Fifteen Minutes of Shame

"Fifteen Minutes of Shame" is an episode from the second season of the FOX animated television series Family Guy. The title spoofs Andy Warhol's famous quote that everyone gets "15 minutes of fame."

Plot summary

Peter plays the clam in a historical re-enactment of Quahog's founding, but shows up ashore naked. Meg is of course embarrassed by this, but when he embarrasses her at her slumber party, she decides to take action. She gets the family invited to Diane Simmons' talk show, but instead of stopping the embarrassment, this gets the family their own reality show, The Real Live Griffins. Meg leaves the family, and the show.

Her replacement is a teenage sex symbol who steals the show. Eventually, the whole family is replaced, and forced to live in a hotel until the reality show contract runs out.

Notes

• Once the family has been completely replaced, they re-enact a scene from "Death Has a Shadow" in which a hung-over Peter lies on the kitchen table. The flashback of Peter at Church drinking communion wine appears in the DVD release of that episode too.
• Chris chastises Meg for "breaking the fourth wall".
• The part where Meg walks in on Quagmire having sex with a woman on the kitchen table was cut from a FOX rerun of this episode.
• This was the first episode to feature Mayor Adam West.

Goof

• Stewie dives into the lobster tank at the restaurant and tackles a live lobster, then returns to the table and slams it onto his plate. But the lobster is bright red, which it would only be after it is already cooked.

• When Peter is wearing the Ronald Reagan mask, Chris is seen laughing, but not heard.

Cultural references

• In the episode's opening scene, Peter learns to paint from an episode of the PBS art show The Joy of Painting. Peter paints a portrait of the cast of Family Ties, a sketch of the family being painted ended the show's opening credits.

• The story of the founding of Quahog mirrors the founding of "neighboring" Providence, Rhode Island. Providence-founder Roger Williams was exiled for speaking his mind and sought the assistance of Native Americans. Quahog founder Miles "Chatterbox" Musket is exiled for speaking non-stop and befriends not native people but a magical, talking clam.

• Peter pulls out a Ronald Reagan mask to hide from Meg's friends and says "I am not a crook," a famous quote from another President of the United States, Richard Nixon.

• Peter apologises to Meg's friends for ruining their slumber party by promising to get Davy Jones for their school dance, a reference to an episode of The Brady Bunch where Marcia tries to get Davy Jones to perform at their school dance.

• The talk show featured is poking fun at many of the talk shows that air during the day such as The Jerry Springer Show or The Jenny Jones Show. There is even a scene that implies one of the producers of that show sees the violence (after the family starts throwing chairs) as a way to increase ratings like some daytime talk shows have been doing for years.

• The plot of this episodes parodies MTV's reality show The Real World.

• Bonnie compares Joe to the character Larry from the sitcom Three's Company

• A cutaway shows one possible way to write Meg out of The Real Live Griffins: Brian says "Meg Griffin's plane was shot down over the Sea of Japan," parodying Henry Blake's death on the show M*A*S*H due to the departure of McLean Stevenson from that series. Stewie then shows up in a dress and high-heeled shoes and says, "Who do I have to see about a Section 8?" This is a reference to M*A*S*H character Corporal Klinger's attempts to prove himself mentally unfit for military service (as well as one of many Family Guy references to Stewie possibly being a closeted homosexual).

• Trying to get the cameras on him, Peter acts out a Wayland and Madame routine featuring a ventriloquism dummy.

• The replacement cast of the Griffins is Tom Arnold as Peter, Fran Drescher as Lois, "that fat guy from Boogie Nights" (a.k.a. Philip Seymour Hoffman) as Chris, and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen as Stewie and Brian.

• The final scene parodies a typical final ending of an episode of Doogie Howser, M.D. where a character writes a diary entry on a computer.

Trivia

• The short-haired blonde girl in Meg's slumber party is based on one of the writers' wives.

References

• S. Callaghan, "Fifteen Minutes of Shame." Family Guy: The Official Episode Guide Seasons 1-3. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. 86 - 89.
• A. Delarte, "Nitpicking Family Guy: Season 2" in Bob's Poetry Magazine, 2.May 2005: 17 - 19 http://bobspoetry.com/Bobs02My.pdf