family Guy follows the dysfunctional Griffin family—father Peter, mother Lois, daughter Meg, son Chris, baby Stewie and dog Brian, all of whom reside in their hometown of Quahog.
The Volume Nine DVD box set was released in Region 1 on December 13, 2011, and was released in Region 2 on May 9, 2011 (titled Season 10)[9] and Region 4 on June 15, 2011. Three of the eighteen episodes are included in the volume. The remaining fourteen episodes were included in the Volume Ten DVD box set, released in Region 2 on November 3, 2011, titled Season 11,[10] Region 4 on February 29, 2012, and finally on Region 1 on September 24, 2012.[11] One other episode, "It's a Trap!", was released independently on DVD.
In the UK, the debut episodes were shown on Sunday nights from May to July 2011 on BBC Three. These repeated the Saturday after, although re-runs of the series continue to be shown on the channel nightly.
Production
Production for the ninth season began in 2009, during the airing of the eighth season. The season was executive produced by series regulars Chris Sheridan, David Goodman, Danny Smith, Mark Hentemann and Steve Callaghan, along with series creator Seth MacFarlane. The showrunners for the ninth season were Hentemann and Callaghan,[12] who oversaw the series's transition into 720p high definition in the premiere of the ninth-season episode "And Then There Were Fewer".[8]
In a parody of a murder mystery, the residents of Quahog are invited over to a honorary dinner at James Woods' mansion, where Quagmire's overweight date Stephanie, Woods, his girlfriend Priscilla, Muriel Goldman, and Derek Wilcox are all murdered in sequence. A bloody golden globe and Priscilla's dead body are found in Tom Tucker's room leading the group to believe he is the killer. In the morning, Lois finds out that Diane Simmons is the true killer and she did it because James Woods was her boyfriend and dumped her on her 40th birthday and Tom pushed Channel 5 to replace her with a younger woman so she planned to kill Woods and frame Tom. As she prepares to kill Lois, she is shot by Stewie, vowing to be the one to kill Lois.
Brian decides to confront Rush Limbaugh when he comes to Quahog for a book signing. Brian becomes a Republican after reading Rush's book. As Lois opposes his new ideas, he moves in with Rush and tries to "help" his party in different ways.
After Peter catches Lois's dad, Carter, having an affair, he is strong-armed into keeping a secret. Joe and Quagmire tell him about how he can use this situation to blackmail Carter. But when Peter accidentally spills the beans, Lois's mom demands a divorce, and Peter is in charge of Carter's return to bachelorhood.
Peter and Joe team up to execute a series of painful and humiliating Halloween pranks on Quagmire. While Brian shows Stewie the ropes of trick-or-treating, Meg sets out to attend her first high school Halloween party with high hopes for the evening. She and Chris, who have both dressed up in an attempt to hide their faces, find themselves in an unpleasant situation.
After Lois accidentally gets involved in boxing, she proves herself extremely skilled in the ring as she tries to picture Peter in place of her opponent. Peter gets ambitious and tries to make Lois a professional boxer even when she is resistant.
Feeling discouraged with the progress of his writing career, Brian decides to throw in the towel until Stewie become his manager and one of his books hits the bestseller list. But when the fame goes to his head, Brian gets a wake-up call from Bill Maher (appearing in a live-action scene as himself).
After getting blown off by the mall's Santa, Brian and Stewie travel to the North Pole to kill Santa Claus. They get there, only to find that Santa is very sick and near dying because of all the work he does each Christmas. Brian and Stewie promise to deliver the presents for him, but fail at the first stop after being discovered by a family. On Christmas morning, when everyone wakes up with no presents under their trees, Brian explains the problem on the news and tells them to shorten their demands to one gift a year. Everyone agrees and one year later, Santa recovers and everyone has a merry Christmas.
