No Chris Left Behind

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“No Chris Left Behind”
Family Guy episode
Chris and Mr. Pewterschmidt teasing an orphan.
Episode no.	Season 5 Episode 16
Written by	Patrick Meighan
Directed by	Pete Michels
Production no.	5ACX11
Original airdate	May 6, 2007
Season 5 episodes
Family Guy - Season 5 September 10, 2006 – May 20, 2007
Stewie Loves Lois Mother Tucker Hell Comes to Quahog Saving Private Brian Whistle While Your Wife Works Prick Up Your Ears Chick Cancer Barely Legal Road to Rupert Peter's Two Dads The Tan Aquatic with Steve Zissou Airport '07 Bill and Peter's Bogus Journey No Meals on Wheels Boys Do Cry No Chris Left Behind It Takes a Village Idiot, and I Married One Meet the Quagmires

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List of Family Guy episodes

"No Chris Left Behind" is a season five episode of the FOX animated series Family Guy. The title is a parody of the No Child Left Behind Act. It received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation.

[edit] Plot summary

Lois takes the family out to the ballet on a late school night. As Chris studies at the breakfast table for an upcoming exam later that day, Brian notices that Chris's history textbook is hopelessly out of date (published in 1896 in the Adult Swim version of the show, 1948 in the Fox version). Upset by this, Lois goes to a PTA meeting to complain. Principal Shepherd explains that the school cannot afford new textbooks: as a result of the No Child Left Behind Act, the school has lost its federal funding due to low test scores. His solution for raising the school's performance average is to expel the dumbest student, who happens to be Chris. After several failed attempts to find another school for Chris (and an extremely long intermission featuring the third fight between Peter and the Giant Chicken), Lois asks her father, Carter, to use his influence to get Chris admitted to the upper-class Morningwood Academy.

At his new school, Chris is shunned by the wealthy, snobbish, privileged students at the academy. After hearing his plight, Lois again turns to her father, to help Chris, who invites him to become a member of Skull and Bones with the other students, who eventually come to accept him. The Griffins, meanwhile, have all taken extra jobs to pay for Chris' tuition; Peter is selling "butt scratchers" at the ballpark, Lois and Meg are working as prostitutes (though Lois is obviously the more successful of the two), and Stewie is following fat people while playing "The Air Is Getting Slippery" on a sousaphone (though he calls it a tuba)and makes them fall. Feeling his family shouldn't go through so much trouble to keep him satisfied, Chris asks Carter to help him get back into his old school. Carter complies, and Chris moves back home and Stewie plays The Air is Getting Slippery song behind Chris and Chris falls.

[edit] Notes

This is the third episode in a row which starts with a "We now return to..." TV gag.
This episode marks the third encounter between Peter and Giant Chicken. Peter and Lois are in the kitchen talking in despair about which school Chris will go to. Peter says, "...I mean it's not like the high school will take him back, and every other school we tried just doesn't... oh crap!" The chicken crashes through the window and their fight takes them through the Griffin house, the sewer, a Quahog train station, a downtown construction site, a fair which features a giant Ferris wheel, more of Downtown Quahog, and after a brief interruption in which Peter says "Hang on, what are we fighting about?" and they both realize that they forgot what it was that started this. The chicken, (in this episode his name is revealed to be Ernie and he can also talk) and his wife, Nicole, take Peter out to a fancy restaurant to make up for it. However, a debate occurs over who will pay for the dinner, and the fight continues in the kitchen. Peter is finally the victor when he throws boiling water from a pot into his face and hits him on the head with the pot enough times to make him spurt blood, though Ernie is still alive as it was like in the first two fights.
This episode also marks the first time Bruce the performance artist's name is revealed. Bruce expresses great happiness that his name is finally announced.
In this episode, it is revealed that Quahog has a subway system.

[edit] Censorship

When Peter calls Quagmire from the ballet, Quagmire says he was dragged there by “This broad I’m trying to nail” in the FOX version. The Adult Swim and TBS version uses the line “this broad I’m trying to screw” (the “broad I’m trying to screw” line was used in the FOX promo for this episode).
On the part where Chris is trying to study at the breakfast table and Lois tells Chris not to read at the breakfast table, it cuts to Brian telling Chris that the book won't help him because of how outdated it is on the FOX version. On Adult Swim, there's an extra scene where Peter writes a text message and sends it to Chris's phone. Chris picks it up, reads the message, and replies, "Yeah! Right in her ass!"
In the FOX version, Chris’ textbook is from 1948 and contains topics such as big band music and a chapter called “Israel: The Brand New Country Everyone’s Gonna Love.” On Adult Swim, however, the book is from 1896 and features topics such as Utah’s statehood and a chapter called “Negroes: America’s Dancin’est Rapefolk.” The Adult Swim version had an extra scene where Lois comments on how awful the title is, stating that Americans don’t refer to black people as “Negroes” anymore, while completely ignoring the book's description of African-Americans.
The part where Chris calls Lois about his miserable time at boarding school, the Adult Swim version includes a part where Chris says that he hasn’t felt this down since he fired Rocky Balboa from the meat factory, followed by a cutaway of Chris telling Rocky that he's being fired for punching the meat after being told several times not to do it. Rocky then points out that his trainer, Paulie, is having sex with the meat, followed by a pan to Paulie naked in bed with a cow carcass.

[edit] Cultural references

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.

At the beginning, the bit of the TV show How I Met Your Father is a spoof of the CBS comedy How I Met Your Mother. Josh Radnor and Neil Patrick Harris make cameo appearances voicing their characters Ted and Barney. The name of the show and the gay kiss is a reference to Harris's then-recent outing.
The music playing when the ballet starts is the same music that plays during the opening credits of the 1931 film Dracula
When the scene cuts away to the entrance to the ballet, the poster seen on the right is advertising Wicked.

“What kind of freakin’ king lives next to the train tracks? What is this, Mexico?”

Stewie references the Neighborhood of Make-Believe from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood when he says that he wishes to become more powerful than King Friday XIII. The cutaway features a live action hand puppet segment in which Stewie is making a proclamation to his subjects, before Trolley comes along. This irritates Stewie, making him ask what kind of king lives next to train tracks, following it up with “What is this, Mexico?” The Neighborhood of Make-Believe was also mentioned in the Season 2 episode “Brian in Love.”
The scene where Chris is beaten by his fellow students is a reference to the film Full Metal Jacket, in which Leonard “Gomer Pyle” Lawrence is beaten by his fellow soldiers with towels containing bars of soap. In this case, however, Chris is beaten with socks stuffed with cash.
The dining hall at the Academy is made to look like the “Great Hall” from the Harry Potter films, with four long tables each representing a different student house.
The biplane in the fight scene shows an advert for Del’s Frozen Lemonade, a lemonade popular in Rhode Island.
When the pilot is “ejected” from the plane, the Wilhelm scream is used for his scream.
Peter and The Giant Chicken fighting on the rolling Ferris Wheel is a reference to the rolling wheel fight scene in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.
While Peter and the chicken are fighting on the plane, The chicken throws a snake at Peter, possibly referring to Raiders of the Lost Ark or Snakes on a Plane.
After Peter cuts The Giant Chicken twice with a piece of glass, the Chicken tastes some of his blood before wildly attacking, a homage to Bruce Lee.
The subway train erupting out of the tunnel and onto the street is referencing a similar scene in Speed.
When Peter is attacked with an electric knife and throws boiling water to the Giant Chicken is a reference to the James Bond film The Living Daylights.