Family Guy’s Halloween Special Reveals Rupert’s Hilarious Secret

Family Guy has returned for an exclusive new Halloween special with Hulu, and with it revealed Rupert’s biggest and most hilarious secret. Although Family Guy won’t be returning in full with Fox until next year with Season 23 of the long running animated sitcom, it’s made a small comeback with the first of two new exclusive holiday specials primed for a release with Hulu. The first of these specials has taken on the Halloween holiday with an episode that not only brings Rupert to life in a murderous new way, but also brings in Twisters star Glen Powell for a hilarious guest starring role.

Family Guy’s Halloween special episode, titled “Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Cheater,” is split into two different stories on Halloween night. The first is how Peter and the guys end up breaking Joe’s potentially prize winning pumpkin and need to help him win the contest somehow anyway, and the second sees Stewie bringing Rupert to life after having a fight with Brian and then unwittingly sending his bear on a violent path to end Brian’s life. It’s here we finally get to see more of what Rupert actually thinks of Stewie, and his hilarious real name in the process.

Family Guy: What’s Rupert’s Real Name?

Family Guy’s Halloween special sees Stewie wanting to go trick or treating with Brian with a couple’s Sonny and Cher costume. Brian refuses as he wants to hang out with his friends (as Stewie rightly points out Brian doesn’t really have any), and thus Stewie is inspired to bring Rupert to life to trick or treat with him instead. After performing a Dr. Frankenstein like experiment to do, Rupert actually comes to life (as voiced by Derek Jacobi). But before Stewie realizes, he wishes to Rupert that Brian was dead. So Rupert decides to make that his mission.

This leads to the end of the episode as following a few failed attempts and Stewie discovering what Rupert wanted to do, there’s a final confrontation that sees Rupert expressing his true feelings. He reveals that he wants to be Stewie’s real number one as he’s always second to Brian. He then reveals that Stewie doesn’t even know his name isn’t Rupert, it’s actually Jerry. This leads to Stewie being grossed out that he’s been hanging out with a Jerry this entire time, and thus Stewie ends up deciding he needs to kill Rupert by drowning him in a toilet before the episode comes to an end.

This, of course, is the latest Rupert in a long line of Ruperts seen throughout the franchise. Family Guy has notably replaced Rupert a couple of times with the most recent one being in “Dog Bites Bear” as Brian found and purchased a replacement after “killing” and helping Stewie hold a funeral for his friend. So this Rupert’s name being Jerry also makes a hilarious amount of sense within the timeline of the series overall since Stewie’s been shown to call these bears “Rupert” in the past regardless. Because after all, he’s still a baby. He even reunites with the dead version of the bear (who’s still alive to him) at the end of the special too.

What Is Glen Powell’s Role in Family Guy’s Halloween Special?

Glen Powell makes his Family Guy debut in the new special as Patrick McCloskey, the reigning champion of Quahog’s annual pumpkin contest. He’s built up a major rivalry with Joe (and has a romantic history with Bonnie, which Joe brushes off), and wins the pumpkin contest every year. Joe thought he had a chance of winning this time around with the pumpkin he had been tending to all year, but Peter and the others ruin it before the contest. So to make up for it, Peter jumps inside of the broken pumpkin to make up for the lost weight.

Joe wins this first contest with his new, over 300 pound pumpkin and McCloskey is wary of why. When Joe’s pumpkin is then later entered into the statewide contest (with Peter) still inside, he’s caught for cheating when Peter can’t wait in the pumpkin anymore. Though McCloskey catches him, he explains that he always wins with cheating as well (as his own portly son hides in his pumpkins), so the two end their rivalry on good terms. It’s not connected to the Rupert story, but it’s still a fun role for the guest star to show up as.