A Hero Sits Next Door | |
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Season 1, Episode 5 | |
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Air date | February 28, 1999 |
Episode Guide | |
Previous Do and Die |
Next Peter's in Charge |
A Hero Sits Next Door is the fifth episode of the first season of Family Guy. It is the fifth episode, overall.
Synopsis[]
A new neighbor moves in next door to The Griffins. Meanwhile, The Happy-Go-Lucky Toy Factory's softball team is having a playoff.
Plot[]
At the Happy-Go-Lucky Toy Factory, Peter is working when his boss Mr. Weed introduces Gulliermo, a ringer who will attempt to assist the company in winning the annual softball game. At home, Peter's wife Lois informs him of their new neighbors, the Swanson Family, and wishes for him to make friends with them; however, Peter is not interested and leaves with Brian for softball practice. The regular pitcher is absent, so Peter fills in. He injures Gulliermo with a wild pitch during practice and must find a new player to replace him or else he will be fired.
Meanwhile, Lois goes with her youngest son, Stewie, to meet the new neighbors. She is greeted by Bonnie Swanson and soon after meets her husband, Joe, while Meg falls in love with Joe and Bonnie's son, Kevin. When Peter comes home, he is rude to the Swansons. Later that night, Peter thinks about who can replace Gulliermo, and Lois, hearing her husband's dilemma, reveals that Bonnie told her that Joe played baseball in college. Hearing this, Peter goes to Joe and apologizes for his earlier behavior towards him, and convinces him to play on his company softball team. However, while Peter and Mr. Weed are waiting for Joe at the ballpark, they're horrified when Joe shows up in a wheelchair, as Peter hadn't realized at first that Joe's wheelchair-bound. However, despite his disability, Joe proves to be an excellent ballplayer and leads Peter's company's team to victory. That night, Joe has a celebratory party in his house, where he reveals that he is a police officer who was crippled after fighting The Grinch on the roof of an orphanage and soon becomes very popular with the neighbors, including Peter's family.
Joe's popularity makes Peter jealous, so Peter wants to be a hero too. He attempts to stop a bank robbery to compete with Joe's heroism. Peter and Brian are taken hostage in the process, but Joe convinces the robbers to surrender. An applauding crowd hoists Joe away in praise, leaving his wheel chair empty. Stewie tries to unlock the "power of the wheelchair," but Lois manages to remove him and puts a pacifier in his mouth, so he quickly falls asleep. After the hostage situation, Peter is disappointed, but his family consoles him by telling him that he is their hero.
Characters[]
Major Roles[]
- Peter Griffin
- Lois Griffin
- Meg Griffin
- Stewie Griffin
- Joe Swanson
- Bonnie Swanson
- Kevin Swanson
- Mr. Weed
Minor Roles[]
- Brian Griffin
- Chris Griffin
- Johnson
- Tom Tucker
- Gulliermo
- Hideo
- Little Orphan Timmy
- Tammy
- Teletubbies
- The Grinch
- Superman
- Batman
- Aquaman
- Hawkman
- Wonder Woman
- Henry Douglas
- Michelle Kwan
- Vanna White
- Pat Sajak
Quotes[]
- Peter: Holy crip, he's a crapple!
- Stewie: I demand to know who made you!
- [Stewie is reading a book, and then closes it shut]
- Stewie: Machiavelli, you've told me nothing I don't already know! [He picks up another book] Ah, Sun Tzu's The Art of War.
- [He opens the book as Lois enters]
- Lois: Stewie, those books aren't for babies [She takes the book from him]. Here, watch the Teletubbies.
- [She turns on the TV and leaves]
- Stewie: How dare you! That book, may hold the key to my enslaving of all mankind...[Notices TV] Ooo, fuzzy...
- Teletubby: [giddy laugh] Tickle.
- Stewie: God, the more I resist, the more intriguing they become! I can't look away!
- Teletubbies: Again! Again!
- Stewie: Yes! Yes! Again! Again! Oh, dear God, please once more!
- Peter: [walks in and changes the channel] Sorry, Stewie. A&E Biography is doing the life of the other guy from Wham.
- Stewie: [snaps out of it] I'm free! Free from the spell of those diabolical Teletubbies! [to Peter] Thank you, fat man. When the world is mine, your death shall be quick and painless.
- [Peter and Chris watch, "Wheel of Fortune". The puzzle reads, "G O _ U C K Y O U R S E L F _ _"]
- Contestant: [On TV] Pat, I'd like to solve the puzzle. "Go tuck yourself in."
- Pat Sajak: [On TV] You got it!
- Chris: Well, you were close, Dad.
- Peter: Yeah. And I still can't believe we missed the phrase "my hairy aunt."
- Little Girl: Your family idolizes the lousy cripple and not you?
- Meg: So, do you like music?
- Kevin: Oh, yeah. I played guitar in a band before we moved, but it interfered with my studies. What do you listen to?
- Meg: Uh, you first.
- Kevin: I'm into Garbage, Phish, Blur. My parents don't like me listenin' to that stuff, but I do, anyway, BECAUSE I AM NOT A ROBOT! [calmly] I also like Radiohead.
- Chris: Meg loves Kevin!
- Meg: Shut up, you big sack of dog vomit!
- The Grinch: You think you have won, you think all is well; but kiss my green ass, I shall see you in hell!
- Bonnie: The movers tracked grease all over my carpet. I tried everything to get the stain out.
- Lois: What about lemon juice?
