Stu and Stewie's Excellent Adventure

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“Stu and Stewie's Excellent Adventure”
Family Guy episode

Episode no.	Season 4 Episode S3
Guest stars	Kiefer Sutherland (for the 24-style opening)
Written by	Steve Callaghan
Production no.	4ACX07
Original airdate	May 21, 2006
Episode chronology
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"Bango Was His Name Oh!"	"Stewie Loves Lois"
List of Family Guy episodes

"Stu and Stewie's Excellent Adventure" is an episode from season 4 of FOX animated television series Family Guy, consisting for the most part of the last third of Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story. The Season 4 Finale. It was censored and edited when shown on Fox and Adult Swim.

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The episode begins with a 24-style opening recapping the events of "Stewie B. Goode" and "Bango Was His Name Oh!."

Stewie is disappointed to find out that his older self, referred to as "Stu", is a 35-year-old virgin who lives in a disorderly hotel and has a pedestrian job at the Circuit Shack. Stewie's plan to turn Stu's life around backfires when he later is fired from his job and his apartment building burns down. Stewie decides instead to travel back in time, prevent the near death experience at the pool and hopefully change the timeline from there forward. The real Stewie (not the one with the bombs) gets killed in the process, so no one remembers him going to the future.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] TV Edits/Alterations

The following items from the last third of Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story were not in the TV version of this episode:

Stu showing Stewie his prom photo.
Vanessa's dialogue is changed to censor uses of the word fuck.
Chris, as a police officer, pressing charges on his mom, then demanding to get a cookie if he won't turn his mom in. He then receives the cookie, and Vanessa makes a remark about it.
Vanessa's line about Stewie; "Screw him! That fuckin' kid's from Guam!" was shortened to "That kid's from Guam!"
Peter and Lois watching Law & Order P.C.A.M.P.I.E.O.F.T.D: Petty Crimes Against Municipal Property in Excess of Five Thousand Dollars
Stewie remarking that Stu being fired is "almost as bad as when Peter got fired as the first director of Terms of Endearment", and the cutaway where Peter zooms in on the actress's chest as she's telling her children that she doesn't have long to live.
Peter watching Britney Spears' disastrous comeback concert.
Peter recalling the time he was stranded on a desert island with Bono.
Stewie remembering when Peter got Lois a Galaga arcade cabinet for Christmas.
Tom and Diane giving news in the retirement home.
Lois requesting of Stewie that, on his way back to the past, he "make sure Chris never marries that bitch Vanessa" and that she never end up in a retirement home, to which Stewie replies by laughing maniacally.
Stewie crashing Chris and Vanessa's wedding and killing Vanessa with his bazooka.
The ending scene was shortened. The scene ends with Meg meeting a boy who's talking to her about football. The boy introduces himself as 'Ron', to which Meg replies, "I've always liked that name - Ron..."
The wrap party at the end of the movie.

[edit] Cultural References

Circuit Shack is a portmanteau for Circuit City and Radio Shack.
Stu and Stewie attempt to learn about sex by reading The Joy of Sex.
Walt Disney is awakened from his cryogenic sleep and he asks if the Jews are gone, then asks to be put back when the cryogenics engineer says no. This is a reference to his supposed anti-Semitism.
Parade Magazine is referenced when Stu shows Stewie a clipping of a cartoon he cut out of the magazine and stuck behind his counter at Circuit Shack.
A scene from Ferris Bueller's Day Off is used. The movie climaxes in a sequence where Stewie Griffin races through his suburban neighborhood in a parody of Ferris' dash to get home before his parents at the end of the film, using the same music and featuring a brief scene where he introduces himself to two sunbathing women. There is also a scene where Peter almost sees Stewie out of the corner of his eye as Stewie chases after the family car; there is an identical scene in Ferris Bueller.
Future Stewie asks past Stewie if there has been a successful vehicle for Ellen Cleghorne. Ellen Cleghorne was a popular black female castmember on the NBC sketch show, Saturday Night Live in the 1990s, who hasn't been in anything of importance since she left SNL in 1995.
Stu tells Stewie that it's against the rules to tell him about the future. Stu proceeds to time travel, but Stewie hops on and says, "surprise!" This might be a reference to Star Trek IV, when Gillian does the same to Admiral Kirk when he transports onto the hijacked Bird of Prey - which then travels through time.
The opening sequence of the seven-segment display "FG" is a reference to the 24 sequence. The voiceover, "Previously, on Family Guy," is voiced by Kiefer Sutherland who plays Jack Bauer, the main protagonist on 24.
Stewie tries to get Stu to play The Glad Game which is a reference to a game made up by the title character of the novel Pollyanna. The things Stewie states make him glad include: A pinwheel, a big wedge of cake from the fair, a doo-dad for his hat, and the first cut into a fresh piece of construction paper.