Sibling Rivalry (Family Guy episode)
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"Sibling Rivalry" is the twenty-second episode of season four of Family Guy. It is a sequel of sorts for the Season 3 episode "Emission Impossible." Wallace Shawn guest stars as the voice of Bertram, who last appeared in the aforementioned episode.
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[edit] Plot
After a pregnancy scare, Peter reluctantly agrees to get a vasectomy, but before the surgery, he goes to donate his sperm in case he and Lois want another baby. However, while unzipping his pants, he accidentally knocks a large rack of samples over and replaces them himself so that he won’t get in trouble. One of the recipients of his sperm is a lesbian couple, who give birth to Stewie's half-brother, Bertram, who appeared in the episode "Emission Impossible."
After the vasectomy, Peter's sex drive becomes nonexistent. Lois channels her sexual frustration into overeating and she becomes a little fat. Peter ridicules her as she gets fatter, until the point where Lois is fatter than Peter, they unknowingly have sex. Peter’s interest is then renewed (claiming it to be the hottest sex they’ve had yet) and (due to the sex they had the other night) he wants her to get fatter and starts stuffing her face as an attempt to make their "fat sex" hotter. Lois suffers a heart attack, and during the surgery the doctor removes the fat (to get to her heart) and return her to normal.
Meanwhile, Stewie's half-brother and archrival Bertram confronts him and they declare an all-out war for control over the playground. A confrontation between Stewie’s F-117 stealth fighters and Bertram’s AH-1 helicopter gunships is inconclusive. Bertram resorts to biological warfare, infecting Stewie with chickenpox.
Stewie infiltrates Bertram's camp and engages him in a swordfight. Stewie finally prevails, disarming Bertram. Later in the night, Stewie and Christopher Moltisanti from HBO's The Sopranos are suspiciously digging a hole—which is later revealed to be for planting a young tree. Stewie then reveals that Bertram ran off.
[edit] Production
The song performed after Lois' pregnancy test comes back negative was written by Alec Sulkin and Alex Borstein, and sung by professional Hollywood studio singers.[1] Orchestrations in this song were performed by Walter Murphy, and described by show producer Seth MacFarlane to be "wonderful."[1] The sketch of Peter challenging Lois to a race to Boston was removed from television broadcasting in order to save time.[2] As Lois is slowly racing Peter to Boston, a Shania Twain song can be heard on the radio; Dan Povenmire states on the DVD commentary that he often gets into trouble for adding pieces of music into an episode when they're so short, yet cost so much.[3] The producers of both Family Guy and the Ice Age series agreed to collaborate in the episode during its reference to Scrat from the Ice Age series.[1]
There was discussion among the producers of the series regarding whether Bertram should be included in the storyline, as he had not appeared in any episodes for several years.[2] An un-used scene was intended for broadcasting which showed Stewie, wile reading Where's Waldo?, saying to Brian "Oh, turn to the next page - I bet they put him in someones utility pocket," but it was never used as it wasn't deemed funny enough for the episode.[1] Originally, Peter singing Milkshake to inmates at a prison was going to be naked and push his nipples from underneath, but broadcasting standards objected; as a result, the show broadcasting Peter wearing underpants and pushing his nipples from the side.[1][3] When Peter and Lois are in the restaurant and Peter leaves to 'warn the chef of Lois' arrival,' Lois was intended to say "If he won't put something in me, I will," but the gag was never broadcast.[3]
The unsafe homeless man with whom Peter was seen leaving a youth-baseball team in Stewie's flashback was originally based on John Wayne Gacy, but people claimed he didn't look scary enough, so Povenmire changed the character completely to that of a homeless-man.[3] The idea of Stewie and Betram laughing as they go down the slide during their sword fight was pitched by Povenmire's wife, and, although negative about the idea at first, Povenmire included it in the episode due to the original sketch not going so well.[3] During Peter and Lois' 'fat sex,' Peter repeatedly states "almost done, almost done;" orginally, there was going to be approximately twice as many of these, but they were never included in the episode.[1] The DVD-version of the episode shows Peter arriving at the Sperm bank, and saying to the receptionist "I'm here to banish some a White Russian from my Kremlin," to which she replies with "This is a sperm bank, you don't have to use innuendo," and Peter concludes the conversation with "Where do I splooge?"[1][3]
[edit] Cultural references
When in the children's park, Stewie quotes "Did ya get me my Cheez Whiz, boy" and a man throws one to him, this is a reference to The Blues Brothers.[1] Stewie and Brian attempting to find diversity in an American Eagle Outfitters catalogue is a reference to the children's books series Where's Waldo?.[3] Ice Age is made when Scrat, a character from the films attempts to steal Peter's nuts.[1] Bertram says "I sense something, a presence I've not felt since...", a reference to Darth Vader when sensing Obi-Wan Kenobi on the Death Star
[edit] Reception
In a review of the episode, Bob Sassone of TV Squad noted "if there's one reason I'm glad I watched tonight's ep is because I learned exactly how a vasectomy is done," adding that "Peter is going to have a vasectomy, so he decides to freeze is sperm before he does it. This leads to an hysterical yet truly gross scene where Peter knocks over an entire shelf of sperm samples, and has to refill them, um, himself."[4]
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i MacFarlane, Seth. (2006). Family Guy season 4 DVD commentary for the episode "Sibling Rivalry" [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.
- ^ a b Goodman, David. (2006). Family Guy season 4 DVD commentary for the episode "Sibling Rivalry" [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.
- ^ a b c d e f g Povenmire, Dan. (2006). Family Guy season 4 DVD commentary for the episode "Sibling Rivalry" [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.
- ^ Sasson, Bob. Family Guy: Sibling Rivalry. TV Squad. Retrieved on 2008-05-23.
[edit] External Links
