The Story on Page One

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“The Story on Page One”
Family Guy episode

Episode no.	Season 2 Episode 26
Guest stars	Luke Perry
Written by	Craig Hoffman
Directed by	Gavin Dell
Production no.	2ACX14
Original airdate	July 18, 2000
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List of Family Guy episodes

"The Story on Page One" is an episode from the second season of the FOX animated television series Family Guy. Guest starring Luke Perry as himself.

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

A visit to Brown University (Brian's alma mater) shows that Meg does not have enough extracurricular activities to be admitted, and being president of the Quahog chapter of the Luke Perry Fan Club does not count.

She decides to write for her high school's paper, and her first story is an interview with mayor Adam West and his money-wasting investigation on water "theft." Peter doesn't think that story is all that good, so he replaces it with a story claiming Luke Perry is gay. When Perry reads that, he files a lawsuit against the Griffins.

Trying to get out of the suit and to make up with Meg, he tries to stage a photo of Perry acting gay but Perry won't respond. He finally apologizes, and Meg gets to interview him for a new article: "Luke Perry is Straight, but It Didn't Do Me a Damn Bit of Good". Peter gives Perry a copy of the revised article, but Perry rushes back to bed with Adam West who says he will have sex with Luke only if he would stop stealing his water and Luke agrees though he has no idea of what Adam West means.

Meanwhile, frustrated with his short size, Stewie puts a mind control device on Chris to make him do his bidding. Chris turns on Stewie when the device is shorted out by the microwave oven.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Notes

The TV Guide Peter sees, featuring Luke Perry on the cover, reads "If you can read this, Family Guy is on the air."
The family watches a fictitious sitcom called Sherry and the Anus, whose ending credits list real life Family Guy writers and directors as producers of the show-within-a-show.
This episode is one of the only times that a character is shown with nipples.

[edit] Cultural references

The flashback showing Brian’s college years, during which he was harassed for being a dog, parodies the 1992 film School Ties, in which Brendan Fraser’s character is harassed for being Jewish.
The guard at the Dean's office shouts, "nobody sees the Dean, not nobody, not no how", a reference to the Wizard’s guards in The Wizard of Oz.
Lois says that, when she was in college, the National Guard shot some of her friends, indicating that she went to Kent State during the 1970 shootings on the campus.
Peter says that he wanted to name Meg after Twiki, a robot from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.
A cutaway to Meg’s probable future without a college education show her modeling in a bikini at a "bum fight", an event in which homeless people fight one another in exchange for food, alcohol or some other incentive. These events were captured in the controversial 2002 documentary Bumfights.
When Meg goes to interview Mayor West, he asks her if she is Sarah Connor, a character from The Terminator.
After holding an exploding bomb from Mayor West, Meg has Daffy Duck's bill on the wrong side of her head, and then states, "Of course, you realize, this means war", parodying a frequent gag on Looney Tunes.
Stewie uses his mind control device to force Chris to sing "Puttin' on the Ritz" by Irving Berlin. This refers to a scene in Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein where the monster performs the same song.
The scene in which Thomas Jefferson's family is shown as mostly black children is a reference to the recently unveiled evidence that he fathered children with his slave Sally Hemings.
When Peter lists things that distract kids today, he includes the game Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, the geometric drawing toy the Spirograph, the psychedelic rock band Moby Grape, and 90210 despite the fact that they all (except 90210) date back to at least the mid-1960s, indicating he might have lost touch with the current generation.
Peter tells Luke that Dark Side of the Moon synchs up with The Wizard of Oz, a popular notion about the album. Perry mentions that he heard the same from Beverly Hills 90210 co-star Shannen Doherty but thought that she was "just being a bitch", a popular tabloid portrayal of the actress.
A scene from Big is parodied when Stewie walks up to a Zoltar machine and says "I wish I was big." The machine responds with "I wish I could weigh people."
There is a scene where Peter in a flashback is a ghostbuster and interrupts the famous potter wheel scene in the movie Ghost and sucks up Patrick Swayze.
In the scene where Luke Perry is reading 'every high school newspaper', his 'wife' calls from off screen 'Luke! Luke, time for dinner!', quoting Aunt Beru from 'Star Wars: A New Hope' when she calls him to dinner after he finds Leia's message in R2.

[edit] References

S. Callaghan, "The Story on Page One." Family Guy: The Official Episode Guide Seasons 1-3. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. 116 - 119.
A. Delarte, "Nitpicking Family Guy: Season 2" in Bob's Poetry Magazine, 2.May 2005: 26 - 27 http://bobspoetry.com/Bobs02My.pdf