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May 23, 2013

Family Guy: The Father, the Son and the Holy Fonz

by Ryan j Budke, posted Dec 19th 2005 12:25PM
family guyI was a little worried going into this episode, that they had given the best jokes away in the commercials: Stewie running into the glass wall over and over again, Brian rolling him down the steps, Brian painting his ball black. Fortunately, I was very wrong. This was one of the funniest episodes this year, and most of the jokes didn't even come from what we saw in the previews. I think this was actually the episode that I promised to "time" the segues, but with all the commotion around here, you guys are just going to have to wait until next time for that. On with the show!Trouble starts when Peter's religious zealot father, Francis, shows up at the Grffin's front door for his birthday dinner. Even though she made the dinner, Francis makes Lois sit at the "children's table," since she's a Protestant. Peter starts giving them grief for not having Stewie baptized yet, much to Brian's protest. The next morning, Francis takes Stewie and Peter down to the church to have the ceremony performed. The priest warns them that the holy water was "tainted," but Francis executes the ritual without the clergy. Stewie becomes very sick and has to be placed in a germ free, isolated container to avoid further infection. Peter realized that his faith has been guided by his father his entire life, and not by his own true "faith."

After trying (and offending) a couple of religions, Peter stumbles across the one man that he has always believed in: Arthur Fonzarelli. He builds an entire church and belief system around the "leather jacketed one" and actually gains a rather large following. Both Brian and Francis see just how wrong what Peter doing is, and decide to set aside their differences to take the new pontiff down. They get Sherman Hemsley, Gavin MacLeod, and Kirk Cameron to come to Peter's church and recruit members for their own religions, each based on their famous TV counterparts. Well, except Cameron, he's recruiting for Christianity. Peter's congregation leaves in droves, until he's finally left with only himself. He talks with Brian and his father and realizes the folleys of his ways. At least he's not as stupid as Madonna.

Man, I was cracking up from begining to end on this one. The bit with the couple outside of the fertility clinic was classic, then the payoff later with Lindsay Lohan was even better. I do think I'm going to have bad dreams about how creepy Brian looked with Stewies face though, eeewwwww. I'm a little disappointed that Henry Winkler didn't actually show up in the show, but I know he's really only parodied the Fonz once, and that was on Arrested Development, so we'll let that slide. Praise be the Fonz. Let me know what you think (when commenting is back, of course.)

Pop Culture References of the Week:
Aquaman abusing his powers. (Aquaman is all over the damn place, recently)
Bill Lumberg from Office Space. (Holy crap)
Stewie asking people to switch over to Desperate Housewives.
Face/Off

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surfacenoise76

What about Stewie saying, "Just don't take to me to a black doctor..." (or something to that effect)? What was that referencing? Anything?

January 10 2006 at 8:31 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jason Anderson

Agreed. One of the best I've seen. I wish every episode were as funny as this one. Oh, and kudos (For once) to Fox for not returning to it "already in progress" when the damn president did his stupid State Address. Bah. Dubya, STAY OFF MY SUNDAY NIGHT TV! Though I ended up missing the end of American Dad because of that stupid thing. Next time, tell us ahead of time so I can adjust my TiVo recording.

December 28 2005 at 12:41 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Kevin

I can't believe no mention of Peter randomly appearing in Paula Abdul's "Opposites Attract" video!

December 26 2005 at 9:30 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Joel Keller

*Sigh* Another sign that I'm getting old...

Manuel, that was a well-known bit from the early days of Sesame Street, used on the days when the show was sponsored by the number 12.

I laughed my ass off when I saw that, considering how accurate it was.

December 21 2005 at 3:59 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Josh

I think it was from an old episode of Sesame Street. It definitely was lodged in the back of my brain from somewhere in the 70's.

December 21 2005 at 3:28 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
manuel

Indeed, of the funniest episodes ever (although PTV still rules that list). One thing that bothered me the whole time; Stewie is locked in a bubble all the time and suddenly tells about a weird day he had. Then you see him in a sort of pinball-machine. I realised I knew this part from somewhere, an intro of a famous tv show or something, from really a long time ago. Anyone had a clue what it was? (It looked rather seventies with pinball colours and the clock that counted to 12 and such...) really curious what it was.

December 21 2005 at 1:52 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply

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