Pee Wee vs. Peter Griffin

Thanks to Fortnite, the online video game my kids are obsessed with, my 9 and 7 year olds are really into Peter Griffin’s Surfin’ Bird. That’s right, even though they’ve never seen an episode of Family Guy, they know Peter Griffin and his favourite song of all-time.

Surfin’ Bird has a wild history, which I think I’ll document soon on an episode of Toronto Mike’d, but I first learned about the song when 12-year-old Mike saw Back to the Beach in theatres and Pee Wee Herman performed the song. I just played that performance for the kids but they still prefer Peter Griffin’s version.

Here’s Pee Wee singing Surfin’ Bird in Back to the Beach.

Here’s Peter Griffin singing Surfin’ Bird on Family Guy.

And here’s the most famous version, by The Trashmen.

More to come on this important subject!