Petergeist

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Family Guy Episode

"Petergeist"

Episode no.:

Prod. code:

4ACX29

Airdate:

May 7, 2006

Writer(s):

Alec Sulkin
Wellesley Wild

Director:

Sarah Frost

Guest star(s):

Carrot Top, Jim J. Bullock, and Bob Costas

"Petergeist" is an episode from season 4 of FOX animated television series Family Guy. Carrot Top and Jim J. Bullock appear as themselves. In the DVD version of the episode, Bob Costas guest stars as himself. The title, and the episode itself, is an obvious parody of Poltergeist. Some segments of the movie's musical score are even used.

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

After Joe builds a home theatre system, Peter tries to build a multiplex in his backyard just out of spite. While digging, Peter finds the skull of a dead Native American buried in the backyard. Brian urges him to put the skull back, but Peter decides to use it as a novelty (peeing in it, playing with it, etc).

That night the Griffins start experiencing strange paranormal activity, such as Stewie talking to the TV static, the chairs and refrigerator being stacked upside down on the kitchen table, and Chris getting attacked by an evil tree before being saved by Herbert. Lois is in denial (and Peter is oblivious) of the events that are happening, until Stewie gets sucked into his closet and disappears.

To find Stewie, the Griffins hire a spiritual medium to contact the other side, and learn that the entrance to spirit world is Stewie's closet, while the exit is Meg's butt. After they eventually rescue Stewie, the spirits ravage the Griffin house and suck it into their world. As the Griffins drive off, Peter dumps the native American skull in a garbage can.

Now homeless, Peter and Lois try and find a way to get their house back, and learn the native American skull has to be put back in its resting place. After searching through the city dump, a garbage man tells them that the skull would be in the human remains bin, but it was cleaned out by Carrot Top for things to use as props. They go to Carrot Top's mansion and, after a chase through a hall of mirrors, they retrieve the skull and return it to the ground, thus getting back their house.

In the end, Lois rolls out the bedroom TV (like in the end of "Poltergeist"), then Peter brings it back in and puts Meg outside.

[edit] Notes

Chris mentions an old scout master, possibly referring to being a member of the scouts in season one, episode six "The Son Also Draws", although the scout master in that was dead.
While Peter has the skull in his bed, Brian sleeps on the floor.
This is the second Family Guy episode that Carrot Top has made an appeareance on. In "The Son Also Draws" they employed a parody character named "Carrot Scalp" to make a play on an Indian name.
The fully completed Indian skeleton is the same as the one dug up when Joe and Peter break ground in a park in "Ready, Willing, and Disabled".
"Trespassed" is mis-spelled at 2m55s.
When Peter and his family are on Quagmire's porch, you can see that the Griffin house is still in its original spot like it was not taken at all.
In a cut scene (featured on the DVD) Lois tells Stewie to go to Meg's ass, he says "that's as likely as anyone remembering the 1980 cast of Saturday Night Live." A cut away reveals the SNL announcer listing the cast featuring real 1980 season actors Denny Dillon, Gail Matthius, and Ann Risley (even though most of the castmembers of the 1980 season wouldn't be remembered today, the 1980-1981 season did feature Gilbert Gottfried and Eddie Murphy, who would later become famous). It finishes with a fictional host, Scott Colomby (said twice by the announcer). This scene was played in full unedited when first aired in New Zealand.
When the episode was aired in New Zealand, the scene where Peter says to Carrot Top that he "is so fucking funny", wasn't bleeped or censored. This was the second time this season that the word "fuck" was not censored. The scene is also played in full in the Region 4 Season 5 DVD release.

