What Really Grinds My Gears was a segment hosted by Peter Griffin on the Quahog 5 News. The gig lasted for one episode, the Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story segment, "Stewie B. Goode".
The segment seems to parody the 1976 film Network about a fictional television network's news caster who is to be fired until he starts ranting live about how life sucks causing the program's ratings to skyrocket.
The segment began when Tom Tucker, the male lead co-anchor, heard him rant to a clerk at Lackluster Video about the status of pornographic video in American society, and that in fact pornography is not condemned in the bible. He also rants that the Bible is too long. The store, formerly known as Sal's Video, had just been bought out by Lackluster, who takes a no-porn stand. Tucker offered Griffin the chance to do a segment on the news ranting about various topics and Griffin accepted.
In his very first segment, he reveals that Lindsay Lohan irks him.
The predicament that bread is square and bologna is round, as indicated by the attendant in the hottest restaurant in town, also irks Griffin. He also hates how he can never find the droids for whom he is looking. Among other rants include the approximately 30-year drought of a good "Priest and Rabbi" joke, as well as X-ray glasses that don't work. While home, he previews a rant about parents who let their kids do whatever they want, and being interrupted
The segment became very popular, making Tom Tucker jealous, and eventually unemployed, so Tucker tries to find a way to get rid of Griffin.
In what turns out to be his final segment, he rambles about people living in the 19th Century. Tucker shows up at the desk for a breaking news story about Griffin's son and dog driving drunk into the walls of The Drunken Clam.
After he is fired, he claims that America is what really grinds his gears.
Rants
- "You know what really grinds my gears? This Lindsay Lohan. Lindsay Lohan with all those little outfits, jumping around there on stage, half-naked with your little outfits. Ya know? You're a... You're out there jumping around and I'm just sitting here with my beer. So, what am I supposed to do? What you want? You know, are we gonna go out? Is that what you're trying to - why why are you leaping around there, throwing those things all up in my, over there in my face? What do you want, Lindsay? Tell me what you want? Well, I'll tell you what you want, you want nothing. You want nothing. All right? Because we all know that no woman anywhere wants to have sex with anyone, and to titillate us with any thoughts otherwise is - is just bogus"
- "It's called an automobile people! It's much faster than a horse".
- "Well, now that I no longer work here, let me tell you something, you know what REALLY grinds my gears, you America, Fuck you!"
In "Inside Family Guy", the hallways of the production offices feature props from past episodes including a "What Really Grinds My Gears" poster.