Boys Do Cry (Family Guy)

"Boys Do Cry (Family Guy)"

“Boys Do Cry” is the fifteenth episode of the fifth season of the FOX animated television series Family Guy. The title is a play off the title of the The Cure song “Boys Don’t Cry.” It can also be seen as a play off the 1999 film Boys Don’t Cry with Stewie’s role somewhat mimicking Hilary Swank’s.

Plot summary

Lois gets a job as the new organist for the church, which makes her decide to convince her family to start attending sermons on Sundays (Peter is Catholic by birth and Lois is of an unspecified Protestant denomination. It is not specified which church they go to.) After Stewie drinks too much Communion wine and throws it up, the town of Quahog believes him to be possessed by Satan. When the priest wants to exorcise him, the Griffin family escapes to Lois’s sister Carol’s house in Texas.

Peter fits in with the cowboys, but Brian can’t stand Texas life (though he does enjoy shooting). While Stewie, disguised as a girl under the name Stephanie Griffin, enters a “Little Miss Texas” pageant, Meg and Chris sneak into George W. Bush’s house to steal his underwear as part of an initiation into an after-school club. Eventually, Quahog gives up its search for Stewie because of the finding of a new Satan (Super Devil, which Brian kills while shooting into the air), but Lois, hoping to instill moral values in her family, neglects to mention it.

Things turn sour when Peter reveals that he is retarded. The men with him tie him to an electric chair and are about to put him to death when he is rescued by his trusty horse, who is Gilbert Gottfried.

Stewie manages to win the pageant, but when his wig falls off during the crowning ceremony the audience labels him as a “queer-o-sexual” and try to rush the stage. The family is able to escape on the back of Gilbert Gottfried (the horse).

Notes

• Twelve-year old Camilla Stull, who guest starred in this episode, died on April 16, 2007 after a three-year battle with leukemia. Her dream of becoming an actress came true as Drew Barrymore introduced her to Seth MacFarlane, who gave her a one-episode contract. [1]
• Blue-collar comedian Bill Engvall does the voice of the Texan news journalist Duke Dillon.
• Jillian (Drew Barrymore) makes a return cameo appearance in the episode (she was last seen in the episode, “Barely Legal”).
• The orgasmic cow (last seen in the “Jungle Love” episode) also makes a return cameo appearance.
• This is the second time the family has been on the run. The first was “Breaking Out Is Hard to Do.”
• A character named Sneakers O’Toole, who’s named after his own shoes, is introduced in this episode; whether or not he will be a recurring character has yet to be shown.
• The welcome sign says “Welcome to Texas: The Fuck You State” (with “fuck” digitally blurred out).
• This episode is probably one of the greatest examples of Stewie’s potential homosexuality/gender issues. References include
  • Imagining Jesus washing himself (parody of a scene from the movie Witness);
  • “I feel right” (when Brian asked Stewie, in girl’s clothing, how he was holding up);
  • “None for me, thanks, it’s gonna go straight to my vagina” (when Lois asked if anyone wants cake which Stewie replies above dialogue and asks) “Isn’t that what girls worry about? Big vaginas?”;
  • Entering the little miss beauty pageant.
  • Winning the little miss beauty pageant.
• Although Brian hates living in Texas, in the earlier episode Road to Rhode Island, we learn that he was born there.