- Bonnie: Oh, what about club soda?
- Stewie: What about shutting the hell up?
- Mr. Weed: Peter, make yourself useful, go get Joe a drink.
- Peter: Sheesh, first he takes my friends then he takes my job, and the way I wear my hat... no no, he can't take that away from me.
- Chris: When the kids at school see this, they're gonna think you're a total psycho, and I could say: "that psycho is my dad."
- Lois: Meg, you're a sweet, beautiful girl, he'll come around.
- Meg: That's such a mom answer.
- Lois: Well, have you tried showing him the goods? How's that for a mom answer?
- Meg: Creepy.
- Stewie: Oh, to be the Lindbergh baby right about now.
- Joe: Hey, I just suggested a line of handi-capable toys. You know, to show kids the fun side of being physically challenged!
Song[]
Trivia[]
- This is the first episode not to have the word "death" or the word "murder" in the title. The writing staff has remarked that they initially planned to give each episode a bizarrely macabre title, ala the old fashioned radio plays, but dropped the approach after the first four episodes because they were getting the episodes mixed up. This episode is the first whose title properly describes what the episode is about. Season two would have just as many episodes with a form of the word "death" or associated with dying in its title.
- In this episode, Joe, Bonnie and Kevin Swanson are introduced.
- When the bank robbers take the gun back from Peter, one of them has a prosthetic arm.
- This is the only episode where Bonnie is seen as a brunette. She would later be seen with jet black hair.
- Peter says if he is fired, he will have to go back to being a Calvin Klein model. In it, as the other models are heard thinking things such as "I don’t want to be different, but I don’t want to be the same," Peter is heard thinking "Who was the bad guy from Tron?"
- Mr. Weed's homosexuality is hinted in this episode when Peter says he saw Gulliermo "bench pressing" Mr. Weed. He also calls Joe Swanson a "very attractive paraplegic" later in the episode.
- Peter pretends to have coprolalia, a commonly known form of Tourette's syndrome.
- A player from the Pawtucket Pranksters gives a player on the Quahog Toy Boys "joke gum," which makes the victim become addicted to heroin.
- Stewie reads The Art of War by Sun Tzu and The Prince by Machiavelli before Lois makes him watch Teletubbies.
- In a cutaway, Peter plays strip poker with the Superfriends.
- Stewie is momentarily hypnotized by the Teletubbies show. The characters in the show feature different antennas on their head resembling TV antenna than their real versions do; for instance, one has rabbit-ears antennae, another with a satellite dish, etc.
- Peter and Chris watch Wheel of Fortune. The puzzle is "GO _UCK YOURSELF" and the answer is "GO TUCK YOURSELF IN". Notably, all of the blank tiles were the same color, so one wouldn’t have been able to tell that there was another word after "YOURSELF". Peter remarks that he should have been able to solve the puzzle "MY HAIRY _UNT" as "MY HAIRY AUNT".
- Peter comes up with a new line of Transformers toys based on The Facts of Life characters.
- Joe is paralyzed after a fight with The Grinch, who was attempting to steal Christmas presents from an orphanage. In "Joe's Revenge", the fight between him and The Grinch was revealed to be a lie.
- According to this episode, Meg cannot taste salt.
- Joe Swanson identifies himself as a "police lieutenant" in this episode, yet in his uniform, he's drawn with the rank insignia of a private.
- When Joe first arrives at the orphanage, the left side of the sign simply says 'Orphanage'. The right side of the sign has 'Lucky's Orphanage' in the same font size and color. The smaller text reads 'No One Knows You're Here'.
- When Brian says "Gosh, I'd like to help you Peter. But I've gotta go out in the hall... ...and chew on the back of my ass for about 5 minutes," the censored version has "ass" replaced with "leg".
Cultural References[]
- All Peter can think to offer the Japanese baseball player is "Me love you long time," a line a prostitute delivers in Full Metal Jacket and is sampled in the song "Me So Horny".
- When Peter mentions copyright infringement, he morphs into Mickey Mouse and starts speaking in the same manner, complete with Mickey’s trademark laughter.
- After Stewie watches Teletubbies, Peter comes in to watch the A&E Biography series on "that other guy from Wham!" referring to Andrew Ridgely.
- After Stewie tries to escape from listening to Lois and Bonnie’s conversation, he says "Oh to be the Lindbergh baby right about now," a reference to the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh’s son.
- Joe's use of the phrase "Finger-suckin' good" to describe his barbecue recipe spoofs "Finger-lickin' good", a KFC slogan used on and off since the 1950s.[1]
- When Peter is mad at Joe for taking all his friends he quotes the Gershwin & Gershwin song "They Can’t Take That Away from Me" by saying "The way I wear my hat? No, no, he can’t take that away from me."
Season 1 | ||||||||
#01 | Death Has a Shadow | #02 | I Never Met Mr. Deaddy | #03 | Mind Over Murder | |||
#04 | Do and Die | #05 | A Hero Sits Next Door | #06 | Peter's in Charge | |||
#07 | Love Your Trophy | #08 | Brian Griffin: Portrait of a Dog | #09 | The Son Also Draws | |||
#10 | A Picture's Worth $1000 | #11 | Death is a Bitch | #12 | Wasted Talent | |||
#13 | Holy Crap | #14 | Meg for Mercy | #15 | The King is Dead | |||
#16 | Brian in Love | #17 | Chitty Chitty Death Bang | #18 | Da Boom |