The Fat Guy Strangler
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| Family Guy Episode | |
|---|---|
| "The Fat Guy Strangler" | |
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| Episode no.: | 67 |
| Prod. code: | 4ACX20 |
| Airdate: | November 27, 2005 |
| Writer(s): | Chris Sheridan |
| Director: | Sarah Frost |
| Guest star(s): | Robert Downey Jr, Bob Barker |
"The Fat Guy Strangler" is an episode from season 4 of FOX animated television series Family Guy. Guest stars Robert Downey Jr as Patrick Pewterschmidt and Bob Barker as himself.
[edit] Plot summary
After finding an old family picture featuring a brother she never knew she had, Lois sets out to find her unknown sibling. Meanwhile, after a physical with Dr. Hartman, Peter realizes that he is fat and decides to fight for fat people's rights by founding a fat people's club. Lois finds her brother Patrick in a mental hospital, where he's been locked up since childhood. After talking with him for a few minutes, she decides to take him home. There, Patrick explains that he was locked up because, as an infant, he walked in on their mother having an affair with Jackie Gleason. Unfortunately, Peter's physical appearance and manners (as well as a Jackie Gleason "Honeymooners" outfit he likes to wear) bring back the trauma from that event, and Patrick goes on a killing spree, strangling fat men.
Lois is reluctant to believe that Patrick is the Strangler, even with obvious signs. (Pictures of Pat strangling fat guys, a dead fat guy in his room, a half-dead fat guy in his room, and others.) Finally, she gives in and believes everything, and it's up to her and Brian to save Peter from being strangled.
[edit] Notes
- It is revealed in this episode that in addition to Lois' sister Carol (and the illegitimate mulatto boy who Lois mentioned in "Screwed the Pooch"), she also has a brother named Patrick.
- Brian hitting Peter in the head with a rock "for rolling up the windows in the General Lee" is payback for what happened in the Season 3 episode "To Love and Die in Dixie".
- According to the doctor in this episode, Peter was born in July.
[edit] Cultural references
- Stewie recalls a time he "saw Bobby McFerrin fall down all those stairs."
- Patrick was traumatized as a child when he walked in on his mother having an affair with Jackie Gleason, who apparently ejaculated in her face while saying his catchphrase "Pow! Right in the kisser!" Peter triggers Patrick's killing spree by wearing a bus driver's uniform identical to the one Gleason wore on The Honeymooners and repeating this phrase several times. This may be appropriate, as Seth MacFarlane has said that Gleason was a major influence on the formation of Peter's character.
- The Paul Shaffer Fire Alarm sounds like Shaffer's laughter on The Late Show with David Letterman.
- Peter bravely slays a "dragon", i.e. Cybill Shepherd. She is reportedly quite acerbic and difficult to work with. However, in the Family Guy universe, she is actually able to fly, roar, and breathe fire.
- Peter refers to the infamous baked-goods sex scene in American Pie while speaking to a pie he's contemplating eating.
- Peter starts an organization called the NAAFP (National Association for the Advancement of Fat People), which is a reference to the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People).
- A cutaway scene shows Brian finding George W. Bush in his Crawford, Texas treehouse (reading Superfudge) and letting him know about Hurricane Katrina.
- When Brian puts a TV in orbit around Peter, there's a broadcast of an episode of the Three Stooges.
- The chorus of fat men's flatulence and belching during Peter's meeting might be an oblique reference to the campfire scene in Blazing Saddles.
- A cutaway scene shows the invention of music by cavemen. There was a similar scene in History of the World, Part I. However, in this episode, the cavemen invent music through grunting, while in the movie one of them invents it by dropping stones on the feet of his fellow cavemen.
- The song the cavemen sing is Billy Joel's "The Longest Time."
- When Peter and the NAAFP are chasing after Patrick, they follow him into a forest called James Woods.
- Stewie's "French Fried Potaters" (sic) comment is a reference to the film Sling Blade, in which a murderer who is released from a hospital eats french fries, which he calls "French Fried Potaters".
- The doctor engages in a series of puns, prompting Lois to say "Please, we can't take any more schtick."
- At home, Lois is watching an episode of The Price is Right, where one contestant curses at another one after she bid $1 more than him in contestants row. Bob Barker provides his own voice.
- Brian's explanation for hitting Peter with a rock refrences an event in a season 3 Family Guy episode "To Love and Die in Dixie".
[edit] Trivia
- An illustration error was made in the scene when the N.A.A.F.P. meet. In the beginning of the scene there are plenty of chairs, but when the man on the farthest left in front sits down there is no chair.
| Preceded by: "The Courtship of Stewie's Father" |
Family Guy Episodes | Followed by: "The Father, the Son, and the Holy Fonz" |
