Prick Up Your Ears (Family Guy)

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“Prick Up Your Ears”
Family Guy episode

Episode no.	Season 5 Episode 86
Guest stars	Gary Cole David Cross Mindy Cohn Drew Barrymore
Written by	Cherry Chevapravatdumrong
Directed by	James Purdum
Production no.	5ACX01
Original airdate	November 19, 2006
Episode chronology
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"Whistle While Your Wife Works"	"Chick Cancer"
List of Family Guy episodes

"Prick Up Your Ears" is a season 5 episode of the FOX animated television series Family Guy.

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Adam West pursues a pizza delivery man with his cat launcher (a crossbow that employs his cats as projectiles), launching one cat through the window of an adult video store. Chris and his friends believe that someone has broken in, and go in and steal armfuls of videos. When Lois catches Chris watching porn, and finds out there's no sex-ed teacher at his school, she volunteers for the job, only to be fired when parents complain she's not teaching abstinence-only. A minister (voiced by David Cross) is brought to the school to preach abstinence, causing many students, including Meg and her boyfriend, to vow to abstain; even Peter becomes abstinent. However, a craze of ear sex sweeps the city, as the abstinent people still desire sexual encounters. Lois tries to fight this immediately.

Meanwhile, Stewie hunts the tooth fairy. Although Brian later tells him that the tooth fairy is not real, the tooth Stewie had left as bait has mysteriously disappeared.

[edit] Notes

The song played during the time where text messages are supposed to be entered in is the same as in the short "No Bones About it" in the episode Family Guy Viewer Mail #1 where the Griffin family is in the mall.
Jillian is Brian's first girlfriend to appear in more than one episode.

[edit] Censorship

The following scenes/lines were cut/altered for content on the FOX (and Canada's Global) version, but left intact on Cartoon Network:

The cutaway joke about the Asian woman's bad driving was cut on the FOX version.
The line after Brian complains that the jelly in his sandwich tastes funny originally had Peter say, "Yeah, it was on my penis". The FOX version has "penis" changed to "crotch".
When Lois comes into the bedroom dressed as Grimace, Peter says that Grimace is Ronald McDonald's "autistic" friend; the Cartoon Network version uses the original word "retarded".
The part where Peter has ear sex with Lois has two different scenes. The original version of the scene that aired on Cartoon Network has Lois turn the bedroom light back on only to find Peter's crotch near her head. The FOX version aired a cleaner version of that scene where the viewer only hears Lois complaining about Peter putting his penis in her ear before the lights go up and Peter ends up on the floor.

[edit] Goofs

For the second time this series, the title of the school is misspelled in its establishing 'still' shot. In this episode, it is spelled as 'JAMES WOODS REQIONAL HIGH SCHOOL'.
Stewie already knew of the Tooth Fairy in Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story.

[edit] Cultural references

Mayor Adam West was watching Rodney King of Queens, a parody of the CBS sitcom The King of Queens and the infamous Rodney King beating by the Los Angeles Police Department, with what appears to be Carrie Heffernan beating Rodney King after an argument.
Mayor West's cat launcher is most likely a rip-off of a cheat from the game Postal 2. The cheat lets you use cats as a silencer and when you shoot, the cat gets launched into the air.
Mel Gibson's anti-Semitism is mentioned, Gibson is seen apologizing (in a humorously unapologetic manner) for remarks he made during his DUI incident.
Peter mentions kids being more lost than Liam Neeson would be playing an American cowboy which, for Neeson, would be casting against type.
The pornographic video Chris and his friends are watching is called Genital Hospital, a play on General Hospital.
Michael Jackson is parodied in a Kellogg Company Frosted Mini-Wheats commercial.
The scene where people line up to shake Stewie recreates a scene from the 1980 parody film Airplane!
Peter uses a Rainbow Brite doll and a bust of William Shakespeare to demonstrate sexual intercourse.
At the end of one segment (before cutting to commercial), a live-action shot from Knight Rider is imposed behind Lois.
The toys that Stewie uses to guard against the tooth fairy are Spongebob Squarepants, Starscream, and Man-E-Faces.
In a cutaway, Britney Spears is shown eating obsessively, with her dietitian speaking too softly for her to notice.
In another cutaway, Pablo Picasso unveils a new painting, which, once rearranged, resembled Dianne Wiest.
The Opal Ring Crusade speaker mentions that anyone who has sex "is automatically in Al-Qaeda". He also mentions Mad TV. Note that Alex Borstein, who voices Lois, used to be in that show.
Opal Ring crusade is a parody of a real abstinence group called Silver Ring Thing which hands out abstinence rings, and does concert-like events to try to appeal to teens.
Stewie has a picture of actor Chris Noth in his wallet.
Brian says that the tooth fairy is "all smoke and mirrors, just like Harry Houdini".
Prick Up Your Ears is the title of the 1987 biopic of playwright Joe Orton.
Peter's sense of accomplishment is made light of metaphorically when the gang becomes Tetris blocks and he is unable to interlock with his compatriots.