Road to Europe
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| Family Guy Episode | |
|---|---|
| "Road to Europe" | |
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| Episode no.: | 48 |
| Prod. code: | 3ACX13 |
| Airdate: | February 7, 2002 |
| Writer(s): | Daniel Palladino |
| Director: | Dan Povenmire |
| Guest star(s): | KISS |
"Road to Europe" (originally called European Road Show) is an episode of Family Guy guest starring the members of KISS (Gene Simmons, Peter Criss, Ace Frehley, and Paul Stanley) as themselves.
[edit] Plot summary
Stewie is entranced by a British TV programme called Jolly Farm Revue (a parody of children's shows such as the Teletubbies). Lamenting his future in Quahog, Stewie decides to travel to Jolly Farm and live there forever. He sneaks aboard a transatlantic flight, intending to travel to London and find the BBC (where Jolly Farm is filmed). Brian chases after him, only to discover that they have landed in Saudi Arabia instead. Stewie and Brian perform a musical number together as a diversion in order to steal a camel, which dies from exhaustion in the middle of the desert. At a nearby Comfort Inn (really), they steal a hot air balloon and gradually make their way to Vatican City, then travel by train from Switzerland to Munich and get inadvertently stoned in Amsterdam. Upon finally arriving at the BBC studios, Stewie is horrified to learn that there is no actual farm and his beloved characters are mere actors. Disillusioned, he travels back home with Brian and replaces his love of Jolly Farm Revue with a love of "funky fruit hats".
Peter is overjoyed to hear about KISS-stock, a five-night set of concerts in New England by his favorite band. He and Lois dress in face paint and leather, and stand only feet from the stage. When Gene Simmons points the microphone at Lois, encouraging her to sing the next line of Rock and Roll All Night, Peter is humiliated to discover that she does not know the words. He accuses her of only pretending to be a KISS enthusiast, and they leave the concerts in disgrace. To punish himself, Peter stops at a Denny's on the way home, where KISS happens to have also stopped. Lois recognizes Chaim Witz, who she dated before he changed his name to Gene Simmons; Gene introduces her to the rest of the band, who have heard Gene's stories of "Loose Lois". Peter's faith in Lois is restored, and he proudly shares the news on public-access television that his wife did KISS.
[edit] Notes
- This is the second road trip episode for Brian and Stewie. The first was "Road to Rhode Island." The third will be "Road to Rupert."
- While on a bus top tour of Munich, Germany, Brian notes that the tour company’s brochure includes no information on German history from 1939 to 1945 (the events of World War II). Brian and the tour guide also argue about German novelist Thomas Mann. The tour guide gets furious at the accusations Brian makes and says in German "You will sit down! You will shut up! You will not insult Germany!" whilst using the Nazi salute (which is, in fact, illegal in Germany). Although the vocabulary is right, the word order in his "you will not insult Germany" is incorrect. An English accent is also clearly audible, indicating that the voice is not from a German native speaker.
- The arabic man trying to sell camels says that one was "owned by a little old man who only rode it to mosqe on sundays." The arabic holy day is actually friday.
[edit] Cultural references
- This episode's theme is similar to "Road to Rhode Island", a Brian/Stewie road-trip caper from Season 2. The starting credits are similar in style to the ones seen in Looney Tunes cartoons from the 1950s.
- This episode is a parody of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby's movie Road to Morocco. Stewie and Brian's musical number parodies a similar number performed by Hope and Crosby in the movie.
- Dennis DeYoung, former lead singer of the band Styx, calls into to KISS Forum to badmouth KISS. The host threatens to play the Styx’s 1977 hit “Come Sail Away” and then KISS’ 1976 song “Detroit Rock City” to see how they compare.
- For an inexplicable reason, Peter thinks he lives in French Polynesia.
- Peter compares the sound of one of his farts to the music of jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong.
