Mother Tucker

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“Mother Tucker”
Family Guy episode

Episode no.	Season 5 Episode 2
Guest stars	Tamera Mowry Phyllis Diller Gore Vidal Tara Strong
Written by	Tom Devanney
Directed by	James Purdum
Production no.	4ACX31
Original airdate	September 17, 2006
Episode chronology
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"Stewie Loves Lois"	"Hell Comes to Quahog"
List of Family Guy episodes

"Mother Tucker" is the second episode of season 5 of animated series Family Guy.

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Peter's mother, Thelma, divorces his father, about which Peter is devastated. When he finds out his new father is his mom's new boyfriend, Tom Tucker, he is at first reluctant to interact with Peter acting like a stereotypical kid with divorced parents. Soon however Peter gets a father in Tom that he never had in his real father. Peter falls for Tom and Tom falls for Thelma. Suddenly, Thelma breaks up with Tom saying she just wanted to get back on her feet. Peter initially is upset but continues to hang out with Tom like a son, but then sees that Tom is neglecting his real son for Peter and Peter tells Tom he should be spending time with his real son, Jake, instead of Peter. Tom agrees and leaves Peter to play catch with his son.

Meanwhile, when the family goes to an air show, Stewie gets lost and as Brian goes to a radio booth to call him in, a local thinks his voice would be good for the radio. This gets him his own NPR-style radio show which he intends to be purely intellectual. But Stewie cannot help but stir things up by calling in and making rude comments. This gets him a spot with Brian on the show. Stewie turns it into a comedy show. Later Brian realizes he has gone astray and gives up the show.

This is the second episode Thelma Griffin appears in. The first one was in a cutaway sequence (she was in Las Vegas), in the Season 2 episode "Holy Crap" (although she and Francis also make a cameo in "The Perfect Castaway").

[edit] Cultural references

The name of Quagmire's plane is "The French Tickler", which is a slang term for a type of condom, hence the female crotches on the billboards as targets.
The Weenie and the Butt radio show features the old radio show sound samples from the Valentino Sound Effects Library as a homage to the old radio sound effects.
Quagmire's plane flies through the crotches of Veronica Mars and Paris Hilton on billboards advertising Veronica Mars and The Simple Life.
The ice cream scene from Kramer vs. Kramer is parodied in a scene with Tom parodying the role of Ted Kramer and Peter as Billy Kramer. However in the parody Tom starts spanking Peter, which does not happen in the actual movie and was just added for humor.
When grudgingly accepting Stewie to his radio show, Brian says "Well, I guess he couldn't be any worse than Tim McCarver is at sports broadcasting". This is a reference to McCarver's commentating gaffes throughout his broadcasting career.
The short-lived 2005 NBC series Three Wishes is spoofed in a cutaway sequence. The mention of Spider-Man – impersonated by an overweight crew member in a horrible costume – giving a Sears gift certificate in that sequence is a reference to the heavy involvement Sears' rival J.C. Penney had with the series.
Peter's revealed evil twin, named Thaddeus, parodies Snidely Whiplash from The Dudley Do-Right Show.
Peter compares his mother's sudden announcement to a Peanuts reunion, showing a cutscene where Charlie Brown is a drug addict and admits to having sold Snoopy drugs (it is suggested that Snoopy overdosed and died).
Kermit the Frog appears in a parody of the TV show Round Table, with other notable individuals who have similarly nasal voices. Included were actors Ray Romano and Harold Ramis, and sportscaster Al Michaels.
Brian mentions Stewie selling out. The resulting flashback parodies the Butterfinger commercials The Simpsons did in the early 1990s. Stewie says Bart Simpson's catchphrase from the commercials, "Nobody better lay a finger on my Butterfinger," before adding a forced "D'oh!"
Peter and Lois watch a movie called Masturbator and Commander, a reference to the film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.
Like radio personality Howard Stern, Brian and Stewie hold a contest for women to win breast implants from Dr. John Viener (named after a real-life voice actor on the show). Much of their on-air shtick and banter is Stern-esque.
A sound byte that Stewie plays during the radio show comes from the film Philadelphia.
At the air show, the family walks by a P-51 Mustang and A-10 Warthog, notable for its distinguished nose and protruding Gatling gun.
A cutaway shows a young girl giving the tape to Peter and warning him that if he watches it, he will die, similar to The Ring . Peter takes the tape anyway and plays it on the VCR. The tape in question turns out to be Mannequin and Peter dies, with his mouth wide open, just like Samara's victims in The Ring.
Stewie and Brian's on-air names, Dingo and The Baby, are a reference to the Azaria Chamberlain disappearance in Alice Springs, Australia, where it was found that Azaria was eaten by a dingo.
At the end when Quagmire and Cleveland are on the show, the sound effects say "In Rod we trust" which is from The Simpsons when Homer went into space and used a rod to shut the door.