Peter gets a new kidney after his Red Bull addiction causes renal failure after drinking kerosene. Brian agrees to give him both of his kidneys and the family prepares to bid adieu their dog. Meanwhile, Chris is chosen to introduce President Obama at school after winning an essay contest. Trouble is, Meg wrote the essay.
Lois encounters the replacement to Diane as the anchorwoman for Quahog's news station, Joyce Kinney. Seeking a bond with someone famous out of sheer ego, Lois tries to befriend her. During a late-night dinner, Lois accidentally confides in Kinney that she is a former porn star. Kinney promptly reveals this on the news the next day which turns Lois into a pariah and enrages her. When Lois confronts her, Kinney reveals she's an ex-classmate of Lois during her days as a high-school cheerleader and that revealing her secret was part of a deep-seated grudge she had on Lois because of a terrible prank she played on Kinney in high school. Lois becomes depressed leading Brian to try and pull her out of it. Eventually, Lois decides to publicly admit her mistake during a church sermon and eventually win the town's approval back and completely infuriating Kinney.
Brian and Peter are required to attend a 12-step program to deal with their drinking problems after a night of their disruptive drunken antics; Death gives Peter a glimpse of what life would be like without alcohol.
Chris's search for a new hobby leads him to befriend an elderly German puppeteer named Franz, until his checkered backstory becomes revealed by Herbert. After Chris and Peter get in trouble with Franz, they are rescued by Herbert until he and Franz get into a fight.
Meg is enlisted to check in on Susie and Joe while Bonnie is away but she soon becomes a little too involved. Lois intervenes when she realizes that Meg‘s misrepresentation of the situation. Meanwhile, Stewie accidentally creates an evil twin. When he tries to take Stewie's place, Brian has to step in.
Chris, Meg, Peter and Lois all trade places to teach each other a lesson. The stunt backfires on everyone except Meg, who surprisingly becomes an excellent housewife. Chris, however, proves to be incredibly productive at Peter's desk job leading Angela to fire Peter and replace him with Chris. Angela then proceeds to overwork Chris to the point where he becomes ill-tempered and nasty which eventually leads to a stress-induced heart attack.
Brian tries to score on a date with a new friend, Denise, but ends up striking out. Instead of throwing in the towel, he decides to enlist Quagmire's help through the latter's new class on how to score women. Unfortunately for Brian, the class was not to find love but to simply have sex. Fed up with Quagmire, he later encounters Cheryl Tiegs (Quagmire's one true love and the reason he became so sexually active). Brian and Cheryl hit it off immediately and the former begins rubbing it in Quagmire's face. This leads Quagmire to snag Jillian Russell (Brian's greatest romantic conquest) and rub it in Brian's face in response. Meanwhile, when the local dry cleaner loses his favorite white shirt, Peter goes ballistic.
Lois becomes skeptical when she hears that Mayor West is marrying her sister Carol, due to the problems she had before with nine break-ups. Meanwhile, Peter is ecstatic at the thought of having a new brother and gets mad at Lois when she tries to prevent the marriage.
Stewie discovers that his time travel has in someway caused the Big Bang that formed the universe, so when Bertram reveals his plan of killing Leonardo da Vinci, Stewie's ancestor, in order to erase Stewie from the universe, he and Brian go back in time to stop Bertram from accidentally deleting the whole universe too.
Bonnie and Lois go to Paris, but Lois finds out that Bonnie only wants to go there to have an affair. After Joe discovers Bonnie's plans, he travels to Paris to try to get her back. All the while, Peter unsuccessfully homeschools Meg and Chris.
The remaining episodes of the eighth season and the first three episodes of the ninth season were released on DVD by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment in the United States and Canada on December 13, 2011. The DVD release features bonus material including four featurettes, "Who Done It? The Making of 'And Then There Were Fewer'", "Brian & Stewie: The Lost Phone Call", "The History of the World According to Family Guy" and the Family Guy panel at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con, along with audio commentaries, animatics and deleted scenes.[35]
