Petergeist
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“Petergeist” | |
---|---|
Family Guy episode | |
Episode no. | Season 4 Episode 26 |
Guest stars | Carrot Top, Jim J. Bullock, and Bob Costas |
Written by | Alec Sulkin Wellesley Wild |
Directed by | Sarah Frost |
Production no. | 4ACX29 |
Original airdate | May 7, 2006 |
Episode chronology | |
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"You May Now Kiss the...Uh...Guy Who Receives" | "Untitled Griffin Family History" |
List of Family Guy episodes |
"Petergeist" is an episode from season 4 of FOX animated television series Family Guy. Carrot Top and Jim J. Bullock appear as themselves. In the DVD version of the episode, Bob Costas guest stars as himself. The title, and the episode itself, is an obvious parody of Poltergeist. Some segments of the movie's musical score are even used.
[edit] Plot summary
After Joe builds a home theatre system, Peter tries to build a multiplex in his backyard just out of spite. While digging, Peter finds the skull of a dead Native American buried in the backyard. Brian urges him to put the skull back, but Peter decides to use it as a novelty (peeing in it, playing with it, etc).
That night the Griffins start experiencing strange paranormal activity, such as Stewie talking to the TV static, the chairs and refrigerator being stacked upside down on the kitchen table, and Chris getting attacked by an evil tree before being saved by Herbert. Lois is in denial (and Peter is oblivious) of the events that are happening, until Stewie gets sucked into his closet and disappears.
To find Stewie, the Griffins hire a spiritual medium to contact the other side, and learn that the entrance to spirit world is Stewie's closet, while the exit is Meg's butt. After they eventually rescue Stewie, the spirits ravage the Griffin house and suck it into their world. As the Griffins drive off, Peter dumps the native American skull in a garbage can.
Now homeless, Peter and Lois try and find a way to get their house back, and learn the native American skull has to be put back in its resting place. After searching through the city dump, a garbage man tells them that the skull would be in the human remains bin, but it was cleaned out by Carrot Top for things to use as props. They go to Carrot Top's mansion and, after a chase through a hall of mirrors, they retrieve the skull and rebury it, thus getting back their house and life returning to normal.
[edit] Notes
- This is the second Family Guy episode that Carrot Top has made an appearance on. In "The Son Also Draws" they employed a parody character named "Carrot Scalp" to make a play on an Indian name. (This character was voiced by Seth Green)
- The fully completed Indian skeleton is the same as the one dug up when Joe and Peter break ground in a park in "Ready, Willing, and Disabled".
- There's a scene that was cut for time on TV, but featured on the DVD where Peter helps Chris face his fear of the upcoming thunderstorm by having him think about ways to kill children, such as swallowing a razor blade by accident and having a mosquito bite on top of a scab.
- Another scene cut for time (and, according to the DVD commentary, Standards and Practices) had Herbert the Pedophile and the tree monster climb out of the hole after the Griffin house vanishes and Herb asking the tree whether he was a "giving" tree or a "receiving" tree.
- When the episode was aired in New Zealand, the scene where Peter says to Carrot Top that he "is so fucking funny", wasn't bleeped or censored. This was the second time this season that the word "fuck" was not censored. The scene is also played in full in the Region 4 Season 5 DVD release.
- Meg's original line to Peter when she got in the car was "You motherfucker!". It was only on the New Zealand airing, it was also uncensored.
- The DVD version also has an extended version of the scene where Brian grabs Peter's crotch to see if he still has the Indian skull, only to learn that Peter threw it out as the family escaped, where Peter says that what Brian is doing is more awkward than having a three-way where the woman doesn't show up (followed by a cutaway of Peter and an unnamed man waiting in bed for the woman to show up).
- The New Zealand airing of this episode showed an extended version of Lois urging Stewie to exit the spirit world through Meg's ass, where Stewie compares the likelihood of that happening to the likelihood of anyone remembering the 1980 cast of Saturday Night Live, followed by a cutaway to a (rather inaccurate) depiction of the 1980 opening of SNL, showing castmembers Denny Dillon, Gail Matthius (spelled "Mathius"), Ann Risley, and featured players Yvonne Hudson (the first black female feature player on SNL), and Patrick Weathers, followed by musical guest Jack Bruce and Friends (who were musical guest on an actual season six episode hosted by Ray Sharkey) and a fictional host named Scott Colomby. This scene is also shown as a deleted scene on the Family Guy volume 4 DVD set (Region 1).
[edit] Cultural references
- When Joe Swanson builds a home theater, he has a Joe Swanson Theatres logo which is a parody of the old TriStar Pictures logo.
