E. Peterbus Unum

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

“E Peterbus Unum”
Family Guy episode
The flag of Petoria
Episode no.	Season 2 Episode 11
Written by	Garrett Donovan and Neil Goldman
Directed by	Rob Renzetti
Production no.	2ACX13
Original airdate	July 12, 2000
Episode chronology
← Previous	Next →
"He's Too Sexy For His Fat"	"The Story on Page One"
List of Family Guy episodes

"E Peterbus Unum" is an episode from the second season of the FOX animated television series Family Guy.

The episode lampoons disputed territories (i.e Chechnya, Chiapas, Aceh, and Mindanao) becoming independent. The episode title is also a parody of the United States motto E pluribus unum.

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Peter gets audited by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service and is denied a tax refund. His plans to build a backyard pool are further derailed when a request for a zoning variance leads to Mayor Adam West revealing that Peter's house is not even part of the United States.

Peter declares his house to be the new microstate of "Petoria" and spends a night in Quahog bringing beer out into the streets and stepping on grass that can't be touched and violating numerous laws to exploit his diplomatic immunity by singing a parody of MC Hammer's song U Can't Touch This and singing that he can't be sued by Hammer.

On the advice of the diplomat from Iraq, he annexes Joe's pool and calls it "Joe-hio". Days later when Chris tries to go to school, he can't because United States then surrounds and blockades the nation of Petoria with tanks and missiles and Peter is forced into negotiating for a repatriation, after Lois and the children leave him under the threat of "Operation bomb-the-crap-out-of-your-house" (According to the General, "the guy who makes up the names is on vacation"). In the end, the whole episode turns out to be a video in a social studies class 200 years in the future.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Notes

A flashback shows Peter getting "another dog", who honks a bicycle horn whenever he wants a treat. The dog is shown again in a cutaway scene of him at Club Med on The Thin White Line and is revealed to be Brian's cousin Jasper on Brian Does Hollywood.
In a meta-reference, one of the students asks "So, like, can the family understand the baby or what's the deal with that?" Many Family Guy audiences have wondered this too.

