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Summary

Death Has a Shadow Episode Summary

(Season 1 Episode 1)

General

Season: 1
Episode: 1
Total Episode Count: 1
Prod. code: 1ACX01
First Aired: January 31, 1999
Initial Viewers (millions): 22.01

Episode Cast and Crew

Director: Peter Shin
Writers: Seth MacFarlane
Storyboarders: Shawna Cha, John Rice, Mark Zoeller

Plot

After Peter heavily drinks at a bachelor party, even though he told Lois he would not, he gets fired from his job at the Happy-go-Lucky toy factory for being hung over. Peter soon applies for welfare, but after a mix-up, gets sent a check for $150,000. Eventually, Lois finds out, and Peter decides to return the money by dumping it from a blimp at the Super Bowl. He is arrested as a result, and his family ends up coming to his rescue.

References

  • The episode begins with the family watching an episode of The Brady Bunch.
  • A wimpy Adolf Hitler is seen being jealous of a beefy Jewish man surrounded by women in the “Das Gym”.
  • The family is watching Tom Hanks in “Philadelphia”. Peter figures out that it’s Hanks, recognizing him from “Big.”
  • G.I. Jew is reference to popular kid’s action figure G.I. Joe.
  • Peter makes a reference to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, and the lone man who stood in front of government tanks attempting to stop them.
  • The Fox security guard gets weapon from rack labeled “Just One Gun,” a reference to the then-slogan of Fox, “Just One Fox.”
  • Stewie says “Life is like a box of chocolates,” the famous line from the Tom Hanks movie, “Forrest Gump”.
  • The family watches “TV’s Bloopers and Practical Jokes” TV show at the end of the episode.

Notes/Trivia

  • Stewie uses the mind control device, a “tuna fish” ray gun, a crossbow, and 6 grenades in this episode.
  • The fifteen minute version of this episode that Seth pitched to the network is available on the Family Guy: Volume 2 DVD. Seth animated it entirely by himself at home, being paid only $50,000 from the network, where a pilot pitch normally runs around $1,000,000.
  • Cleveland can be spotted along with Quagmire in the court scene.
  • The transitional music heard in this episode is not heard again throughout the series
  • This is the first of more than ten episodes in which the title has to do with death, murder, killing, dying, etc.
  • During the sequence where Peter goes to work hungover cuts out the part where one of the workers pitches a new idea for an action figure called “G.I. Jew” on FOX.

Goofs

  • In the prison, the pages in Brian’s book are blank
  • When Brian asks how much they are getting his head overlaps his collar.
  • “Das Gym” was supposed to be in Berlin but the architecture is more typical of an American city.
  • Throughout the series, the buttons on Peter’s shirt are on the incorrect side for a man’s shirt.
  • In the flashback where Peter gets drunk from butter rum ice cream, his eyes constantly change size.
  • In the scene where the mail lady is approaching Lois, the house’s driveway is unpaved.
  • During the dinner scene Brian is sitting down but when Peter says “so I’m just gonna tell a little lie, OK” Brian is standing on the chair until Lois puts the food on his plate.
  • family guy beefy Jewish man