Road to Rhode Island

Road To Rhode Island is an episode from the second season of the FOX animated television series Family Guy. First aired on May 30, 2000. Written by Gary Janetti and directed by Dan Povenmire. Guest starring Victoria Principal as Dr. Amanda Rebecca. Production #2ACX12. This episode is included in the "Freakin' Sweet" DVD Collection.

Plot summary

Brian volunteers to pick up Stewie from his vacation at his grandparents' summer home in Palm Springs, where Stewie frames a maid for dinner amusement. At the airport bar, Brian gets very drunk and when Stewie comes to retrieve him the plane tickets home are stolen. In order to get home Stewie and Brian hotwire and steal a car and later masquerade as crop dusters in order to steal a plane which they immediately wreck. As the pair continue hitchhiking back to Quahog, they pass by a puppy mill near Austin, Texas, Brian's birthplace. Upon arrival they discover that Brian's mother was stuffed and turned into a table by the puppy mill owners. With Stewie's reluctant help, Brian gives his mother a proper burial. The pair eventually completes the journey home by riding in an open boxcar where they perform a musical duet.

Meanwhile, Lois urges Peter to watch relationship videos with her, but the videos turn out to be pornography. Peter is initially reluctant but later becomes addicted to the videos, much to Lois' chagrin. She manages to get herself on the end of one of the tapes in black lingerie to entice Peter.

Notes

• An eerie scene in this episode featured Osama bin Laden that only aired once: Stewie sings a musical number to distract airport baggage handlers from noticing the weapons in his luggage, then remarks that he hopes "Osama bin Laden doesn't know show tunes." The camera pans show bin Laden singing as his luggage goes through the detector. This episode aired more than a year before the September 11th terrorist attacks. The scene was taken out of the episode in subsequent airings but can be seen on the "Freakin' Sweet" DVD. In the DVD commentary, Seth MacFarlane mentions that the moral is that "the FBI should watch Family Guy more often."
• This is the first road adventure featuring Brian and Stewie. The second is "Road to Europe".

Cultural references

• In a cutaway showing Peter’s difficulty making decisions, he is in a video store and must choose between Ernest Goes to the Beach and Ernest Doesn’t Goes to the Beach, two fictitious films from the Ernest franchise.
• Peter asks Lois to do her Katharine Hepburn impression, but specifies “Philadelphia Story Hepburn, none of that head-on-a-slinky Golden Pond stuff.”
• Stewie distracts the airport security staff by singing “On the Good Ship Lollipop” from the musical Bright Eyes. In the infamous scene featuring Osama Bin Laden, Bin Laden does the same by singing “I Hope I Get It” from A Chorus Line.
• Stewie thinks his phone number is 867-5309 thanks to the Tommy Tutone hit "867-5309/Jenny."
• The radio in the car Brian and Stewie steal plays "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me" by Culture Club.
• While driving, Stewie and Brian play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, a game in which people link an actor or actress to Kevin Bacon by six films. It is unknown with whom he begins, but the audience hears Stewie link Montgomery Clift to Burt Lancaster via From Here to Eternity, Lancaster to Susan Sarandon via Atlantic City and Sarandon to Bacon via White Palace. Brian is correct that James Spader, not Kevin Bacon, starred in White Palace.
• While eulogizing Brian’s mother, Stewie gives an unusual retelling of the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac.
• On a train back to Quahog, Brian and Stewie sing "We're on the Road to Rhode Island," a parody of a song from the 1942 movie Road to Morocco. The song mentions several places in Rhode Island, including the City of Newport and Brown University. The song also references the 1991 road movie Thelma and Louise.
• Stewie asks Brian to tape an episode of The Brady Bunch for him.