[edit] Cultural references

When Joe, Cleveland, and Quagmire discuss tax refunds, Charlie Brown in a ghost costume claims he only "got a rock." This parodies a scene from the Peanuts Halloween special It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown in which the characters trick-or-treat and Charlie Brown consistently receives rocks.
Joe mentions his fondness for action film star Steven Seagal.
During Peter’s mindless ramblings, he mentions breakfast cereal Special K, actor Kaye Ballard and the dabbling duck-breed the mallard.
When Peter receives his notice from the IRS, he mistakes the word audit for the German automobile maker Audi (according to Peter, "it's a foreign car, the "t" is silent").
At the IRS audit, Peter yelps over the recent cancellation of the Fox drama Party of Five, but forgets about the show the next minute. In the future episode “Stuck Together, Torn Apart,” Peter dates Party of Five co-star Jennifer Love Hewitt and mistakes the show for a pornographic film.
When Peter digs in the backyard, Stewie warns him that he may find “a human skeleton with a Lincoln log”, a popular toy, “jammed in the temple”.
When Quagmire's sex doll shuts down, it says "Goodbye," as the Internet service provider America Online does when users log-off.
The scene in which Peter insists on drawing the repairman nude parodies the scene in the 1997 film "As Good as it Gets" in which Greg Kinnear draws Helen Hunt nude.
A flashback shows that Peter's grandfather was an animator for Warner Brothers, who wanted to name Bugs Bunny Ephraim the Retarded Rabbit.
Lois gives Asian Reporter Tricia Takanawa a televised tour of her house. This is a parody of the tour First Lady Jackie Kennedy gave CBS newscaster Charles Collingwood in 1962. Lois is dressed in a pink suit similar to the one Jackie Kennedy wore the day her husband was assassinated.
As First Lady of Petoria, Lois says she wants to be like the President Bill Clinton’s wife Hilary, “only, you know, without the penis.”
A flashback shows Peter’s ancestor “Ulysses S. Griffin,” based on Union General Ulysses S. Grant, winning the American Civil War in a drinking contest against Confederate general Robert E. Lee. In reality, Lee never drank.
Peter asks Horace, “Do you think G. Gordon Liddy paid for his drinks when he was strangling people with piano wire for the good of our nation?” Liddy was one of President Richard Nixon’s chief operatives in the Watergate scandal. Although he admittedly participated in several criminal acts (and served jail time), he has never been charged with strangling a person with piano wire.
Peter sings "Can't Touch Me", in which he boasts of his diplomatic immunity. The song parodies the 1990 hit "U Can't Touch This" by M.C. Hammer. Hammer himself appears in the clip, and Peter brags that Hammer can't sue him for use of the song.
- During the song, Peter sings "j-j-j-j-just like the bad guy from Lethal Weapon 2, I’ve got diplomatic immunity, so Hammer, you can't sue.." In that film, Joss Ackland’s character plays a diplomat who runs a drug smuggling ring out of the South African consulate in Los Angeles.
- Anti-litter mascot Woodsy Owl appears during the song in reaction to Peter's littering.
- During the song, Peter challenges television personality Regis Philbin to rap as well as him, and invites everyone watching to do the Bump.
A diplomat at the United Nations tells Peter, “I used to be a laughing stock around here until my country invaded Kuwait.” The diplomat is likely Tariq Aziz from Iraq and is referencing events of the 1991 Gulf War.
When asserting his right to annex Joe’s pool, Peter senselessly refers (via section, paragraph, and word) to the word "the" in Geneva Conventions, which regulates treatment of prisoners and civilians during a time of war.
Bill Clinton is nude during an army briefing. This is most likely a reference to his very informal bull sessions, as well as his sexual escapades while in office.
The U.S. Military refers to the stand-off against Petoria as “Operation Desert Clam,” a parody of Operation Desert Storm, their name for the 1991 Gulf War.
The political roundtable talk show in which the guests are separated by four squares ends with Alice from The Brady Bunch appearing in the center square as she did in the show’s theme song.
Actress Susan Sarandon appears to do an ad campaign seeking donations to feed the children of Petoria (Stewie). She says, “Many of you know me as Tim Robbins’ mother but I’m actually his girlfriend.” referring to jokes about their age difference. Sarandon is twelve years older than Robbins, obviously too young to be his mother. Stewie then makes a joke about her large breasts, saying she could feed the starving with them.
When Stewie uses newspapers as diapers, he gladly defiles the comic strip The Family Circus.
Peter holds a pool party for leaders of nations who congratulated him on Petoria’s “invasion” of the US.
- At the pool party, former President of Serbia Slobodan Milošević jokes that his cole slaw is “made out of people,” a reference to the film Soylent Green.
- The former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein talks with Libyan president Muammar al-Qaddafi at the pool party about “The Junior Mint” episode of Seinfeld (the one where Jerry thinks his girlfriend's name is Mulva because the only clue about her name she gives is that it rhymes with a body part found on a woman). Interestingly, another Seinfeld episode featured a Hussein lookalike warning a coatless Kramer and George "you’ll catch your deaths" from being out in the cold.
- Peter’s pool party is also attended by Cuban president Fidel Castro, Panamanian General Manuel Noriega, despite the fact that Noriega had been in a Miami prison for drug smuggling for more than seven years at the time this episode originally aired. Some famous leaders who are now dead attend the party including Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong, who died in 1976, Ayatollah Khomeini, who died in 1989, Slobodan Milošević, who died in 2006 (but was alive when the episode was made) and Saddam Hussein, who was executed in 2006 (also alive when the episode was made). Though no time line is specified and in the World of Family guy, Mao and and Khomeini may still be alive.
Mayor West invited civil rights leader Jesse Jackson to open the negotiations with a prayer. However, he could not be there, so West settled for LaToya Jackson, singer and sister of Michael Jackson.

[edit] Goofs

In the scene where Peter represents Petoria in the UN, Denmark is spelled incorrectly as Danmark (though this is the way Denmark is spelled in Danish), Mexico is spelled incorrectly as Maxico and Morocco is spelled incorrectly as Morrocco. The seating of some countries are also changed in various shots.
When Peter mentions G. Gordon Liddy, it is interesting to note that he says "for the good of our country" when technically he is no longer American.
During the scene at the UN Peter demands a seat in the front row, later on it is implied that the better your seat is depends on the importance of the country. In the real UN GA all countries sit in alphabetical order, moving up one seat every year until the rotation goes around again.
During the dancing scene (Peter copies Mc Hammer's "U can't touch this")only when he is doing "the worm" infront of city hall can his shadow be seen.
When Peter is going to Adam's office, he asks a worker where it is, the worker says the last on his left, but Peter walks to his right.

[edit] References

S. Callaghan, "E. Peterbus Unum." Family Guy: The Official Episode Guide Seasons 1-3. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. 112 - 115.
A. Delarte, "Nitpicking Family Guy: Season 2" in Bob's Poetry Magazine, 2.May 2005: 24 - 25 http://bobspoetry.com/Bobs02My.pdf