Carter Pewterschmidt

Carter Pewterschmidt is a fictional character in Family Guy, and the main antagonist on the show. He is voiced by Seth Macfarlane.

Character and personality
He is Lois's wealthy father and husband of Barbara Pewterschmidt. He owns U.S. Steel and Pewterschmidt Industries. He is portrayed as the stereotypical conservative billionaire. For instance he does not approve gay marriage and uses Mexican immigrants working as gardeners. Although not an inventor nor showing a particularly murderous streak, he is often gleefully sadistic, particularly towards Peter, and is shown to keep a Rancor in a pit below his house in "Peterotica".

To him money, not love, is the secret to happiness, although he briefly reconsiders his stance when he is penniless and Peter is helping him rebuild his fortune. He hates Peter and offered him $1,000,000 if he didn't marry Lois. In the 19th century, his family owned Peter's black ancestor Nate Griffin as a slave. He is good friends with Michael Eisner, Ted Turner and Bill Gates, playing poker with them regularly. He has owned CNN at two different times, in "Screwed the Pooch" via a poker game, and in "Peterotica" following his remarriage to Barbara, who had married Turner briefly following a lawsuit that left Carter poor. He used to own a race-winning greyhound named Seabreeze. However, she became pregnant with Turner's babies, but the father wasn't known until after the birth. When this was realized, he disowned her.

Recently, Carter has shown signs of leniency towards Peter, going so far as to say "You're alright, Griffin." in "Bill and Peter's Bogus Journey". Carter's voice sounds virtually identical to that of Dr. Hartman. Dr. Hartman is also Carter's doctor but they have little interaction, however when Peter tells Dr. Hartman that he sounds exactly like his father in law in "Believe It or Not, Joe's Walking on Air", Carter and Hartman soon notice they do sound a lot alike. Note that this is due to the fact that they are both voiced by Seth MacFarlane, making the coincidence not quite so unique.

In "Peterotica", Peter decides to write his own erotic novels, and goes to Carter to ask for him to lend him some money to get his business open. Instead Carter gives him five dollars at the bottom of a jar filled with salt and barbed wire. Peter is able to properly invest that five dollars to get his novels off the ground; having his books published by "Carter Pewterschmidt Labels". Peter's erotic novels become a success, earning money for Carter and Peter and eventually getting published on audiotape. However, Carter runs into trouble because a motorist was listening to one of Peter's audiotapes, which distracted him and caused him to crash through Kool-Aid Man's house. Carter is then sued as he was the one who underwrote Peter's erotic novels. A lawyer, Scott Greenberg came by Carter's house stating that he was going to take all of Carters property and money. Carter turns around and asks that he can if he can survive Rancor. Carter quickly turns around and hits a switch, causing the collector to fall through a cement block.

After losing the lawsuit, Carter loses his money, his wife, and his lifestyle, and goes to live with his daughter. Afterwards Barbara returns and tells Carter they are rich again and he leaves leaving Peter and the others poor as they were. Lois tells Peter that Carter had offered them a million dollars as a wedding present but she turned it down.

Despite the fact that Carter often locks horns with Peter, he treats Meg, Chris and Stewie well as his grandchildren, even offering to help out when Lois appealed to her father to use his influence to get Chris admitted to a private boarding school in "No Chris Left Behind". His own children are treated a litle less kindly at times. Although he uses endearments like "pumpkin" with Lois, he refused to pay a ransom to free her from kidnappers in "Let's Go to the Hop". His son Patrick was locked into a mental institution and he refuses to discuss the matter with his other children. He also notes that his youngest daughter Carol has "weird boobs" in "Brothers & Sisters".

In "Ocean's Three and a Half", it is revealed he owns an iPod and enjoys rubbing it in Bill Gates's face. He also has a high tech vault in which he stores his, and sometimes others', money. The times the vault is at its richest is when Carter hosts his gala. It has four Locks: A combination lock, foiled by Reese Witherspoon's chin, Voice Identifier, foiled by Cleveland Brown's impressionism skills, Penile Identifier, broken by Glenn Quagmire's penis, and a question: "What is the least appealing male first name?". The question was answered by Peter with the name "Keith".

In "420", he loses money from the timber industry due to the legalization of marijuana, so he first teams up with Peter on a smear campaign. When that fails, he bribes Brian to support the re-illegalization of marijuana by publishing Brian's Faster Than the Speed of Love. It is unknown how the book's failure affected him. It is revealed that he had sold his Bangles records, halting his project on learning the song lyrics. We also find out that he has a liking for Diet Rites, and keeps a whole stack of them in his car.

In the parodies two movies in the Star Wars original trilogy that apply, "Something, Something, Something, Dark Side" and "It's A Trap!", Carter assumes the role of Emperor Palpatine. In Blue Harvest, Carter played the role of Owen Lars, having the much simpler lifestyle of a moisture farmer.

In episodes such as "Bill and Peter's Bogus Journey" and "You May Now Kiss the...Uh...Guy Who Receives", it is made clear that Barbara and Carter married because Carter was rich. However, in "Welcome Back, Carter", it is revealed that Barbra and Carter had fallen in love before they married. It is also revealed that Carter is a war veteran, and he and Barbara exchanged letters, and when that ceased, Carter was presumed dead. At a party Barbara and her new fiancé Roginald attended, he crashed it, and the two reaffirmed their love, sealed by a marriage proposal. However, in the latter episode, Carter was caught in an affair, and though Barbara demanded a divorce, the two are still living in the same household. It is also hinted in the same story that he abused Lois as a child, as when he is woken up by Barbara he mumbles that he is just taking Lois' temperature.

The Pewterschmidts considered retirement after Carter fell asleep behind the wheel of their car in "Grumpy Old Man". Carter soon became bored and listless, needing to be returned to his office at Pewterschmidt Industries to recover.

Portraits of Babs and Carter hang in Peter and Lois' bedroom, notably in "Family Guy Viewer Mail No. 2".

When Stewie travels to the 1960s and falls in love in "Valentine's Day in Quahog", he learns that the infant he kissed is really his mother when Carter arrives to pick her up.

At one point, Carter was dying of cancer, but he was later shown to be fine and healthy. Brian and Stewie eventually find out that Carter had and kept the cure for cancer a secret since 1999. He did it so people would spend more money on treating cancer rather than curing it. After the rest of the family found out, he promised Lois that he would share it with the world for the sake of his family. However, he crosses the Moral Event Horizon by not doing it at all.

Similar villains

 * Mr. Burns
 * Zapp Brannigan
 * Bender