Mind Over Murder

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“Mind Over Murder”
Family Guy episode

Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 4
Guest stars	Alex Rocco , Leslie Uggams
Written by	Garrett Donovan and Neil Goldman
Directed by	Roy Allen Smith
Production no.	1ACX03
Original airdate	April 25, 1999
Episode chronology
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"Chitty Chitty Death Bang"	"A Hero Sits Next Door"
List of Family Guy episodes

"Mind Over Murder" is an episode of Family Guy from Season One. Guest starring Alex Rocco as the masculine woman and Leslie Uggams as herself.

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Stewie is in terrible pain from teething and cannot find comfort anywhere. When Lois tells him that his pain will ultimately pass, it gives him the idea to build a machine that will move time forward to the point where his teething will have already stopped. Meanwhile, Peter drives Chris to his soccer game, where he gets into a fight with another parent who insulted Chris for his playing ability. He punches the parent, who Peter then realizes is not a man, as he had assumed, but rather a masculine-looking pregnant woman.

Peter is put under house arrest for assault and soon finds that he misses his friends. He decides to build a bar in his basement so that his friends can come to visit and hang out with him. It isn't long before the basement bar becomes a local hotspot. When Lois discovers this, she's upset, but then she gets a chance to sing on stage before an adoring crowd. As she savors the spotlight, Peter becomes increasingly uncomfortable with all the attention she's getting, especially from the male patrons.

Meanwhile, Stewie's time machine plans are discovered, causing him to panic about the breach of security. In a clear move to protect the plans, he uses the machine to go back in time before his plans were actually found. But he reverses time just as Peter is having an epiphany about how poorly he treats Lois and seconds before the basement bar goes up in flames. Stewie even manages to back time up to before Chris's soccer game, successfully avoiding the whole altercation between Peter and the pregnant soccer mom. But, unfortunately, his teething pain is still with him.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Cultural references

The opening scene of a man eating "Mintos" before pulling a joke on shooting another man at the theater parodies the candy, Mentos (its commercial, jingle, and candy itself), and the assassination of American President, Abraham Lincoln.

The show cut to after Peter complained about "shows running together" while he was under house arrest was Homicide: Life on Sesame Street, a combination reference to Homicide: Life on the Street, a crime drama, and the famed children's television show Sesame Street.

Peter's flashback about laundry depicts him falling into Narnia and meeting Mr. Tumnus (from C. S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe) stealing socks.

The first song that Lois sings at Ye Old Pube is "You'll Never Know". Later she sings "Steam Heat" from The Pajama Game.

Stewie's time travel device uses a flux capacitor, just like that of the De Lorean in Back to the Future.

Peter says he's like Tim Allen because he has a criminal record and builds stuff.

Stewie's line "Shake me like a British nanny!" refers to Louise Woodward, a British nanny who was convicted of killing an eight month old baby by shaking him.

When one of Lois' piano students makes an error, Stewie yells to him "E-flat, Salieri!" referring to a composer who was a less talented contemporary of Mozart

When Peter is under house arrest and running around in his house, the computer monitoring Peter reflects the popular game, Pong

[edit] Goofs

In the Mintos parody, an error appears when Peter says "Must kill Lincoln" but the closed caption clearly says "Must kill Clinton". This may be because the president in office at that time was Bill Clinton.
In the Disc 1 Season 1 of the DVD on the back of the cover it says that Meg is the singer at Peter's bar not Lois.

[edit] References

Callaghan, Steve. "Mind over Murder." Family Guy: The Official Episode Guide Seasons 1-3. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. 26 - 29.
Delarte, Alonso. "Nitpicking Family Guy: Season 1." Bob's Poetry Magazine March 2005: 10 - 12. http://bobspoetry.com/Bobs02Mr.pdf