Patriot Games (Family Guy)

"Patriot Games (Family Guy)"

“Patriot Games” is an episode from season four of FOX animated television series Family Guy. Guest starring Tom Brady, Carol Channing, Bob Costas, Jay Leno, and Troy Brown, all as themselves. The episode title references the Tom Clancy novel/film, Patriot Games.

Plot summary

At Peter’s high school reunion, Peter pretends to be a secret-agent astronaut millionaire to impress his classmates, but the truth comes out when he meets Tom Brady and loses all self-control. Peter makes a drunken run for the bathroom, knocking over everyone between him and the toilet. Brady is impressed and lands Peter a spot on the New England Patriots football team as the starting center. Life is great for the Griffins until Peter’s new high profile goes to his head and he’s traded to the London Silly Nannies. Peter decides to turn them around and stage a game between the Silly Nannies and the Patriots. The Patriots cause his team to run away, leaving Peter facing the Patriots alone. He attempts to play, but he is overwhelmed and defeated. However, Tom Brady compliments Peter on having the nerve to stand up to them.

Meanwhile, Stewie becomes a sports bookie. After Brian loses $50 betting on Mike Tyson to beat Carol Channing on Celebrity Boxing, Brian procrastinates in paying off the bet. Because of this, he’s savagely beaten by Stewie in the bathroom. Some time later, Brian still hasn’t paid up, and he tries to avoid Stewie by disguising himself with a fake mustache. Stewie sees through his disguise and pushes Brian down the stairs, beats him with more force, culminating with Brian getting shot in both legs and being set on fire. After they go to the bank and he settles the debt, Stewie offers “one free revenge shot” to make up for it. Brian leaves him in suspense as to when the free hit will be delivered, until Stewie is overcome with paranoia and starts beating himself up to satisfy Brian. At the very end of the episode, Brian then pushes Stewie in front of a moving London bus.

Notes

File:FGPatriotGames1.jpg

Peter with the Patriots

• The part where Stewie beats up Brian in the bathroom will later be referenced in the episode “Airport ’07” when Brian goes to warn Stewie not to drink from Peter’s spit cup, only to recall how badly Stewie assaulted him in the bathroom. Brian then says, “Ah, never mind,” leaving Stewie to spit and scream in disgust.
• The first football team the Patriots play against is the Washington Redskins; the second is the Dallas Cowboys.
• Quagmire’s mention that he was looking for Lois’s toenails in the garbage is a callback to the scene in “Emission Impossible” where Quagmire puts the hair from Lois’s hairbrush on a sex doll with Lois’s face on it and says, “A couple of teeth and some toenail clippings and we’ll be ready for our date.”
• 9.12 million people watched this on its first broadcast.

Goofs

• When Lois, Meg, Stewie and Chris go to the theatre to see a purported Alan Ayckbourn play, the marquee misspells his surname as “Ayckbourne.”
• The sign outside the West End Theatre is incorrectly spelled; it reads “West End Theater.” It should read “West End Theatre” because the episode setting is in England.
• During the dancing portion of Peter’s touchdown celebration, a player wearing number 12 can be seen breakdancing despite that the actual number 12, Tom Brady, is against the celebration.
• Just before the scene was released, the score board showed seven, after Peter scoring the touchdown. This was just caught before the episode was released and changed to six.
• During the boxing match between Mike Tyson and Carol Channing, Mike Tyson is pronounced technically knocked-out. Channing only knocks out Tyson once, while Tyson knocks down Channing multiple times.

Censorship

• When the episode originally aired on FOX, when Lois gives the finger at a camera, it was blurred out. When the episode was shown in reruns on Adult Swim and on DVD, the blur effect wasn’t used to cover up the obscene gesture.

DVD Exclusive Scenes

• On the Volume 4 DVD release, a deleted scene involved Peter showing the London Silly Nannies the American version of the sitcom The Office and pointing out how the American version is vastly different from the British version to get them mad and prepped for the game against the New England Patriots.

Cultural references

• Fred Flintstone stammers “Bet-bet-bet-bet!” as he did in The Flintstones episode “The Gambler,” where Fred goes crazy whenever someone mentions the word “bet” (only in the Family Guy version, he realizes there’s nothing funny about having a gambling addiction, a possible reference to how cartoons from the 1930s to the 1960s are being edited for today’s audience due to political correctness).
• According to DVD commentary, the way Stewie severely beats Brian up is based on the show’s take on The Sopranos.
• The severe beating also has many similarities with the film True Romance, which starred Sopranos leading man James Gandolfini as a mobster who savagely and brutally beat Patricia Arquette’s character, Alabama.
• Stewie dunking Brian’s face in the toilet, yelling “Where’s my money?” is similar to the opening scene of The Big Lebowski.
• Before the beating of Brian, Stewie drinks a glass of orange juice, referring to The Godfather movies using oranges as a symbol of imminent death or injury.
• Lois mentions Peter frivolously spending money on a wax sculpture depicting Gwyneth Paltrow having sex with Harriet Tubman. (On the commentary, it was revealed that originally the creators wanted R2-D2 having sex with Gwyneth Paltrow, but LucasFilm turned them down, for the first time).
• The song Peter sings while showboating after a touchdown, “Shipoopi,” is from the 1957 Broadway play The Music Man.
• The Silly Nannies dance around a maypole and sing Gilbert and Sullivan’s “’Tis Twelve, I Think” from The Sorcerer.
• Whilst in England Lois watches a program on the digital channel BBC Four. The show depicted is a parody of the channel’s intellectual, esoteric content. Family Guy is actually shown on analog channel BBC Two and digital channel BBC Three.
• The Silly Nannies run away from the Patriots and into a carriage very similar to the one in the Disney movie Cinderella.
• NFL announcers Al Michaels and John Madden can be briefly glimpsed during the “Shipoopi” number. (Madden had earlier appeared in the Family Guy pilot episode, “Death Has a Shadow.”)
• During the fight between Mike Tyson and Carol Channing on Fox Celebrity Boxing, during one of Tyson’s bashings, it cuts away to two men under the ring, which is the same as the final round in Rocky III where Apollo Creed says, “He’s getting beaten!” Then, the man next to him, who seems to be Rocky’s brother-in-law Paulie, says, “No, he’s getting mad!!!”
• The part where Brian gets a free revenge shot on Stewie was used in the How I Met Your Mother episode “Slap Bet.”
• The song that Peter sings in his commercial has the same jingle as Homer Simpson’s “Mr. Plow.”
• In the wall of stadium one sign says “John 3:16.” This is the second time in the series that sign is seen. The first is in the “Mr. Griffin Goes to Washington” episode in which Chris’s letter says “John 3:16” (and God said, “Go Sox").