- Peter apparently built a balcony for Statler and Waldorf of "The Muppet Show" to criticize various television shows, notably Lost. They said that they couldn't follow the show, making the title appropriate. Peter responds with "They don't care for most things". In the Muppet Show, they would criticize various acts by making jokes.
- Like the cameraman from Poltergeist, Peter tears the skin of his face off looking into the bathroom mirror, but he turns into Hank Hill instead of a bloody face. Peter laughs about it and says the word "propane," which is a commonly-mentioned topic on King of the Hill.
- Herbert's battle with the evil tree is an exact parody of the fight between Gandalf and Durin's Bane in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and the opening scene from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers'.
- Stewie running into the bathroom and beating Peter up while he's on the toilet is a reference to a segment from Jackass: The Movie, in which Bam Margera does the same thing to his father Phil. The words below Stewie's picture says Stew-O an obvious parody of Steve-O but it was in fact Bam Margera not Steve-O.
- Peter parodies the George W. Bush interview that was filmed with Bush in a golf course holding a golf club, then saying "I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers. Thank you. Now, watch this drive," and taking a swing at a golf ball. This clip was made popular by late night TV shows such as David Letterman and the documentary Fahrenheit 9/11.
- Dick Cheney shoots Peter at point-blank range several times while hunting, and after says "I'm sorry, I thought you were a deer," parodying the Dick Cheney hunting incident.
- Stewie sings "In The Air Tonight" by Phil Collins, while on the "other side", making use of the unusual vocal effects with which his voice is heard, as well as attempting to emulate the drum sound before the final part of the song.
- Home Supply is a play on Home Depot.
- In a cutaway, John Travolta's marriage to Kelly Preston is parodied, with John accidentally saying he wants to touch Kelly's penis, alluding to the rumors that Travolta is gay.
- While Peter is watching JAG, Lieutenant Colonel Sarah MacKenzie stops her speech to Captain Harmon Rabb by asking him if anyone watches the show. Harm says that only old people watch it because the noise keeps them company. JAG was cancelled in 2005 due to poor ratings and the decreased number of young viewers. Originally Lois and Meg were going to say "Jag is so hot!", because the writers assumed JAG was the name of a character.
- The film that's being viewed at Joe's is Rocky VI. Rocky decides to challenge a Martian to a boxing match on Mars, making a parody of the Rocky series for continuous sequels. Coincidentally, there is a sixth Rocky movie called "Rocky Balboa" (not Rocky VI) that was released in winter of 2006, but did not contain any Martians.
- The episode's closing scene spoofs the closing scene of Poltergeist, with Lois pushing the television outside the front door. It then spoofs closing scene in The Flintstones with Peter taking the television back inside and replacing it with Meg.
- Peter names the discovered skull "Chief Diamond Phillips", a reference to Native American actor Lou Diamond Phillips. Interestingly enough, Carrot Top also calls the skull by that name. He also says that if you put the skull with David Duchovny, that it's agent Skully, an obvious play on Agent Scully's name being so similar to the word skull.
- When Stewie's being sucked into the otherworldly portal in his closet, he claims that it sucked as hard as I Heart Huckabees (according to the DVD commentary, the movie originally mentioned before Stewie got sucked in the portal was "Magnolia").
- Peter exclaims "Gee, must've taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque!" (one of Bugs Bunny's common phrases) after his head appears out of Meg's behind.
- While Stewie is watching the static TV, a rather scary hand-like lightning bolt zaps the picture behind Peter and Lois' bed. As they wake up, Brian asks what is happening, and Stewie replies in a sing-song voice, "They're here..." An obvious reference to the Poltergeist films.
- The spirit medium's monologue resembles the speech done by Hayes in King Kong
- The Guide to the Occult that the Griffins consult is written by Beverly Cleary.
- When Peter mentions that he "hasn't been this excited since I learned how to speak braille" a flashback sequence is shown in which Peter is speaking to a blind man on a bench and says the following "hey, bump, bump, no bump, bump, three vertical bumps, four bumps in a square". Translated from braille this appears to be the letters "flg". This could be braille slang or perhaps a grade 2 contraction. The response of the blind man in the episode seems to suggest a racial slur.
- In a deleted scene following the family realizing that they need Meg's butt to get Stewie back, Peter compares the incident to be weirder than when Bob Costas insisted on bathing with Peter.
Preceded by "You May Now Kiss the...Uh...Guy Who Receives" |
Family Guy Episodes | Followed by "Untitled Griffin Family History" |