Whistle While Your Wife Works

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“Whistle While Your Wife Works”
Family Guy episode
Stewie meets Jillian.
Episode no.	Season 5 Episode 5
Written by	Steve Callaghan
Directed by	Greg Colton
Guest stars	Drew Barrymore Carrie Fisher
Production no.	4ACX35
Original airdate	November 12, 2006
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
← Season 4	Season 6 →
List of Family Guy episodes

"Whistle While Your Wife Works" is the fifth episode of season five of Family Guy. The show originally aired on November 12, 2006,^[1] with guest stars including Drew Barrymore and Carrie Fisher. ^[2] The plot follows Peter losing his fingers after an accident while holding fireworks. Behind on his work and threatened with the possibility of dismissal, he asks Lois to catch up on his work for him, to which she agrees. However, he repeatedly attempts to seduce her, eventually succeeding, distracting her from the work. Meanwhile, Brian begins dating a woman named Jillian, much to Stewie's delight as she lacks general knowledge and intelligence.^[3]

The story centralizing around Jillian and Brian forming a relationship was not originally planned to be used as the main plot. The original plot was Lois supervising Peter and the brewery, then getting hired and promoted. However, after the success of the Jillian storyline with the way it turned out, the show producers decided to make this story central to the episode.^[4]

Contents 1 Plot 2 Production 3 Cultural references 4 Reception 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Plot

Quagmire returns from a visit to Florida, smuggling fireworks back by inserting them into his anus. While experimenting with them in his garden, Peter ignites some of the fireworks in his hand. While talking to Quagmire, the fireworks explode, blowing off some of his fingers. After finding one of his fingers lodged in Cleveland's hair, he notices the remaining finger on the other side of the street. He attempts to retrieve it with Joe, but is knocked down by a car. He and Joe are then forced to crawl along the pavement in order to reach it, racing against Herbert's dog, Jesse, to reach it first. A blue bird ends up taking it as food for its babies. Peter gets the idea to make it mad by taunting it, but ends up knocking the nest down when he throws a rock at it. The bird eventually attacks Peter, but Joe shoots and kills it.

The following morning, Brian is questioned by Stewie about why he failed to join him for brunch. This leads Brian to confess that he has a new girlfriend which delights Stewie, who assumes that she is ugly. Peter celebrates with his friends at The Drunken Clam after getting his fingers reattached, but when the bar closes, Peter and his friends decide to continue their celebrations at Pawtucket Brewery. While there, they sit naked in the beer tanks and discuss media. Quagmire eventually leaves in disbelief, after learning that none of the other guys has heard of the show Wings and also don't know who Tim Daly is. Although still nervous, Brian allows Stewie to meet his new girlfriend, Jillian, but Stewie begins to like her, as he thinks she is pretty. However, when he discovers she is a dumb blonde, he mocks Brian. Peter is behind on his work at the brewery, so, threatened with the prospect of dismissal if he fails to catch up, he asks Lois to help him. Stewie finds the concept of Brian's new girlfriend's lack of knowledge amusing when Brian has to explain to Jillian how to use the DVD player. Stewie later telephones her, pretending to be Brian, and invites her to come to the house. Meanwhile, upon agreement of working in the office to help Peter catch up with his work, Peter attempts to seduce Lois numerous times by acting as if she is a new employee and, in another instance, pretending that she is his secretary.

Jillian visits the household, but her lack of general knowledge leaves a bad impression with the family. The next day, Brian goes out with Jillian, where he meets her equally unintelligent friends. At the restaurant, after following Brian and overhearing the conversation, Stewie tells Brian that the relationship will not succeed. Meanwhile, after a final attempt to seduce Lois in his office, Lois gives in and they have sex in front of a co-worker, Opie, who runs away screaming. Brian visits Jillian's apartment to end the relationship (with Stewie waiting in his car), but he is distracted by her naked body when she answers the door and he has sex with her instead. Stewie realizes this and starts singing about Brian having sex with a dumb girl and going out for ice cream to the tune of Gary Numan's "Cars".^[5]

[edit] Production

The character of Jillian was altered several times by the show producers before its original airing; however, the final character personality was designed to be that of "a bulimic cheerleader".^[6] The character of Jillian was also designed to be "not the brightest bauble on the tree", but this too was repeatedly changed.^[6] The description of Jillian's voice being that of a bulimic cheerleader somewhat relates to a future episode plot, where Stewie calls Jillian fat, to which she responds by leaving the room and throwing up.^[7] When Stewie exclaims "it's like she's fucking five", this was not set to broadcast at its original air date, but rather added in at a later date for unknown reasons.^[4] When Stewie is entertaining the elderly citizens by singing a song entitled "there's a hole in the bottom of the sea", this is actually Seth MacFarlane's father playing the guitar, as he used to sing it to Seth when he was a child.^[8] During the making of this episode, much thought was put into the character of Jillian, despite the fact she was always meant to be recurring character;^[6] although her regular appearances throughout season 5 were described as "a big thing for Family Guy".^[8]

The sketch of Buzz Killington (voiced by Danny Smith) inadvertently ruining the celebration party during a flashback is set to reappear in a later, upcoming episode of Family Guy, however for a character to appear in a one off scene then reappear in a later episode is "very rare".^[7]

[edit] Cultural references

Seth MacFarlane claims on the DVD commentary track that, unlike most Family Guy episodes, this episode has no cultural references or references to real-world events, in order to focus on the Jillian storyline.^[8]

[edit] Reception

IGN's Dan Iverson gave the episode both positive and negative reviews, commenting that "it is only passable" and that "it did not have that laugh out loud funny" concept.^[9] However, Iverson positively comments that the voice of Jillian by Drew Barrymore was perfect. Iverson added that it's "pretty humorous in this episode was how they made fun of mediocre films".^[9] In conclusion, Iverson gave the episode a final rating of 6.9/10.^[9] The press release for this episode commented that Jillian is a "very attractive but intellectually challenged",^[10] giving no negative comments. The entire scene of Buzz Killington discussing bridges to Peter and his friends in a flashback is Barrymore's favorite scene.^[6]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• "Whistle While Your Wife Works" at the Internet Movie Database
• "Whistle While Your Wife Works" at TV.com
• "Whistle While Your Wife Works" at Family Guy Wiki