A Fish out of Water (Family Guy)
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"A Fish Out of Water" is an episode of Family Guy that first aired September 19, 2001. It guest stars Michael Chiklis, Ralph Garman, Brian Doyle-Murray as Salty, and Lisa Wilhoit.
[edit] Plot summary
Jobless, unmotivated, and depressed, Peter becomes ridiculously fatter.
Inspired by a "walk" on the docks (assisted by Brian and a forklift) on which he is confused with Mercury, he resolves to lose the weight and become a fisherman. Joe takes Peter to a police seized-property auction, where Peter buys a boat for $50,000; he names the boat "S.S. More Powerful Than Superman, Batman, Spiderman, and the Incredible Hulk Put Together."
To pay for the vessel, Peter takes out a loan with his house as collateral. The bank is so certain that Peter will default on the loan that they sell the house to another family and repossess his furniture before the payment deadline arrives. Peter must now raise $50,000 before the imminent deadline arrives or his house and furniture will be permanently taken away from him. Peter's new fishing career does not prove very successful. One fellow fisherman tricks him with a "good fishing spot." The coordinates given to Peter (42 degrees North, 71 degrees West) are just northwest of the town of Bridgewater, Massachusetts, which is approximately 15 miles inland. Peter ends up crushing a clown at a child's bar mitzvah. Thus, the other fisherman mistreat Peter.
Rejecting Quagmire's idea of prostituting himself to fat women for quick cash, Peter decides to catch the legendary killer fish Daggermouth for a $50,000 reward. Seamus, the fisherman with two wooden legs, and two wooden arms, warns Peter about the fish. Peter decides to forge on anyway. Quagmire, Cleveland, and Joe accompany him on his quest. They spend time on the boat, drinking beer and talking. When Peter, Cleveland, Joe, and Quagmire are talking about which woman they would have if they were not married, Joe chooses Mariel Hemingway, Cleveland chooses Margaret Thatcher (due to the fact that he finds power sexy), Peter chooses "the chick from Total Recall with the three knockers", and Quagmire chooses Taylor Hanson, but freaks out when Peter and Joe reveal that Hanson is a male.
Meanwhile, Lois and Meg go on spring break, but Lois fits in better with the party crowd than Meg does. In a moment of exuberance, Meg flashes her breasts; both she and Lois are quickly arrested. They escape from the police car and are returning home when a car full of spring breakers from school pull alongside them, honking and yelling. They are not just cheering for Lois, as it first appears, but Meg as well; Meg obliges them by flashing again (with one boy saying “One is an innie; one is an outie”).
Peter and his friends manage to track the fish to his lair, where they discover Daggermouth is a robotic fish created to generate a demand for merchandise. In exchange for his silence, Salty gives Peter $50,000, which he promptly uses to pay off the loan, buy back his furniture, and get the other family out of his house (although the episode ends with them still there).
[edit] Cultural references
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This article or section contains too many minor or trivial fictional references. Mere trivia, or references unimportant to the overall plot of a work of fiction, should be deleted. See also what Wikipedia is. |
- A flashback that shows Peter stranded on a raft, talking to a volley ball is a parody of the 2000 film Cast Away. He is yelling at the ball, saying, “Wilson! Wilson! What are we gonna do now?!” The volleyball shouts back, “My name is Voit, dumbass!” This is a reference to the Voit corporation.
- Lois tells Meg “Up your nose with a rubber hose,” the Sweathogs’ catch phrase from the sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter.
- One of the college kids points at a bull terrier and says, “Hey, everybody! It’s Spuds MacKenzie!” referring to the dog from the 1980s Bud Light commercials. The dog then attacks him—a reference to the pit bull controversy of the 1980s.
- Peter mentions he misses his friends John Ritter, Florence Henderson, and Alfonso Ribeiro.
- Alfonso Ribeiro (best known as Carlton Banks in Fresh Prince of Bel-Air) makes an appearance in this episode; he moves the furniture out of the Griffins’ house. He was introduced when Peter asked him if he was on Silver Spoons and Alfonso replied, “Yes I was!”
- Carson Daly, host of several shows on MTV, asks “Who wants to party?” and then announces Tom Green.
- In Stewie’s imagination, Peter spontaneously combusts, a reference to Charles Dickens’ novel Bleak House.
- A priest and a rabbi walk into the Hooters bar right before drunk Lois and the “Spring Breakers” come out. One of the men asks the other: “Hey, did you hear the one about us?”
- When Chris gives the phone to Peter saying that it is "mom", Peter hopes that it is homophone W. Somerset Maugham.
- When Peter and Brian take out their rings to join forces like the Wonder Twins, Brian says “Peter, we got these in a box of Franken Berry.”
- When Seamus is talking about how hard it was to see Daggermouth, he says one of the reasons was that it was the hour that his glasses were at Lenscrafters.
- This is the second time that Margaret Thatcher has been mentoined in the show, the first was in One If By Clam, Two If By Sea.
- A cutaway shows Peter about to save Quagmire, Joe, and Cleveland from being sodomized by two men. Right afterwards, Peter says, “Too bad I didn’t get there ’til after the sodomy.” The entire scene is borrowed from the 1994 film Pulp Fiction.
- The man with elongated arms who eggs on the gang to find Daggermouth is from the 1983 film Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (the Find-the-Fish segment).
[edit] Censorship
- In syndication, the part after the cutaway of Peter rescuing his friends from being sodomized has Peter's line changed from “Too bad I didn’t get there ’til after the sodomy” to "Too bad I didn't get there 'til after the butt stuff."
[edit] References
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This article or section includes a list of references or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks in-text citations. You can improve this article by introducing more precise citations. |
- S. Callaghan, “Fish Out of Water.” Family Guy: The Official Episode Guide Seasons 1–3. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. 152–155.
- A. Delarte, “Nitpicking Family Guy: Season 3” in Bob’s Poetry Magazine, 2.August 2005: 44–46 http://bobspoetry.com/Bobs02Au.pdf
[edit] External links
| Preceded by “Mr. Saturday Knight” |
Family Guy Episodes | Followed by “Emission Impossible” |
