Movin' Out (Brian's Song)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

“Movin’ Out (Brian’s Song)”
Family Guy episode
Brian, Stewie, and Jillian
Episode no.	Season 6 Episode 2
Written by	John Viener
Directed by	Cyndi Tang
Guest stars	Audrey Wasilewski, Carla Delaney, Anthony Tavera, H. Jon Benjamin, Drew Barrymore
Production no.	5ACX14
Original airdate	September 30, 2007
Season 6 episodes
Family Guy - Season 6 September 23, 2007 – May 4, 2008
Blue Harvest Movin' Out (Brian's Song) Believe It or Not, Joe's Walking on Air Stewie Kills Lois (1) Lois Kills Stewie (2) Padre de Familia Peter's Daughter McStroke Back to the Woods Play It Again, Brian The Former Life of Brian Long John Peter

← Season 5	Season 7 →
List of Family Guy episodes

"Movin' Out (Brian's Song)" is the second episode of the sixth season of the FOX animated series Family Guy. It is the 100th episode, though it is labeled as 98th by FOX, since it does not include the three edited-for-TV episodes that make up Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story and counts the double-length episode "Blue Harvest" as two separate episodes. The episode title is a play on Billy Joel's 1977 top 20 hit "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)" as well as the 1971 TV movie Brian's Song. The show was the second highest-viewed on FOX that night with 7.59 million viewers, slightly behind The Simpsons episode "Homer of Seville" which drew 8.43 million.

[edit] Plot summary

Brian turns down a chance to see Disney on Ice with Jillian, so he decides to give his ticket to Peter. After Peter and Jillian spend the entire day together and greatly enjoy each other's company, Peter convinces Jillian to either force Brian to let her move in with him or leave him. An angry Brian agrees to get an apartment with Jillian. Much to his surprise, Brian has a good time living with Jillian, but he comes to the realization that there is no way he can pay the rent by himself and he decides to allow Stewie to move in with them, who now makes money with his own paper route. Brian does not tell Jillian that Stewie is helping with the rent, rather he tells her Stewie misses him. Stewie quickly gets in the way of Brian and Jillian's happiness living together and after arguing with Brian one night while he is having sex with Jillian, Stewie reveals that he is paying half the rent, prompting Brian to admit he never wanted to move in with Jillian at all. Heartbroken, Jillian leaves Brian.

After many failed attempts to lift a saddened Brian's spirits, Stewie convinces Brian to try to get Jillian back. Brian goes to her apartment, only to find that she has now moved in with Mayor West. As the two go their separate ways, Brian moves back in with the Griffins, where he manages to move on with his life.

In the side story, Meg is given a job at a local convenience store. Meg is extremely happy with her job and she decides to help Chris get a job there who was taking a sabbatical. Chris immediately clicks with the store owner, Carl (played by H. Jon Benjamin), and he is given a large promotion which Carl originally promised to Meg. When Meg takes issue with this, she is fired. Lois, to whom Meg has told of her plight, explains the situation to Chris and tells him to stand up for Meg by getting her job back. Chris is able to do this after bribing Carl by withholding his opinions of movies he and Carl normally discuss until Carl re-hires her. Meg, in turn, rejects working at the store again, as she only had Chris get her her job back to see if he would stand up for her.

[edit] Censorship

In the Fox airing of the episode, the final line had Chris saying to Brian: "Welcome home, douchebag." On the Adult Swim airing that line becomes "Welcome home, asshole (Although, when watching the episode in captions, they read douchebag instead of asshole)."
The part where Lois and Peter are convincing Brian to move in with Jillian has a part entirely cut on FOX, but seen on Adult Swim and, originally, the Canadian network, Global (later only showing the conversation, then fully cut), an ad for The Simpsons appears on the screen with Marge Simpson on it. During the conversation, Quagmire then chases after Marge in an attempt to rape her. Marge fights back, but ultimately gives in and has sex with Quagmire. After Brian decides to move in with Jillian, there's a cutaway to the outside of the Simpsons house (drawn in Family Guy style) where Homer (heard, not seen) finds Marge in bed with Quagmire and Quagmire ends up killing the Simpsons one by one.

[edit] Cultural references

This episode features Peter dressing as Donald Duck. Like Donald, he wears a shirt but no pants.
This episode's title is a reference to the Billy Joel song, "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)" from his 1977 album, "The Stranger".
Jillian tells Brian that Darryl Hannah has a wooden left finger, information she got from Pee-oh-ple Magazine.
The conversations between Carl and Chris are a parody of the movie Clerks.
Brian explains to Lois his novel's plot, which turns out to be similar to the plot of Iron Eagle.
The show advertised in the commercial on the Lifetime channel is called "Men are terrible and will hurt you, because this is Lifetime", a reference to allegations of that network's genre of programming.
Films mentioned in conversation between Chris and Carl are Cruel Intentions, Career Opportunities, A Beautiful Mind, Leaving Las Vegas, Adventures In Babysitting, Cocktail, Broken Lizard's Club Dread, and Event Horizon.
The two robots Stewie invites to cheer up Brian are Jinx, from the movie SpaceCamp, and Paulie's robot from Rocky IV.
Stewie, when trying to cheer up Brian, makes a reference to Alex P. Keaton from Family Ties and how Alex rebounded from a relationship, but later got Parkinson's (a real-life reference to Michael J. Fox, who played the role of Alex.)

[edit] Previous episode references

This is the fifth reference to Brian's novel, being previously referenced in Brian the Bachelor, Brian Goes Back to College, Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story, and Saving Private Brian. Brian comes up with a title, "Faster than the Speed of Love". Unfortunately, his novel isn't original (the story is a mix of Iron Eagle and its three sequels), a fact which the whole family find very humorous.
This episode continues to explore (more explicitly) the underlying subtext of zoophilia of the dog Brian's ongoing sexual relationships with women, first alluded to in "Da Boom," "Brian Wallows and Peter's Swallows," etc.
Joanna, the giggly librarian from Petergeist, makes an appearance at Stewie's party.
This is the second instance that Penthouse Forum has been mentioned as a passing joke, originally by Peter in the episode Whistle While Your Wife Works and secondly by Stewie.

[edit] Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

H. Jon Benjamin (famous for his role of Coach McGuirk on the animated series Home Movies) reprises his role as the voice of Carl, which may explain Coach McGuirk's cameo in the previous episode, "Blue Harvest." In addition, in the scenes in which Carl appears, the background is animated shakily, a la Squigglevision, a type of animation frequent in many Soup2Nuts cartoons that Benjamin has roles in, such as Home Movies and Dr. Katz. Also, Carl's dialogue is reminiscent of Benjamin's previous roles in that they are comprised of 'realistic' conversations that appear improvisational, about common interests, such as the movies Carl frequently mentions.
The episode makes reference to an ongoing gag of suggesting not only Stewie's homosexuality, but also an attraction to Brian. After Jillian leaves Brian and Brian has turned off the lights, Stewie tells Brian that he should have sex with the next person he sees as a way of getting back at her for walking out on him. After that, he turns on the light, and his face is right in front of Brian's. Brian then punches him off the bed. Also, when Stewie has the party at Brian's apartment, Brian says that it looks like there are a lot of gay guys there, and Stewie says "Yeah, everyone's having a great time."
The Lifetime movie cutaway was originally a deleted scene that can be seen on the Family Guy Volume 5 DVD.