Joe Swanson

**Joseph "Joe" Swanson** is one of the main characters of Family Guy. He is a police officer, who works at the Quahog Police Station. He is the husband of Bonnie and the father of Kevin and later, Susie Swanson. He first debuted in "A Hero Sits Next Door", when he moved into the house next door to The Griffins on Spooner Street. He is voiced by Patrick Warburton.

## Biography

### Early Childhood

Joe was born to Bud Swanson and Joe's Mom. While not much is known about his childhood, or his birth, a detail that is known was revealed in "Bird Reich". It was that when he was in high school, he went on an exchange trip in Germany, but his parents did not pay for his return ticket. Which lead to him being able to understand German, a detail that was actually foreshadowed in "Swindler's List", when he talked to Henry Hindenburg in German when Henry switched his language to not get caught and talk about his plans, but Joe told him in German he heard all of it.

### Becoming a Cop and Meeting Bonnie

Around sometime in his life, he decided to become a cop. Why, who knows (diffently not the showrunners)? During on of his missions, as seen in "Internal Affairs", Joe first met and fell in love with Bonnie when he was at work and a bunch of cops came in to arrest a bunch of strippers for possession of illegal drugs. When Joe and Bonnie locked eyes they fell in love and became boyfriend and girlfriend. Joe watched Bonnie dance and later joined her on stage for a sexual extravaganza. At the time of the duo first meeting each other, "*Africa*" by the band *Toto* was playing and has then since become "their song".

Bonnie admired Joe's athletic abilities and grizzled-cop attitude and this is what made her finally see him as "the one". After a few good years of dating, they officially got married and spent many wonderful years together as husband and wife. They had their first kid after about 5 years or so of being married and named him Kevin. A mere 16 years later, they decided to have another child, which they named Susie

### Paralization

Joe received his paralyzing injury on Christmas of 1998. He was investigating a robbery at an orphanage in "A Hero Sits Next Door", and during a faceoff with the perpetrator, The Grinch, he slid off the roof after tripping on a roller skate, injuring his spine and leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. He later revealed that he really was shot by Bobby Briggs when undercover at his heroin lab when he found out he was a cop in "Joe's Revenge". He would admit in the same episode that his previous story was a lie. Though regardless of both stories, Susie was able to be spared from the paralyzation due to being fertizied before Joe got crippled. He regained movement of his legs for a brief time in "A Very Special Family Guy Freakin' Christmas", but his son Kevin accidentally ran into him, re-paralyzing him. In "Believe It or Not, Joe's Walking on Air", he got surgery to walk again and starts to hang with new friends. However, while mountain climbing, he loses his grip and falls, paralyzing himself again. However, his handicap doesn't prevent him from serving on the police force or choreographing local musicals.

### Moving into Quahog

In 1999, a year after his crippling before the birth of Susie, Joe and his family moved into the house next to the Griffin's house on Spooner Street in Quahog, Rhode Island. There, Joe met Peter when his job, the Happy-Go-Lucky Toy Factory, needed a final member for their company baseball team after Peter injured Gulliermo with a wild pitch during softball practice. Peter knew that Joe had won many awards for playing baseball in the past; he did not know that Joe was paralyzed below the waist. However, as he does most of the time, Joe proved that this wasn't enough to stop him and he led the team to victory.

In Season 2's "Neighbor Pains", Joe officially became the new fourth member of the Beer Bar Buddies.

### The Black Revolution of Quahog (2021)

After Cleveland Brown renamed himself Cleveland X and became a black nationalist revolutionary with staunchly anti-police & and anti-white beliefs, he and his fellow black pumas attacked the police station. In the resulting shootout, Joe Swanson went into the SWAT Armory and found prosthetic legs, making him able to walk again. This healing of his disability was short lived however as Joe Swanson was killed in the shootout as Cleveland threw a molotov at him, burning him alive alongside the rest of Quahog's police station.

## Personality

Joe Swanson is a tough, grizzled cop, who's seen it all and doesn't take any from anybody. He used to be full of energy and ready to kick some butt, whenever he got the chance. He was tough and fierce and he always blasted off like a rocket, killing people and punching their lights out. Unfortunately for him, he was crippled, during one of his badass crime-stopping battles and now he can't move as much as he used to. This experience changed him, but only in a physical sense. Joe made sure he did not let his handicap slow him down. He may be bound to his wheelchair, but he is still full of the same determination and audacity as he's always been. He's always screaming at the top of his lungs, threatening to kill people, blowing stuff up for no reason, and having sex with his wife, all without the use of his legs. Joe is perfectly satisfied with this, unlike his wife.

In later seasons of the show, it became more and more common for Joe's friends to make fun of him for being crippled. Overtime, this gradually led to him becoming less and less confident with himself, to the point where he sort of became the Meg of The Beer Bar Buddies. Joe became sort of downtrodden and depressed. He was a lot more quiet and prone to wallowing in his sadness. When people abused him, he'd more often than not, sit on his ass and take it, rather than fight back. This wasn't just reserved for his friends, as his wife, Bonnie also started to respect him even less. Although Bonnie was a devoted wife at first and didn't let Joe's handicap ruin their marriage, later seasons showed her openly admitting her displeasure with Joe, cheating on Joe, and even making numerous murder attempts on Joe. All of this slight, Joe was completely oblivious to.

As an enforcer of the law, Joe is sort of the voice of reason to the group. He makes sure none of the beer bar buddies do anything illegal. This is why he is excluded from most of their activities. He is seen as a complete downer. In later seasons, however, Joe stopped having a pole up his ass and started partaking in fun, illegal activities with the guys, which may have gotten him less respect at work, but it did earn him more respect from his friends, even if that respect was overshadowed by their aforementioned constant barrage of ableism.

Joe has severe anger issues which often manifest in explosively violent outbursts at random times throughout the show. An example of this is beating his son Kevin in a blind rage to the point Kevin had to live with a foster family for a few weeks in "And the Wiener Is ...", and shooting the left overs of his 16oz steak then turning the gun on his friends after being mocked for not being able to finish it in "The Fat Guy Strangler".

Joe is arguably the best hand to hand fighter in the entire show. Despite his condition, it has been seen on numerous occasions that he is able to completely overwhelm other characters who are accomplished fighters in their own right such as Lois Griffin - who became a Black Belt in Tae-Jitsu in "Lethal Weapons" - and Peter - who while *looking* like he can't known for long violent battles with Ernie the Giant Chicken. Joe has also shown the ability to easily take on multiple enemies at once such as his encounter a large number of armed midgets in "The Thin White Line" and Peter, Quagmire, and Cleveland in "Believe It or Not, Joe's Walking on Air". In "Da Boom" it is shown that despite the lower part of his body being melted into his driveway, Joe is perfectly able to fight and defeat a giant mutated rat. However, Joe is not unbeatable. While controlling the Crippletron in "No Meals on Wheels", he was taken down by Stewie Griffin at least in part due to his small size and agility. In "Joe's Revenge, he lost the upper hand in a fight to Bobby Briggs, and only managed to recover through quick thinking on his part.

## Relationships

### **Family**

* Bonnie Swanson (Wife)
* Susie Swanson (Daughter)
* Kevin Swanson (Son)

### **Friends**

* Peter Griffin
* Glenn Quagmire
* Cleveland Brown
* Brian Griffin
* Mort Goldman
* Vinny Filipeli