Road to Rhode Island

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“Road to Rhode Island”
Family Guy episode

Episode no.	Season 2 Episode 20
Guest stars	Victoria Principal
Written by	Gary Janetti
Directed by	Dan Povenmire
Production no.	2ACX12
Original airdate	May 30, 2000
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List of Family Guy episodes

"Road to Rhode Island" is an episode from the second season of the FOX animated television series Family Guy. Guest starring Victoria Principal as Dr. Amanda Rebecca. This episode is included in the Family Guy: Freakin' Sweet DVD Collection, where it includes a scene with bin Laden.

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The episode begins with Brian at his psychiatrist's, where he reveals the circumstances under which he was taken from his mother as a puppy. Afterwards, Brian volunteers to pick up Stewie from his vacation at his grandparents' summer home in Palm Springs, California, where Stewie frames a maid for dinner amusement. At the airport bar, Brian gets very drunk and when Stewie comes to retrieve him the plane tickets home are stolen. In order to get home Stewie and Brian hotwire and steal a car and later masquerade as crop dusters in order to steal a plane which they immediately wreck. As the pair continue hitchhiking back to Quahog, they pass by a puppy mill near Austin, Texas, Brian's birthplace. Upon arrival they discover that Brian's mother was stuffed and turned into a table by the puppy mill owners. With Stewie's reluctant help, Brian gives his mother a proper burial. The pair eventually completes the journey home by riding in an open boxcar where they perform a musical duet.

Meanwhile, Lois urges Peter to watch relationship videos with her, but the videos turn out to be pornography hosted by Dr. Amanda Rebecca. She strips in her videos and says sexual things like "I hope you like big breasts, because mine are so big this itty bra can barely contain them." Peter is initially reluctant but later becomes addicted to the videos, much to Lois' chagrin. She manages to get herself on the end of one of the tapes in black lingerie to entice Peter.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Notes

A scene in this episode featured Osama bin Laden that only aired once: Stewie sings a musical number to distract airport baggage handlers from noticing the weapons in his luggage, then remarks, "Let's hope Osama bin Laden doesn't know show tunes." [1] The camera pans show bin Laden singing "I Hope I Get It" from the musical A Chorus Line as his luggage goes through the detector. This episode aired more than a year before the September 11th terrorist attacks. The entire scene was taken out of the episode in subsequent airings and the Region 1 "Volume 1" Family Guy DVD set (although the scene remains intact up until Stewie's singing in the Season 2 DVD set for Regions 2 and 4), but can be seen on the Family Guy: Freakin' Sweet DVD. In the DVD commentary, Seth MacFarlane mentions that the moral is that "the FBI should watch Family Guy more often."
This is the first road adventure featuring Brian and Stewie as the main characters. The second is "Road to Europe", while the third is "Road to Rupert".
This episode includes a special commentary done by Seth MacFarlane in the characters of Brian and Stewie.
Carter and Barbara Pewterschmidt live in Palm Springs, California, in this episode. Later in the episode "Death Lives", we see that they lived in Newport, Rhode Island, during the 1970s. In the episode "Screwed the Pooch", they still live in Newport; the Palm Springs residence has not been mentioned again.
Just for the sake of fun, a scene was made, never intended for TV, which actually shows the woman in the video's bare breasts, and then gets pretty graphic.

[edit] Cultural references

In the puppy mill flashback scene at the beginning of the episode, Brian notes that he has an "Excedrin headache."
On a train back to Quahog, Brian and Stewie sing "We're on the Road to Rhode Island," a parody of a song from the 1942 movie Road to Morocco. The episode itself is a parody/homage to the "Road to" movies. In the song, there is a reference to the 1991 road movie Thelma and Louise. The song mentions several places in Rhode Island, including the City of Newport and Brown University. It also references the banishment of the founders of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations from the Massachusetts Bay Colony due to religious persecution.
Stewie thinks his phone number is 867-5309 thanks to the Tommy Tutone hit "867-5309/Jenny." When that dosen't work, he tries 111-1111, 111-1112 and 111-1113.
Stewie distracts the airport security staff by singing “On the Good Ship Lollipop” from the musical Bright Eyes. In the infamous scene featuring Osama Bin Laden, Bin Laden does the same by singing “I Hope I Get It” from A Chorus Line.
A scene of Brian in a bar dealing with a girl is inspired by the film Leaving Las Vegas.
The radio in the car Brian and Stewie steal plays "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?" by Culture Club.
While driving, Stewie and Brian play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, a game in which people link an actor or actress to Kevin Bacon by six films.
While eulogizing Brian’s mother, Stewie gives an unusual retelling of the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac.
Stewie asks Brian to tape the episode of The Brady Bunch where Bobby saves Greg's life and Greg becomes Bobby's slave. However, it was actually Peter whose life Bobby saved in that episode ("My Brother's Keeper").
Peter says, "This is going to be worse than the time we had to sit through your uncle Jerry's snuff film" referring to snuff films which are tapes that supposedly record real deaths.

[edit] References

S. Callaghan, "Road to Rhode Island." Family Guy: The Official Episode Guide Seasons 1-3. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. 90 - 95.
A. Delarte, "Nitpicking Family Guy: Season 2" in Bob's Poetry Magazine, 2.May 2005: 20 http://bobspoetry.com/Bobs02My.pdf