8 Simple Rules for Buying My Teenage Daughter

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Family Guy Episode

"8 Simple Rules for Buying My Teenage Daughter"

Episode no.:

Prod. code:

4ACX11

Airdate:

July 10, 2005

Writer(s):

Patrick Meighan

Director:

Greg Colton

Guest star(s):

Joanna Garcia

"8 Simple Rules for Buying My Teenage Daughter" is an episode from the fourth season of the FOX animated television series Family Guy. Guest starring Joanna Garcia as Stewie's babysitter, Liddane. The title of the episode is a pun of the original title of 8 Simple Rules (8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter).

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

When Peter goes to the pharmacy to buy condoms, he realizes he has forgotten his wallet. Mort Goldman, the pharmacist, offers to open a tab for him; Peter quickly begins spending unnecessarily. (He buys a case of syrup of ipecac so he can hold a vomiting contest with Brian, Chris and Stewie, however, it was a complete failure.) Soon Mort calls in Peter's debt of $34,000. In desperation, Peter seizes upon a picture of Mort's son Neil, who is infatuated with Meg. Peter offers to sell Meg to the Goldmans to settle the bill, offering a contract; Mort agrees, but everyone is shocked to discover that Neil has started dating another girl. Meg becomes unexpectedly jealous and hunts desperately for a boyfriend to make Neil jealous; she ends up settling for Jake Tucker, who only wants her to buy him things. She finally tells Neil that she wants to be his girlfriend and signs the original contract to prove her sincerity; the Goldmans quickly put her to work as a slave plowing a field in their front yard. Brian finds a clause in the contract stating that it is null and void if Neil cheats on Meg, so Peter convinces Lois to dress as Mystique and seduce him at a fake X-Men convention. Neil tells Meg that he only wants her to be with him if she wants to be with him, tears up the contract, and quickly reconciles with his previous girlfriend. Meg's relief quickly gives way to renewed jealousy.

Meg with Tom Tucker's son and Neil with his girl

Meanwhile, After Meg had complained that she was tired of babysitting Stewie while their parents went out, Lois interviews candidates for a new babysitter, including a couple of Portuguese fishermen (Santos and Pasqual, the two men Peter hired to help him fish), and a Gloop (from The Herculoids). Stewie instantly falls in love with Liddane, an attractive young applicant. Liddane already has a boyfriend, however, and in a jealous rage, Stewie clubs him with a tire iron and locks him in the trunk of Brian's car. When Liddane rejects Stewie's advances, he drugs her and tells Lois that she invited friends over and that they were "smoking merry-jee-wanna and hero-ween! And they were all taking eczema and touching each other!" Lois fires Liddane, who departs tearfully after giving Stewie a mixtape. Stewie regrets his actions and pursues her, but she has disappeared. Weeks later, Stewie realizes that he forgot to release her boyfriend.

[edit] Cultural references

Neil Goldman dressed as Wolverine and Lois Griffin dressed as Mystique tries to seduce Neil Goldman

The title is a joke on the TV show 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, whose title comes from W. Bruce Cameron's book of the same name.
Peter makes several references to the product I Can't Believe It's Not Butter
The scene in which Stewie tests his "teleportation pods" and merges with Rupert is a spoof of the 1958 movie The Fly.
While stopping at Goldman’s Pharmacy, Peter imitates an Excedrin commercial. He also buys several copies of the fashion magazine Marie Claire, only to be disappointed by the physical appearance of actress Kathleen Turner.
In a cutaway, Peter buys a "breakfast machine", which turns out to be a Rube Goldberg device which shoots him. The breakfast machine itself is similar to the breakfast machine featured in the film Pee Wee's Big Adventure. The Danny Elfman music used in the scene was adapted from said film.
In a cutaway, Meg interrupts the television show Everybody Loves Raymond to tell the world that she hates Neil.
In a cutaway, Stewie appears on the reality show Blind Date, known for its humorous captions
Lois's frustration with the potential babysitters can be related to that of Miranda Hillard in Mrs. Doubtfire.
While interviewing potential babysitters, Lois interviews Gloop, a protoplasmic blob from the 1960s Saturday morning cartoon series The Herculoids, who often looked after the title family’s son. When she rejects him, Tundro, a triceratops-like creature from the show, shoots his signature energy rocks at her.
Stewie mocks Lois’s hairstyle, comparing it to that of track star Bruce Jenner.
The show parodied the 2004 crossover film Alien vs. Predator, which pitted the Xenomorphs from the Alien film series against the Predator of the Predator series, with a scene from "Kramer vs. Predator," pitting Dustin Hoffman's character from Kramer vs. Kramer character against a Predator. Dustin Hoffman's character did not win.
Stewie rented the first series of Jiminy Glick, and fantasizes about being Glick interviewing Colin Farrell.
Stewie fantasizes Brian re-enacting the Matthew McConaughey's character Wooderson's line in Dazed and Confused in front of the pool hall: "That's what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age."
During Stewie’s tirade against Jeremy, he derides him of the type of person who frequents Taco Bell late at night, plays hackey sack, watches downloaded episodes of The Simpsons, and memorizes the jingle from "Mr. Plow."
Stewie's yell as he runs up to strike Jeremy is similar to Patrick Bateman's killing of Paul Allen in "American Psycho"
The music that plays when Stewie is attacking and kidnapping Jeremy is similar to the music used in the horror film, Child's Play
After Stewie kidnaps Jeremy and throws him in the back of Brian's car, he throws him his iPod so he can listen to The Strokes as he "gasps for air," although he mistakenly calls them "The Streaks."
Stewie screams Liddane’s name as the camera enters of bird’s eye shot, mirroring Captain Kirk’s enraged scream of “Khan!” in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
In the episode’s final scene, the Griffins trick Neil to coming to a shady hotel by advertising an "X-Men convention". Neil arrives riding a Segway, dressed as Wolverine, and Lois dresses as Mystique to seduce him.

[edit] Notes

This is, according to the DVD commentary, the first episode of Family Guy to make a reference to The Simpsons (during the scene when Stewie goes on a rant when he finds out that the babysitter has a boyfriend). According to Seth MacFarlane, he does not have anything against The Simpsons, or Matt Groening, in which the rest of the commentators respond by complaining about Seth's continual talking about the supposed rivalry between The Simpsons and Family Guy.
Liddane is named after Liddane Sanders, the production controller of Family Guy and American Dad!. On the subtitles and closed captions when this episode is on, her name is spelt "LaDawn".
In the joke in which Stewie makes a reference to Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun, it depicts the two "performing" suicide by means of drug ingestion. In reality, Hitler shot himself while Braun ingested a pill (although it is rumored that Hitler was taking a pill simultaneously).
While stopping by Mort's pharmacy to buy suppositories, Mort asks if he was eating them, and Peter responds sarcastically, "No, I'm shoving them up my butt!" Suppositories are actually meant to be inserted into the body anally.
The mixtape Stewie got from Liddane is played during the last scene in Whistle While Your Wife Works.
At the end of the episode Peter mentions "Next week I run for mayor of Quahog, do I have what it takes?" No episode with this plot has aired as of yet.
In the last scene, Neil calls Cecilia after he voids the contract with Meg. However, if the viewer looks at the phone, it is actually upside-down (so the receiver is in Neil's ear, and the earpiece by the mouth). It is unclear whether this was intentional or a mistake by the artists. However, it is interesting to note that in The Fat Guy Strangler, Carter Pewterschmidt has an angry conversation on the phone with Lois and is holding the phone the same way Neil does in this scene.