Padre de Familia

"Padre de Familia"

"Padre de Familia" is a season six episode of the FOX animated television series Family Guy. This episode was watched by 10.5 million viewers when it first aired. Guest starring are Carrie Fisher as Peter's supervisor, Angela and Phyllis Diller as Peter's mother, Thelma Griffin.

Plot summary

The Griffins attend a Veteran's Day parade where, after listening to Herbert sing "God Bless the USA," Peter realizes he is proud of his American citizenship. He begins showing off his patriotism everywhere he goes, even going as far as buying a suit themed after the American flag. He also becomes frustrated with the presence of illegal immigrants, especially with the fact that they are taking away good jobs. Peter goes to great lengths to make Quahog immigrant-free, such as patrolling the town border and banning all non-American products from his house (much to his family's chagrin). At the brewery, Peter convinces his supervisor to initiate an inspection, laying off any immigrants employed. After doing so, he goes to his mother Thelma's house for his birth certificate to prove his citizenship. However, Thelma tells Peter a startling secret: he was born not in America, but rather in Mexico.

She explains that after learning she has been impregnated by Mickey McFinnigan (Peter's Two Dads), she went there to get an abortion. However, she was forced to wait until her baby (Peter) was born. As soon as he was, she immediately realized she loved him and took him with her. Not wanting to risk exposing his existence while crossing the border back to America, she never filled out his citizenship papers; as such, Peter is an illegal Mexican immigrant himself. Peter is subsequentially unemployed and the family begins to fall into debt. Lois suggests that Peter try to take a naturalization test. He fails, however, and he and Lois are informed that their marriage, which has lasted for 20 years, may not even be legitimate. After Peter fails to find any good jobs, Lois turns to her father Carter for assistance.

Carter agrees to employ Peter as a servant on his estate, and the Griffins move into a settlement of other Mexican immigrants near his mansion. Of course, working as a servant, especially under Carter, proves grueling for Peter, who begins to empathize with the immigrants. He forms a friendship with them who, in turn, invite him and his family to a party to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. However, Carter crashes the party by reminding him of American regulations. Peter is outraged and rallies up the immigrants to form a rebellion. Carter decides to negotiate with Peter, saying he will grant him American citizenship if he calls off the rebellion. Peter demands that everyone must gain citizenship, but the others insist that he take this opportunity, saying that their day will come someday. Peter agrees, and from this point onward Peter becomes an official American citizen; the family moves back to their house, Peter regains his job, and all is well.

Airdate

This episode aired November 18, 2007, two weeks after the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike interrupted production. At the time of the strike, the episode was not entirely finished. Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane, a member of the Writers Guild of America, went out on the picket lines. As the show's showrunner, he would normally have been at work overseeing the final touches on the episode.

Notes

• The title of this episode is the same as the title of the Spanish version of the show, which literally translates to "Father of the Family."
• Coincidentally, this episode aired the same night as The Simpsons episode Husbands and Knives, in which the chalkboard gag was "The Pilgrims were not illegal aliens". in this episode, Brian points out that Pilgrims were legal immigrants.
• Santos and Pasqual, the Portuguese fishermen who were once employed under Peter, are shown to now be working in The Drunken Clam. Peter doesn't seem to recognize them, however. Another curious thing is that in fact their accent is not really from Portugal, but from Brazil.
• Peter accuses Fouad, the brewery employee who previously introduced him to sarcasm, of being an illegal immigrant.
• This episode reuses the "ball in a cup" joke from "The Fat Guy Strangler".
• Peter being born during an attempted abortion in Mexico in this episode directly contradicts a flashback of his birth in "And the Wiener is..." where he appears to have been born normally in a hospital.
• The legal premise on which the plot turns — that Peter is not an American citizen because he was born in Mexico — is incorrect. If Peter's mother Thelma Griffin is a U.S. citizen, her children born anywhere in the world also are citizens. (However, she does admit that she failed to file any paperwork after returning to the U.S.)
• When Peter is performing at the USO show the flag on his sleeve is backwards, according to the United States Flag Code a sleeve patch should be worn with the union facing forward.

Cultural references

• Peter is dressed as Mary Poppins when he lands on the two children (Jane & Michael Banks), squashing them to death.
• The song played during the Uninjured Veterans parade float's passing is a parody of Van Halen's "Jump".
• Herbert sings "God Bless the USA".
• The scene where Peter tries to feed a goat to Toby Keith parodies a scene from Jurassic Park.
• Peter's line of "They are part of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor. Take them away!" is from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.
• With his x-ray vision, Superman discovers that Lois is carrying a baby and leaves. This is a parody of the Superman films; in the actual film continuity, Lois does bear Clark Kent a child.
• Part of Peter's interview with the immigration officer, and his post-game interview with Dick Clark was based on the Winners' Circle round from The $25,000 Pyramid. The music playing at the end of the scene was the Pyramid theme song used from 1982 to 1992.
• Peter deems Speedy Gonzales a bad influence on his children and creates an American, English-speaking equivalent, "Rapid Dave". The Speedy Gonzales reference could also be a reference to politically correct groups protesting against Speedy Gonzales cartoons from being aired.
• Peter mentions a more realistic ending to Dirty Dancing, where Johnny gets arrested for having relations with a minor (in the cutaway, Frances' father states that she is only 16) and ends up in bed with one of his inmates at the penitentiary. However, this is incorrect, since Frances was in fact 17 and turned 18 during the course of the movie.
• Peter describes Lou Diamond Phillips as Japanese, but Lois says that Phillips is not Japanese. Phillips's ancestry is partly Japanese, as well as Hawaiian, Filipino and Chinese.
  • Peter replies to this by saying " Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees, look at these."

External links

• Template:FGwiki