Cultural references

• The show starts with a commercial for a new Julia Louis-Dreyfus sitcom Now It’s Just Getting Sad, a reference to not only the “Seinfeld Curse” (the trend of the former cast members of Seinfeld not starring in anything successful after Seinfeld), but also Louis-Dreyfus’s sitcom The New Adventures of Old Christine.
• The song that Herbert sings during his audition is the 1982 hit “I Know What Boys Like” by The Waitresses. We also get to see Seamus play “Great Balls of Fire” by Jerry Lee Lewis.
• Jake Tucker playing the William Tell Overture upside down is a reference to Victor Borge, who often did that in his act.
• 9/11 is referenced once again when Stewie, chuckling to Brian about an Islamic convenience store clerk’s accent and poor English, says, “If it weren’t for 9/11 those guys would be adorable.”
• The scene where Meg lies on the couch deflated is a reference to the recent Partnership for a Drug-Free America ads where a teenage girl is shown flattened on the couch and her friend tells the viewer that her marijuana abuse caused her to become dull and listless.
• Peter makes fun of Sarah Jessica Parker and Kirsten Dunst by saying it’s impossible to decide the winner between the two in a hot body/weird face competition.
• The scene where Stewie wonders how fascinating it would be to meet Jesus is a parody of a scene in the 1985 film Witness in which Harrison Ford sees the Amish widow played by Kelly McGillis bathing and she turns around and lets him stare at her breasts.
• On the news broadcast about Stewie being possessed the caption reads, “Brat out of Hell.” This is a wordplay on the saying “like a bat out of hell,” and on the Meat Loaf album of the same name.
• The picture of the Super Devil on the newscast depicts him on motorcycle in the same position as the demon on the Bat Out of Hell album cover.
• Stewie’s bit about chocolate and raisins makes fun of the Nestlé Chunky bars.
• Stewie says he feels like Britney Spears because he’s “standing in urine and hates the person she’s with.” This is a reference to Spears’ ex-husband Kevin Federline.
• In a cutaway that illustrates how stubborn conservatives purportedly are, a man is seen playing a game of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon with a mule, arguing over whether Kevin Bacon starred in Footloose or not.
• Lois receives a stitching of Chuck Norris from one of their neighbors in Texas. Peter says that “Chuck Norris is so tough, under his beard, there is no chin...only another fist.” Chuck Norris shows up and punches Brian in the face with a fist that emerges from beneath his beard, and again later to punch a girl that threatened Stewie’s chances of winning the pageant. This is a reference to Chuck Norris Facts.
• The old man mentions that he purchased his trousers at Caldor, a reference to the now-bankrupt discount department store chain.
• When Stewie protests his entry into the Little Miss Texas Pageant, he makes the series’ third reference to JonBenét Ramsey (Stewie’s line about the talent show being a one way ticket to a semen-stained death in the basement).
• At George W. Bush’s Crawford ranch, Dick Cheney is guarding the house with a shotgun (talking in his sleep about his “18% approval rating,” and how he would like people to meet his daughter’s husband, Michael). Inside, Bush has pictures of him with Ronald Reagan, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and the Super Devil. Additionally, Chris points out that Bush has several lines of “sugar” cut and ready for snorting, a reference to Bush’s alleged cocaine use. Bush is also shown drinking alcohol, a reference to him being a recovering alcoholic.
• Bush also gets into his car while drinking, a reference to his DUI.
• Chris showing the people at the Texas high school George W. Bush’s underwear spoofs the scene in Sixteen Candles where Anthony Michael Hall’s character shows off Molly Ringwald’s underwear to his fellow students.
• Peter being executed for being retarded refers to Johnny Paul Penry
• Peter’s horse is actually Gilbert Gottfried. This is a reference to several of his Comedy Central Roast appearances, where he appears as an animal during the roast as well as his various voice over roles.
• At the Little Miss Texas Pageant, somebody shouts “Hey, it’s Enrico Pallazzo!” when Stewie’s wig falls off. This is a reference to The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!
• Peter’s speech in the end about values and television shows is clearly a jab at Parents Television Council and other individuals and groups who have criticized Family Guy regarding the themes and language used in the show. The PTC also frequently name Family Guy the worst of the week on their website. A similar point is made in the south park episode "Death."
• A similar beauty pageant set-up -- a male infant in a blonde wig winning the pageant, only to be later revealed as male -- is seen in the Nickelodeon show Rugrats.

Goofs

• While the orgasmic cow was being branded, part of the strap that held the ball in her mouth disappeared for a few seconds.
• When Brian puts the phone behind him to hang it up, it basically just disappears.

Censorship

• In the Adult Swim version, the church pastor has a different sermon. In the FOX version, the sermon was from the book of John and it was about a man complaining about a couple living in an upstairs apartment with a crying baby. On Adult Swim, the sermon is from the book of Leviticus and was centered around a man ejaculating into a sock and trying to hide it in a clothes hamper.
• The scene during the family’s drive to Texas where Peter flirts with a blond female driver (similar to Chevy Chase flirting with Christie Brinkley in the film National Lampoon’s Vacation), the female driver crashing into a truck, and Lois’s comment, “You marry Billy Joel. It’s going to happen one way or another” was cut on FOX, but not Adult Swim.
• Stewie’s line about child beauty pageants being a “first class ticket to a semen-stained death in the basement” was changed to the more explicit “semen-covered death in the basement” on Adult Swim.

External links

• Video Clip of the Speech on Values mentioned above