Road to Europe
| "Road to Europe" |
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"Road to Europe" is an episode of Family Guy guest-starring Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley of Kiss and Andy Dick as themselves.
Plot summary
Stewie is entranced by a British TV program called Jolly Farm Revue (a parody of children's shows such as the Teletubbies). Lamenting his future in Quahog, Stewie decides to travel to Jolly Farm and live there forever. He sneaks aboard a transatlantic flight, intending to travel to London and find the BBC (where Jolly Farm is filmed). Brian chases after him, only to discover that they have landed in the Middle East instead. Stewie and Brian perform a musical number together as a diversion in order to steal a camel, which dies from exhaustion in the middle of the desert. At a nearby Comfort Inn, they steal a hot air balloon and gradually make their way to Vatican City (where they make fun of the Pope), then travel by train from Switzerland to Munich and inadvertently get stoned in Amsterdam. Upon finally arriving at the BBC studios, Stewie is horrified to learn that there is no actual farm (as cresting up "Happy Hill" runs into the set, showing some lights) and his beloved characters are mere actors (the story-telling pig is an old man who draws pornographic images in his "Magic Tome", and Mother Maggie smokes cigarettes and hates children). Disillusioned, Stewie shakes his head when Brian offers to buy him ice cream and McDonald's... he only nods his head in agreement when Brian asks him if he wants to "take a dump in Mother Maggie's shoes". He travels back home with Brian and replaces his love of Jolly Farm Revue with a love of "funky fruit hats".
Meanwhile, Peter is overjoyed to hear about Kiss-stock, a five-night set of concerts in New England by his favorite band. He and Lois dress in face paint and leather, and stand only feet from the stage. When Gene Simmons points the microphone at Lois, encouraging her to sing the next line of "Rock and Roll All Nite", Peter is horrified to discover that she does not know the words. Deeply saddened by this, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley leave the stage, while Ace Frehley and Peter Criss try to revive the concert by singing "Chattanooga Choo Choo". After the concert, Peter accuses Lois of only pretending to be a Kiss enthusiast, and they leave the concerts in disgrace. To punish himself, Peter stops at a Denny's on the way home, where Kiss happens to have also stopped. Lois recognizes Gene Simmons without his makeup as Chaim Witz, whom she dated before he changed his name; Gene introduces her to the rest of the band, who have heard his stories of "Loose Lois". Peter's faith in Lois is restored, and he proudly shares the news on public-access television that his wife did Kiss.
Cultural references
 | This article may contain minor, trivial or unrelated fictional references. |
- Throughout the episode, Kiss members Peter Criss and Ace Frehley are mocked multiple times. Criss had left the group some time before, and Frehley left around the time of the show's airing. Neither voiced their character on the show.
- The starting credits are similar in style to the ones seen in Looney Tunes cartoons from the 1950s.
- This episode is a parody of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby's movie Road to Morocco. Stewie and Brian's musical number parodies a similar number performed by Hope and Crosby in the movie.
- When sneaking onto the plane with the British family, Stewie gives a stream of mumblings to sound stereotypically British. He references the Royal Albert Hall, Big Ben, the London Underground, the rock group The Dave Clark Five, Monty Python's Spam sketch and "a baby's arm holding an apple" (Lenny Bruce's description of an African-American man's penis)[1][2]).
- Stewie's quick two-armed salute before boarding the plane is a parody of U.S. President Richard Nixon's famous salute to the public after he resigned in 1974.
- On the plane, Stewie and Brian appear to be seated next to 60 Minutes commentator Andy Rooney and comedians Jerry Seinfeld and Andy Dick after asking how the trip could get any worse. All of these comedians respond to this by saying lines that they have said previously.
- A peddler in the Arabian village advertises Dude, My Car Is Not Where I Parked It But Praise Allah We Are Not Hurt, a satirical take on the 2000 comedy film Dude, Where's My Car?.
- During their musical number, Brian compares Stewie's hair to that of Peanuts character Charlie Brown and Stewie compares Brian to Brown's beagle Snoopy. The song also references Latin pop star Ricky Martín, The Cosby Show's Clair Huxtable and Phylicia Rashād, French writer the Marquis de Sade, and Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog. Stewie also dresses like Jeannie from the TV show I Dream of Jeannie and does her nod.
- Stewie comments that cutting open the camel looks like Orson Welles's autopsy. That scene is reminiscent of how Han Solo saved a frozen Luke Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back.
- When learning that Middle Easterners only heard 1980s rock music recently, Stewie pities them once they have to "suffer through" Jesus Jones, a British band best known for the 1991 hit "Right Here, Right Now".
- While on the German bus tour, Brian points out to the tour guide that there's no history of Germany from 1939-1945 (World War II years). Then the tour guide shouts at him in German before giving the Nazi salute. (More precisely, he screams "Sie werden sich hinsetzen, Sie werden ruhig sein, Sie werden nicht beleidigung Deutschland", that means "You will sit down, you will stay quiet, you will not insult Germany".)
Previous episode reference
Dave and Dottie Campbell, the nudist couple that originally appeared in "From Method to Madness" reappears with Dave once again voiced by Fred Willard.
Trivia
 | This article contains a list of miscellaneous information. (July 2008) |
- This is the second road trip episode for Brian and Stewie. The first was "Road to Rhode Island". The third is "Road to Rupert". (It was announced for season six that a new episode called "Road to Germany" will air.) This was the final episode produced prior to the show's initial cancellation, though not the final one aired.
- The voice of Mother Maggie is played by the Gilmore Girls mother Lauren Graham, the writer of the episode, Daniel Palladino is co-writer of the long-running TV-show Gilmore Girls along with his wife Amy Sherman-Palladino from 2000-2006.
- The BBC station is shaped like a giant, vertical cuboid when in reality it is shaped like a giant C.
References
- ^ . This term was popularized by (and may have originated from) a circa-1960 Lenny Bruce routine that ended up in his book How to Talk Dirty and Influence People (ISBN 0-671-75108-5) (excerpt)—Bruce attributes the term to one of his mother's neighbors:
Filipinos come quick; colored men are buil[t] abnormally large ("Their wangs look like a baby's arm with an apple in its fist"); ladies with short hair are lesbians; if you want to keep your man, rub alum on your pussy.
Such bits of erotic folklore were related daily to my mother by Mrs. Janesky... - ^ .The earliest known use of the exact wording Stewie uses was on The Tubes' song "What Do You Want from Life", from their eponymous 1975 album.
 | This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. (February 2008) |
- S. Callaghan, "Road to Europe". 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: 56–57 http://bobspoetry.com/Bobs02Au.pdf