Baby Got Black

"Baby Got Black" is the eighteenth episode of the twelfth season of the animated comedy series Family Guy and the 228th episode overall. It aired on Fox in the United States on April 27, 2014, and is written by Kevin Biggins and Travis Bowe and directed by Brian Iles.^[1] In the episode, Chris falls in love with Jerome's daughter, Pam, much to her father's chagrin. When the two kids run away, Peter and Jerome team up to look for them.

Plot

At the Drunken Clam, Peter, Quagmire, and Joe hear a news story from Tom Tucker of a kid who dies trying to stay awake playing Halo all night. Afterwards, the guys wager each other over who can stay awake the longest. To pass the time, the guys prank call Cleveland Brown and Mort Goldman over their dead wives. Sixty two hours without sleep later, the guys start to hallucinate. Joe falls asleep first as Peter and Quagmire struggle to stay awake. The next morning, Lois comes over Quagmire's house and wakes Peter, Joe, and Quagmire up so that she can ask Peter if she can remove some episodes of iCarly from the TiVo. Peter and Quagmire find they have to review Quagmire's security camera footage to determine Peter won the bet. To celebrate, he takes the family out to eat.

When Chris goes to pick out a lobster, he bumps into his classmate Pam and her father Jerome. But when they part, Pam plants a steamy kiss on Chris. Chris later introduces Pam to the family as his girlfriend to their unease. Lois nervously notes she voted for Obama (once), and Peter is impressed that she is not fat. But at the Clam, Jerome forbids Pam from seeing Chris, and Peter accuses him of being racist, despite his objections. He invites Jerome and his daughter to dinner, but Jerome strongly resists any overtures of friendship, and Peter tries to convince him (in a musical number) that white people have done a lot of good, but only makes him angrier as he drags Pam away.

The next day, Chris mopes over Pam, worried that he will never meet anyone else and he decides to confront Jerome. But Jerome later comes to Peter and tells him of finding a note that their kids have run away together. As they hide out in a motel, they try to figure out what to do, and Pam tells him to get undressed while she prepares herself as well in the bathroom. As Chris does the same thing, he finds Randy Quaid in one of the beds sleeping and urinating while talking about his movies. Chris admits his inexperience and Pam confesses hers as well. As Peter and Jerome cruise town, they are pulled over by a police officer who questions them, and Jerome later angrily notes that it happens all the time. Blowing off some steam, Jerome notes that most of his anger is in his protection of Pam and that he likes Peter. They arrive at the motel to find Chris and Pam making out. Peter's admonishment of Chris takes a racist tone, which Jerome realizes is a reflection of his own attitudes, and agrees to let the kids see each other. When Randy Quaid makes another comment while in his bed, Peter and Jerome plan to kill Randy Quaid.

Reception

Eric Thurm of The A.V. Club gave the episode a D+, saying "Family Guy makes a lot of offensive jokes. This is nothing new, and not something that’d really be worth spending a lot of time talking about in this space, because duh. But it’s important to note, for Family Guy and all comedy like it, that the show hides behind its refusal to take anything seriously. Unfortunately, that means the show can never say anything seriously. “Baby Got Black” is the rare episode of the show that seems like it might have maybe had a tiny impulse to say something interesting, and falls totally and utterly flat, first because, well, it’s Family Guy, and second because it’s not very funny."^[2]

The episode received a 2.1 rating in the 18–49 year old demographic and was watched by a total of 4.02 million people. This made it the most watched show on Animation Domination that night, beating American Dad!, Bob's Burgers and The Simpsons.^[3]

References