[edit] Cultural references

When Joe Swanson builds a home theater, he has a Joe Swanson Theatres logo which is a parody of the old TriStar Pictures logo.
Peter apparently built a balcony for Statler and Waldorf of "The Muppet Show" to criticize various television shows, notably Lost. They said that they couldn't follow the show, making the title appropriate. Peter responds with "They don't care for most things". In the Muppet Show, they would criticize various acts by making jokes.
Like the cameraman from Poltergeist, Peter tears the skin of his face off looking into the bathroom mirror, but he turns into Hank Hill instead of a bloody face. Peter laughs about it and says the word "propane," which is a commonly-mentioned topic on King of the Hill.
Herbert's battle with the evil tree is an exact parody of the fight between Gandalf and Durin's Bane in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and the opening scene from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
Stewie running into the bathroom and beating Peter up while he's on the toilet is a reference to a segment from Jackass: The Movie, in which Bam Margera does the same thing to his father Phil. The words below Stewie's picture says Stew-O an obvious parody of Steve-O but it was in fact Bam Margera not Steve-O. On a promo for the Summer Stewie on Global, the word "ass" is bleeped out.
Peter parodies the George W. Bush interview that was filmed with Bush in a golf course holding a golf club, then saying "We're gonna get those terrorists. Now, watch this drive" and taking a swing at a golf ball. This clip was made popular by late night tv shows such as David Letterman and the documentary Fahrenheit 9/11.
Dick Cheney shoots Peter at point-blank range several times while hunting, and after says "I'm sorry, I thought you were a deer," parodying the Dick Cheney hunting incident.
Stewie sings "In The Air Tonight" by Phil Collins, while on the "other side", making use of the unusual vocal effects with which his voice is heard, as well as attempting to emulate the drum sound before the final part of the song.
Home Supply is a play on Home Depot.
Peter says that you can get everything at Home Supply, even those gay mailboxes. A cutaway shows a mailbox parodying the Jet Dry commercials.
In a cutaway, John Travolta's marriage to Kelly Preston is parodied, with John accidentally saying he wants to touch Kelly's penis, alluding to the rumors that Travolta is gay.
While Peter is watching JAG, the main characters (Captain Harmon Rabb and Lieutenant Colonel Sarah MacKenzie) begin arguing that there is no point on settling anymore cases because of poor ratings and that the show is only watched by the elderly. The show was cancelled in 2005 due to poor ratings and the decreased number of young viewers.
The film that's being viewed at Joe's is Rocky VI. Rocky decides to challenge a Martian to a boxing match on Mars, making a parody of the Rocky series for continous sequels.
The episode's closing scene spoofs the closing scene of Poltergeist, with Lois pushing the television outside the front door. It then spoofs closing scene in The Flintstones with Peter taking the television back inside and replacing it with Meg.
Peter names the discovered skull "Chief Diamond Phillips", a reference to Native American actor Lou Diamond Phillips. Interestingly enough, Carrot Top also calls the skull by that name. He also says that if you put the skull with David Duchovny, that it's agent Skully, an obvious play on Agent Scully's name being so similar to the word skull.
When Stewie's being sucked into the otherworldly portal in his closet, he claims that it sucked as hard as I Heart Huckabees.
Peter exclaims "Gee, must've taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque!" (one of Bugs Bunny's common phrases) after his head appears out of Meg's behind.
While Stewie is watching the static TV, a rather scary hand-like lightning bolt zaps the picture behind Peter and Lois' bed. As they wake up, Brian asks what is happening, and Stewie replies in a sing-song voice, "They're here..." An obvious reference to the Poltergeist films.
The spirit medium's monologue resembles the speech done by Hayes in King Kong
Don Knotts is shown in a Disney movie entitled 'Too Many Ostriches', where he feels his vacation has been ruined because the brochure lied to him, saying there'd only be one ostrich, when the entire area he was vacationing in was swarming in them.
Stewie states that Jesus is Chinese and has the last name "Hong," though Hong is more common as a Korean last name. This may be an oblique reference to Hong Xiuquan, a 19th-century Chinese revolutionary who claimed to be the younger brother of Jesus.
The Guide to the Occult that the Griffins consult is written by Beverly Cleary.
When Peter mentions that he "hasn't been this excited since I learned how to speak braille" a flashback sequence is shown in which Peter is speaking to a blind man on a bench and says the following "hey, bump, bump, no bump, bump, three vertical bumps, four bumps in a square". Translated from braille this appears to be the letters "flg". This could be braille slang or perhaps a grade 2 contraction. The response of the blind man in the episode seems to suggest a racial slur.
When Stewie is talking to the "TV people," he refernces Friends series finale when he says that Ross and Rachel got back together and it wasn't a good episode. He later says "They made a spinoff. He's still playing Joey but he's not doing great."