Top 10 Family Guy Episodes

We all know that Stewie and Lois have their ups and downs, but here's the episode where the world's most precocious baby becomes very attached to his mother after she repairs his beloved teddy bear. Meanwhile Peter is off suing his doctor after he gives him a prostate examination. Cracking stuff.

Possibly the most legendary episode ever made, this is the one which basically recreates Star Wars only with Family Guy characters - Chris, for example, steps into the shoes of Luke Skywalker, Stewie is a juvenile Darth Vader with evil diapers, and so on. As a standalone episode it's superb, as a fitting tribute to Star Wars (and it was shown to coincide with the 30th anniversary) this is about as good as it gets.

Those Family Guy chaps are generally spot on when it comes to parodies of classic movies - here they offer up their own take on Back To The Future, with Peter travelling back to the 1980s to change history when Lois ends up married to Quagmire instead. The bit where he's in the disco singing along to Axel F is the bit that most stuck in my head but the whole episode is a classic.

The episode in which the Griffins take on the 'Milennium Bug', this one sees them surviving a nuclear holocaust on New Year's Eve 1999 and building a new town around a surviving Twinkie factory. And then things start to get really surreal, as if they weren't odd enough already. Often cited by fans as the funniest episode ever, this one is a classic. And the ending is a corker.

I include this one as a double simply because it was a two-parter and both episodes are so good it's impossible to choose just one. This was actually the 100th episode of Family Guy and features Stewie going on a rampage in search of world domination after he believes Lois to be dead. But is she.....?

One of the more recent episodes, this is the one in which Meg becomes a born again Christian and tries to convert Brian to the cause. Meanwhile Stewie is going to extreme lengths to meet the cast of Star Trek.

This is the one where the show's disabled character Joe finally gets to walk following a leg transplant - but of course it all goes wrong. An edgy episode but you have to admire the way it tackles a thorny subject matter with sensitivity while at the same time making the episode laugh out loud funny.

Another controversial subject matter gets the Family Guy treatment as Megan takes a vow of abstinence and opts instead to have 'ear sex' with her boyfriend instead of the real thing. Much hilarity - and some brilliant satire - ensues as Lois tries to get her to change her mind.

At first glance this may sound simply like a good excuse for a pun title rather than a classic episode but Saving Private Brian thoroughly deserves its place in the top ten. It's the episode where Stewie and Brian sign up for the US army and are deployed to Iraq. Yup, that's right, a dog and a baby. But remember this is Family Guy and anything can happen. And indeed this episode has to be seen to be believed. Brilliant stuff.

You can't help but feel sorry for Brian on Family Guy sometimes, and this episode is one of those occasions, when he is replaced by a perky, chirpy pooch called New Brian. This kind of territory was covered years ago on The Simpsons, but Family Guy does it better.