Family Guy/Love Thy Trophy

Love Thy Trophy
Season 2, Episode 5
Airdate	March 14, 2000
Production Number	1ACX13
Written by	Mike Barker, Matt Weitzman
Directed by	Jack Dyer
← 2x04 Brian in Love	2x06 → Death Is a Bitch
Family Guy — Season Two

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Love Thy Trophy is the fifth episode of the second season of Family Guy, and the twelfth episode overall.

The main plot features Peter and his Spooner Street neighbors fighting over a trophy won for their entry in a local parade, then blaming each other when the trophy goes missing. In the subplot, Stewie is taken into foster custody after a social worker - thinking Meg is is mother - mistakenly concludes that he is a crack-addicted baby.

Starring: Seth MacFarlane, Alex Borstein, Seth Green

Also Starring: Lori Alan, Tara Charendoff, Mike Henry (Cleveland Brown), Danny Smith, Jennifer Tilly (Bonnie Swanson), Patrick Warburton (Joe Swanson), Debra Wilson

Plot Overview

Quahog's Fall Harvest Festival is fast approaching, and the event organizers decide on a parade theme through a multi-step process: Tying submissions to pigeons' legs, shooting one of them dead (at random), then reading the slip of paper attached to the dead pigeon. The winning idea - "That episode of Who's the Boss? where Tony sees Angela naked in the shower", submitted by none other than Peter.

Peter recruits Joe, Cleveland and Quagmire to help build the float. Their float is a resounding success and wins first prize - and The Golden Clam trophy - by the parade judges. The four proudly pose for a picture in the local newspaper, all the while each hiding their desire to keep the trophy at their house. The four get into a quarrel, and their wives also take sides. Eventually, they compromise by placing their float props on the curb, and setting the trophy on top. However, the next morning, the trophy is missing, and everyone quickly starts blaming the other for its theft.

Meanwhile, Meg is mercilessly ridiculed at school after she is the only student not to own a Prada leather purse. When Peter refuses to buy one for her (objecting to the $100 price tag), Meg decides to get a job to buy one. One day while walking Stewie, she sees a "help wanted" sign in the window of Flappy's, a pancake restaurant. Flappy initially rejects her application, but when he sees Stewie, Meg lets Flappy believe that Stewie is her son. She is quickly hired and just as quickly gets customers to leave large tips by making them think she is a single mother and that Stewie is addicted to crack; Flappy never does get wise to Meg's scheme. In the meantime, Stewie quickly develops a taste for pancakes, and decides to play along with the deception.

Eventually, a customer - apparently sympathetic to Meg's "circumstances" - asks for Meg's home address. The woman arrives on Spooner Street to find a war zone, thanks to the neighbors fighting over the missing trophy. Joe, Cleveland and Quagmire all badmouth the Griffins, which is all the woman needs to know. When she arrives at the Griffins, she identifies herself as a counselor with Child Protection Services and takes who she thinks is a crack-addicted Stewie away. Lois is very angry, but instead of demanding answers from Meg, she and Peter get their neighbors to put aside their petty differences to get Stewie back. Meanwhile, Stewie is placed with a young couple who have foster custody of children from several races and national backgrounds.

After an espionage mission fails - and in the meantime, Stewie turns his foster siblings (who had gotten along perfectly) against one another - the neighbors trade Meg's new Prada purse for Stewie. That night, as Peter and his neighbors apologize to one another for fighting over something as silly as a trophy, the trophy's thief is revealed to viewers: Brian, who buried it in the Griffins' yard after he grew tired of the bickering.

Trivia

Allusions and References

• Charlton Heston - Several references are made to the legendary actor:
  • National Rifle Association - Heston was longtime president of the national organization and a strong advocate of gun owner's rights.
  • The Ten Commandments - Heston - who played the 1956 epic movie's main character, Moses - commands "Let my pigeons go!" a play on Moses' biblical quotation "Let my people go!"

• Cocoa Puffs - Stewie, playing along with Meg's ruse to get sympathy tips, tells customers "I'm cuckoo for crack!" a parody of Sonny the Cuckoo Bird's signature line in television advertisements for the breakfast cereal.

• The Shining - Stewie uses letter blocks to “REDRUM,” or “MURDER” backwards, a reference to the 1980 horror film.

• The Twilight Zone - The neighborhood strife is inspired by the episode "The Monsters Are Due on Main Street," an episode of the 1960s science fiction-thriller television series. A caricature of Rod Serling delivers mid-show and show-closing monologues, commenting on the plot.

• Who's the Boss? - Peter's parade theme idea - "That episode of Who's the Boss? where Tony sees Angela naked in the shower" - is based on a scene in the long-running ABC situation comedy's second episode, "Briefless Encounter".