Fast Times at Buddy Cianci Jr. High
| "Fast Times at Buddy Cianci Jr. High" |
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"Fast Times at Buddy Cianci Jr. High" is the 2nd episode from the fourth season of the FOX animated television series Family Guy. Guest starring Drew Barrymore as Mrs. Lockhart. The title of the episode is a parody of the both the title of the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High and federally convicted Providence mayor Buddy Cianci.
Plot summary
When Chris’s beloved teacher, Ms. Clifton, wins the lottery and quits, Lois suggests Brian fill in as a substitute. He enjoys the job but is moved to a remedial class. When he finds the techniques used in his previous class inadequate, he tries "talking their language" but appears racist. After an angry morning, he unintentionally teaches them to aspire to low-level jobs.
Meanwhile, Chris is instantly smitten with his new teacher, the voluptuous Mrs. Lockhart. Lois is not pleased with this. After she and Peter talk to Mrs. Lockhart, and she finds out that Chris is in love with her, she promises Chris to be with him if he kills her husband, though he does not do it. When Lois finds the teacher’s written instructions in Chris’s laundry she runs to Mrs. Lockhart's home, and finds the mauled body of her husband. Believing Chris is the killer, Lois and Stewie conspire to cover up the plot by dumping the body in the lake and bluffing a policeman. Back at home, the rest of the family treats Chris differently because they believe he actually killed Mrs. Lockhart’s husband, until it is shown on the news that it was really Mrs. Lockhart and a bear. In the last scene Mrs. Lockheart and the bear are found in a motel, with Mrs. Lockhart all dressed up for a nice evening dinner while the bear is lying on the bed watching television. The two engage in stereotypical passive-aggressive behavior. The bear insists that he is not in the mood to go out for the night, then attempts to ameliorate Mrs. Lockhart's disappointment by rubbing her back with his foot and singsonging “Love you...”, and with that the episode concludes.
Notes
 | This article contains a list of miscellaneous information. (September 2007) |
- In the Vol. 3 Family Guy DVD, there was a musical sequence where Brian encourages the students in the remedial class to work low-level jobs. The versions aired on TV and on the DVD have an alternate scene where the remedial students are sold on the idea of working low-level jobs, but Brian tries to talk them out of it until finally he gives in.
- When Seth McFarlane guest-starred on a season 12 episode of MADtv, he used the scene where Peter and Lois suspect Chris of killing his teacher’s husband in a sketch where McFarlane reveals that he had planned two prototypical versions of Family Guy—one done in live action (with Seth as Peter, Arden Myrin as Lois, Bobby Lee as Stewie, Frank Caeti as Chris, and Crista Flanagan as Meg), which was rejected after Crista is cut badly during her window jumping stunt; and another done with Seth as the voice of Peter, Dane Cook (Ike Barinholtz) as Chris, Snoop Dogg (Keegan-Michael Key) as Stewie, Queen Latifah (Nicole Randall Johnson) as Meg, and Kathy Griffin (Nicole Parker) as Lois, this time all the actors, except Seth, were making up their own lines.
- Carlos Mencia also guest stars as the Latino male, Carlos, in the Remedial English class.
Cultural references
 | This article may contain minor, trivial or unrelated fictional references. |
- The opening credits are a parody of those of Law & Order, and were narrated by Steven Zirnkilton (opening credits narrator for all L&O series). Note that the Greased-Up Deaf Guy was included in the “Order” section of the opening, reserved for lawyers on Law & Order; he mentions that he was previously a lawyer in the episode “North by North Quahog”.
- Peter getting slimed after saying "I don't know" is a reference to You Can't Do That on Television, and that is also referenced by the man's face with YCDTOTV stamped on it.
- Brian teaching at Chris's school inspires references to various school related television shows and movies, such as Welcome Back, Kotter. Brian dresses in costume, as Mark Twain when they read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, while teaching like Richard Mulligan in Teachers. Near the end, Brian’s students get up on the desks and recite Walt Whitman’s O Captain! My Captain!, as the students do in Dead Poets Society.
- Mrs. Lockhart is based on Pamela Smart, who, in May 1990, seduced a sixteen-year-old boy and convinced him to kill her husband.
- After Peter reminds Lois about his classic “naked spaceman” get-up, she seductively asks him if he wants some Tang. Tang was a popular beverage among astronauts during space missions; it is also a double entendre, as an abbreviated reference to a slang term for female genitalia.
- Brian reads a line from an essay one of his remedial English students wrote on Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.
- Chris' original teacher winning the lottery and quitting her job is the same thing that happened to the original remedial English teacher in the movie Summer School.
- The shower scene was parodying "Merry Old Land of Oz" from The Wizard of Oz. It was also a reference to the HBO series "OZ" as they were talking about a prison.
- Brian tells the class that they can be successful writers like Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. The show depicts Ben Affleck as someone who doesn't do anything.
- Peter bursts into the classroom Brian is teaching and says that there are Swedish twins in his hot tub ("Jack. Twins. Swedish. My place. Now."). Peter is dressed in a robe just as Larry Dallas, the character he was portraying, always did in Three's Company.
- When Stewie was dancing, Stewie mentions a "kid with the hearing aid on Barney".
