O.J. Simpson

Orenthal James Simpson was originally best known as a stellar running back whose career included winning the 1968 Heisman Trophy, which he earned at USC, and a record-setting ten year tenure in the NFL with the Buffalo Bills and San Francisco 49ers.

In his second career, as an actor, O.J. himself entered the world of movie comedy, notably taking the role of Officer Nordberg, in the movie The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! and its two sequels. His acting, considered by some to be at best wooden, was actually not that bad, and he did set up a few genuinely funny moments.

Since 1994, though, his football stats and movie career have perhaps been overshadowed by his high-profile trial and subsequent acquittal of the charge of murdering wife Nicole Brown Simpson and friend Ronald Goldman. He was, however, later found liable for damages in a civil suit filed by Goldman's father and the Brown family.

According to a cut-away in Peter Griffin: Husband, Father...Brother?, a drunken Stewie planted suspicions in Simpson's mind which could have led him to a murderous attack on the two.

The famous "low speed pursuit", in which Simpson attempted to evade arrest by reportedly forcing fellow football player Al Cowlings to assist his escape, in a white Ford Bronco SUV, is parodied in Untitled Griffin Family History, where Nate Griffin and his family are shown escaping from the law, with the assistance of Al Cowlings and his trusty white bronco horse. The helicopter TV coverage of the Simpson/Cowlings pursuit is also referenced, as black versions of Tom Tucker and Diane Simmons report on the chase from a balloon.

In a No Meals on Wheels cut-away, Brian and his black room-mate react in entirely opposite ways (Brian in disbelief, the room-mate in pleasure) as the Simpson acquittal verdict is announced on TV, causing Brian to suggest, as they both point guns at each other, that maybe they should find new room-mates.

In Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story (and also Stu & Stewie's Excellent Adventure), the slogan on the Quahog Time Travel Vacations office is shown as "Watch O.J. Do It", a reference to the supposed murder.

Most recently, in Long John Peter, Peter is shown emerging bloodstained, wearing gloves and carrying a knife from the Brown-Simpson home, just before O.J. arrives and enters. The former football player is then heard making a terrible discovery, presumably of two bodies, and speculating about what was going to happen, and what would now happen.