- When sneaking onto the plane with the British family, Stewie gives a stream of mumblings to sound British. He references the London theater Royal Albert Hall, Big Ben, the London Underground subway system, the rock group the Dave Clark Five and “a baby’s arm holding an apple” (Lenny Bruce's description of an African-American man's penis[1][2]).
- Stewie's quick two-armed salute before boarding the plane is a parody of U.S. President Richard Nixon's infamous salute to the public after he resigned in 1974.
- On the plane, Stewie and Brian appear to be seated next to 60 Minutes commentator Andy Rooney and comedians Jerry Seinfeld and Andy Dick after asking how the trip could get any worse.
- A peddler in the Arabian village advertises Dude, My Car is Not Where I Parked It But Praise Allah We Are Not Hurt, either an Arabic translation or remake of the 2000 comedy film Dude, Where's My Car?.
- During their musical number, Brian compares Stewie’s hair to that of Peanuts character Charlie Brown and Stewie compares Brian to Brown’s beagle Snoopy. The song also references Latin pop star Ricky Martin, French writer the Marquis de Sade and Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog, a puppet character from Late Night with Conan O'Brien. The song also has Brian claiming that Stewie's gay, something which happens rather a lot in this show.
- Brian slices open the camel's belly to save Stewie from the cold, much like Han Solo did with his Tauntaun to warm Luke in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.
- When learning that Middle Easterners only heard 1980s rock music recently, Stewie pities them once they have to “suffer through” Jesus Jones, a British band best known for the 1991 hit “Right Here, Right Now.” But in fact, in many middle eastern countries American pop music (at least, that of mostly well known singers) is well known and, in countries that have less strict sexual habits, as Lebanon, Turkey, Syria and (up to a point) Egypt, videos are sometimes parodiated by local singers.
- On a train in Switzerland, Stewie remarks that he sees American actor Tom Bosley. Brian questions what Tom Bosley would be doing on a train in Switzerland, to which Stewie has no response.
- The line Lois is looking for is, "... and party every day".
- In Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands, Stewie and Brian wander into De Wallen, its red light district where, due to the country’s drug laws, marijuana is freely smoked in coffee houses.
- Peter and Lois meet KISS at a Denny's restaurant.
- Lois mumbles that she also slept with glam rocker J. Geils
- After KISS Forum ends a show dedicated to the science fiction television series Battlestar Galactica begins.
- KISS' Ace Frehley is depicted as kind of slow in this episode. During the commercial for their tour, he interrupts Gene Simmons, saying "Rock and Roll!", prompting Gene to send him into the corner. Later, when the rest of the band are excited to see Lois, he blurts out, "My Grand Slam was supposed to come with sausage." This may be a reference to the fact he was once electrocuted on stage, as he sounds like someone who was struck by lightning.
- In a scene where Brian and Stewie are riding on a hot air balloon, they notice that the countries look exactually like a map (It also shows a compass in the water), and then comment on its printing.
- In production order this was the original series finale for Family Guy.
[edit] References
- ^ This term was popularized by (and may have originated from) a circa-1960 Lenny Bruce routine that ended up in his book How to Talk Dirty and Influence People (ISBN 0-67-175108-5) (excerpt) — Bruce attributes the term to one of his mother's neighbors:
Filipinos come quick; colored men are build abnormally large ("Their wangs look like a baby's arm with an apple in its fist"); ladies with short hair are Lesbians; if you want to keep your man, rub alum on your pussy.
Such bits of erotic folklore were related daily to my mother by Mrs. Janesky ... - ^ The earliest known use of the exact wording Stewie uses was on The Tubes's song "What Do You Want From Life", from their eponymous 1975 album.
- S. Callaghan, "Road to Europe." Family Guy: The Official Episode Guide Seasons 1-3. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. 152 - 155.
- A. Delarte, "Nitpicking Family Guy: Season 3" in Bob's Poetry Magazine, 2.August 2005: 56 - 57 http://bobspoetry.com/Bobs02Au.pdf
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