McStroke

"McStroke"

"McStroke" is a season six episode of the FOX animated television series Family Guy, that aired on January 13, 2008. The title is a play on McDonald's terminology of putting "Mc" in front of common words. The working title of this episode was Peter Strokes His Meat, a reference to masturbation. It guest stars Ricardo Montalbán as the genetically engineered cow in honor of his role as Khan Noonien Singh in the Star Trek episode "Space Seed" and the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

This was the first new episode of the show in over a month due to the writers' strike. It was also the final episode of the fifth production cycle to air; the last one made was the second half of "Blue Harvest," which lasted for one hour.

Plot summary

While looking through Cleveland's mail, Peter discovers a magazine that talks about the wonders of people with mustaches. This, of course, fascinates Peter, who decides to grow a mustache himself, which he grows quite attached to. Then while he and Brian are walking down the street, they see that the local fast food restaurant McBurgertown is on fire, and the firemen putting it out recruit Peter to help, thinking that he is also a fireman since they all have mustaches. As he operates the hose, Peter hears a man crying for help from within the building. Peter enters the blaze and saves the man, but his mustache has caught fire and burned off.

Peter becomes depressed about the loss of his mustache until the man he saved arrives at his house. It turns out he is the owner of McBurgertown and offers Peter a lifetime supply of burgers as thanks for his heroism. Peter accepts this offer, feeling that eating burgers will fill the void his mustache left. However, after eating 30 burgers, he suffers a severe stroke and is hospitalized. The entire left side of his body is paralyzed, forcing him to limp around on one leg, with his arm hanging lifelessly on his side and part of his face severely hanging over. This lifestyle proves to be difficult for Peter for the next three months, and he blames McBurgertown for his problems. Wondering if there is anything that can be done to return to his regular regime, he decides to give stem cell research a try and, after a mere 5 minutes, Peter returns completely back to normal.

Peter decides to sue McBurgertown over what happened, despite the fact that the stroke was a consequence of his own actions. The company, which has an immense amount of lawyers, easily wins the case. Nevertheless, Peter is still convinced that McBurgertown is bad, so he and Brian infiltrate the company headquarters to find incriminating evidence. There they discover a slaughterhouse filled with cows, one of which has the ability to talk (voiced by Ricardo Montalbán). They release this cow, barely escape the guards, and have him give testimony describing all the evils the company has committed against his species. The McBurgertown franchise is left in ruins and all is well, though the Griffins are left with the issue of where to keep the cow now that he has nowhere to go.

Meanwhile, Stewie complains about the teen dramas on TV, saying that anyone can become popular. So he and Brian wager that Stewie can disguise himself as a high-schooler and become the most popular kid in less than a week. Taking on the name Zack Sawyer, he starts hanging out with Connie D'Amico and her friends and easily wins them over with his cool antics, and his popularity immediately skyrockets. For three months Zack remains the most popular kid there, but he plans to continue to be popular and, that very night, is planning on taking Connie to Anal Point. Of course he knows nothing about sex, so Brian teaches him. That night Connie and Zack are about to have sex, but when Zack takes off his pants, Connie laughs at the size of his penis and kicks him out of the car, leaving him unsatisfied about the "sex" they had. The next day at school, he is ostracized by the popular kids for his "baby penis," ending his reign of popularity. But Stewie has his sweet revenge on Connie by shedding his disguise and clothes completely and making out with her, thus making her look like a pedophile and having her immediately arrested. In the end, Stewie proudly walks out of the school completely naked, sporting his penis as the other students look on with awe.

Inside references

• With Stewie under the name of "Zack Sawyer," this episode marks the second time a member of the Griffin family went out with Connie D'Amico under a different alias, the first being Peter under the name "Lando Griffin" in the episode "Let's Go to the Hop."
• Though Lois commented that Peter's mustache made him look sexy, she had a more negative reaction to Peter growing a full beard in "Brian Wallows and Peter's Swallows"
• This is the third time Stewie goes undercover to a school as a student, the previous being to Chris' school in "Peter Griffin: Husband, Father...Brother?" and to Brian's college in "Brian Goes Back to College."
• Two references are made to Stewie's ambiguous sexuality:
  • After he and Brian make their wager, Stewie asks if he'd like to "kiss on it."
  • When Brian describes sex to Stewie as being like a car trying to fit into a narrow parking space, Stewie says that in that scenario he'd rather be the parking space than the car, which Brian says he'd always suspected.

Goofs

• Stewie bets Brian that it will take him a week to become popular. After Peter suffers a stroke the time line jumps ahead three months, so Stewie should have won the bet and quit school.

Cultural references

• When Peter appears at the kitchen with a moustache, Brain says it's gay. Peter then says that it's not gay because, if it were, Freddie Mercury would be gay. Brian answers saying that Mercury was incredibly gay. Peter says he wasn't because he had a moustache, "which is practically like a wedding ring".
• Peter's line "With great moustache comes great responsibility" is a reference to Spider-Man.
• The firemen's helmets have a emblem resembling the Heinz Ketchup sticker, with the number 57 in reference to the 57 Varieties.
• While Stewie is walking out of the High School, the famous 1975 Bob Dylan song "Hurricane" is playing, which was a protest song for Rubin "Hurricane" Carter.
• The setting outside the Italian deli is similar to the one in The Sopranos.
• The Monopoly man in prison is a parody of the movie The Shawshank Redemption, complete with an impersonation of Morgan Freeman narrating.
• After Peter is healed of his stroke via stem-cells in five minutes, he exclaims "Why are we not funding this?", pointing to the fact that the US government is not funding stem-cell research under the George W. Bush administration.
• The Talking Cow claims that they call the slaughterhouse, "Dacow." As he himself point out, this is a pun on the Nazi concentration camp, Dachau, calling it "dark humor." Brian says with disgust "A Holocaust joke, yeah...that's, that's really funny."
• When Peter is not happy with the fact he is suffering a stroke, he is approached by Wimpy, also suffering a stroke. Wimpy, famous for saying, "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today," is a character from the old Popeye cartoons.
• The McBurgertown tour guide says that the company's original happy meal consisted of a hamburger, a cup of coffee, and a Lucky Strike cigarette, and it sold for one straw penny back in 1952.
• The chase scene in the McBurgertown building mimics the musical chase sequences from The Monkees television show, complete with a rendition of The Monkees' "Pleasant Valley Sunday".
• While paralyzed, Peter is driving while listening to "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" by R.E.M..
• After Stewie accepts Connie's date, Connie says "OMG!" which is a reference to teens using a lot of slang, mainly in initials.

External links

• Template:FGwiki
• McStroke at IMDb
• Template:Tv.com episode

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