Petergeist

"Petergeist" is an episode from season 4b of FOX animated television series Family Guy. It aired May 7, 2006. Production code 4ACX29.

Carrot Top and Jim J. Bullock appear as themselves.

Plot summary

After Joe builds a home theatre system, Peter tries to build a multiplex in his backyard just out of spite. While digging, Peter finds the skull of a dead Native American buried in the backyard. Brian urges him to put the skull back, but Peter decides to use it as a novelty (peeing in it, playing with it, etc).

File:Family-Guy-4ACX29-Evil-Tree.png

It's the Evil Tree!

That night the Griffins start experiencing strange paranormal activity, such as Stewie talking to the TV static, the chairs and refrigerator being stacked upside down on the kitchen table, and Chris getting attacked by an evil tree before being saved by Herbert. Lois and Peter are in denial of the events that are happening, until Stewie gets sucked into his closet and disappears.

To find Stewie, the Griffins hire a spiritual medium to contact the other side, and learn that the entrance to spirit world is Stewie's closet, while the exit is Meg's butt. After they eventually rescue Stewie, the spirits ravage the Griffin house and suck it into their world. As the Griffins drive off, Peter dumps the native American skull in a garbage can.

Now homeless, Peter and Lois try and find a way to get their house back, and learn the native American skull has to be put back in its resting place. After searching through the city dump, a garbage man tells them that the skull would be in the human remains bin, but it was cleaned out by Carrot Top for things to use as props. They go to Carrot Top's mansion, and after a chase through a hall of mirrors, they get the skull back and place back in the ground, thus getting back their house.

In the end, Lois rolls out the bedroom TV (like in the end of Poltergest), then Peter brings it back in and puts Meg outside.

Notes

• The CPR instructor from "The Cleveland-Loretta Quagmire" episode shows up in this episode as a spirit medium.
• Peter swears twice, but is bleeped out.
• When Quagmire is playing "sex" at his house with his family, it is safe to assume that he's incestful (although this is open for debate since the people Quagmire's playing "sex" with look too young to be his parents), which was alluded to before on Brian the Bachelor. Also, infantilism is another one of Quagmire's numerous fetishes.
• Chris refers to the time back when he was in Scouts, in season 1, in the episode The Son Also Draws.

Cultural references

• The title, and the episode itself, is an obvious parody of Poltergeist. Some segments of the movie's musical score are even used.
• When Joe Swanson builds a home theater, he has a Joe Swanson Theatres logo which is a parody of the old TriStar Pictures logo.
• Peter and Lois watch Lost with Statler & Waldorf, who immediately heckle the popular show.
• Stewie tells the spirits about the series finale of Friends and Joey.
• Like the cameraman from Poltergeist, Peter tears the skin of his face off looking into the bathroom mirror, but he turns into Hank Hill instead of a bloody face. Peter laughs about it and says the word "propane", which is a commonly-mentioned topic on King of the Hill.
• Peter watches a fictitious Disney movie named Too Many Ostriches, which features Don Knotts complaining about the excessive number of ostriches in the country he's in. This was presumably scripted, storyboarded, and recorded long before the actor's passing.
• Chris becomes terrified of a clown at the end of his bed, which turns out to be Ronald McDonald of McDonald's fame.
• Herbert's battle with the evil tree is similar to the one between Gandalf and the Balrog in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and the opening scene from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
• Stewie running into the bathroom and beating Peter up while he's on the toilet is a reference to a segment from Jackass: The Movie, in which Bam Margera does the same thing to his father Phil. Similarly, Stewie's line at the beginning of the scene ("I'm Stewie Griffin, and I feel like kickin' my dad's ass all day today.") references an episode of the Jackass TV series, where Margera introduces himself by saying almost the same thing.
• Peter parodies the George W. Bush interview that was shown in Fahrenheit 9/11 by saying "We're gonna get those terrorists. Now, watch this drive."
• Dick Cheney shoots Peter at point-blank range while hunting, parodying the Dick Cheney hunting incident.
• Stewie sings "In The Air Tonight" by Phil Collins, while on the "other side", making use of the unusual vocal effects with which his voice is heard, as well as attempting to emulate the drum sound before the final part of the song.
• Home Supply is an obvious parody of Home Depot.
• Tom and Diane make reference to Ghostbusters right after the Griffin house is sucked into the poltergeist world.
• In a cutaway, John Travolta's marriage to Kelly Preston is parodied, with John accidentally saying he wants to touch Kelly's penis, alluding to the rumors that Travolta is gay.
• The family checks out a book on the occult from the library, written by famous children's author Beverly Cleary.
• Right before Channel 5 ends its broadcast, Tom Tucker attempts an impersonation of Fred Schneider from The B-52's.
• While Peter is watching JAG, the main characters (Captain Harmon Rabb and Lieutenant Colonel Sarah MacKenzie) begin arguing that there is no point on settling anymore cases because of poor ratings and that the show is only watched by the elderly. The show was cancelled in 2005 due to poor ratings and the decreased number of young viewers.
• The film that's being viewed at Joe's is Rocky VI. Rocky decides to challenge a Martian to a boxing match on Mars.
• Before being sucked into the unknown dimension of the ghosts, Stewie says "I haven't seen anything suck this much since..." then he gets sucked into the dimension and finally says: "I ♥ Huckabees!!".
• The episode's closing scene spoofs the closing scene of Poltergeist, with Lois pushing the television outside the front door. It then spoofs closing scene in The Flintstones with Peter taking the television back inside and replacing it with Meg.