Recap / Family Guy S 17 E 16 You Cant Handle The Booth

In a mock DVD commentary of the fictional episode, "New Phone, Who Dis?", Lois discovers that Peter is making more money than she is, starting an argument, which that causes the commentary to spiral into a vat of serious family drama.

Meanwhile, in "New Phone, Who Dis?", Peter buys everyone in the family a new phone, and Lois is not happy with how everyone is getting sucked into them.

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Tropes:

• Always Need What You Gave Up: Disapproving of Peter buying cell phones for the family, Lois confiscated all of them. This comes back to bite big-time when all of them get stuck in the banisters and they're unable to call anyone for help.
• Always Second Best: Sarah Paulson keeps giving the Griffin family crap for the fact that their show has never been able to win a single Emmy, both subtly and blatantly.
  Sarah Paulson: So, Lois. What will you be wearing to the Emmys this year?
  Lois: (angry) I suppose you already know, Sarah, I won't be there.
  • Lois wasn't pleased with the fact that the hold music for the FOX or Disney hotline was the instrumental theme song of The Simpsons.
• Bland-Name Product: Crabapple phones.
• Brick Joke: The robber sings Peter's song, from earlier in the episode.
  Peter: (to Lois) And you said nobody would get the reference. Look, even the robber's singing it.
  • Stewie also made a callback to the Bland-Name Product joke, when telling Chris to have a Pispi.
  • Also, if you listen closely to Joe and Quagmire (or just watch the standalone version of "New Phone, Who Dis?" on the Season 17 DVD), you can hear Quagmire correct Joe on the pronunciation of the whole "Bannister", making a callback to a joke that was taking place in the commentary from earlier.
• Better than a Bare Bulb: Due to the commentary, a lot of the jokes in the episode were without sound, so they relied on visuals, in order for one to understand them, if, as an audience member, you think a little.
• …But He Sounds Handsome: Chris and Lois both take the opportunity of meeting their voice actors to feed themselves career compliments.
• Butt-Monkey: Meg hits the bottom of the barrel, when she learns that not only is her voice actor hotter than she is, but she's also the only character in the family who's cartoon life is worse than her real life.
• Deus ex Machina: The way they resolved Peter and Lois' "divorce", was to have them realize they're fictional characters and nothing that happens to them is real.
• Driven to Madness: Lois, beyond anything we've seen before. On top of Peter making more than her, Peter having a "previous wife", and Sarah Paulson being an egotistical bitch about how much better she is, Lois snapped and went completely berserk.
• "Everybody Laughs" Ending: This episode features the most drawn out one of the series, with the family holding the same cheap laugh, throughout the entire fourth act, all in response to a joke by Chris, that was so blandly unfunny, that is was almost a normal statement.
• Funny Background Event:
  • The episode was this, to the plot happening in the DVD commentary.
  • This was also the idea behind the cutaway with Winona Ryder making faces in the background of Abraham Lincoln's historical speech.
• Gimmick: This episode is a "faux DVD commentary" episode. A recut of the episode without the commentary is available on the DVD.
• Halfway Plot Switch: Jesus's attack on the church in the first act is largely forgotten about for the remainder of the episode. This is lampshaded clearly in the isolated version of "New Phone, Who Dis?" (of course, all of the dialogue in this exchange — except the punchline — was drowned out by the In-Character Commentary of "You Can't Handle the Booth!"):
  Peter: You want me to lie? But isn't that a sin?
  Cleveland: Peter, there is no church to return to. It was destroyed by Jesus in a ball of fire!
  Joe: Yeah, why aren't we following that story?
  Cleveland: Because this is a godless show.
• Help, I'm Stuck!: Peter gets his head stuck in the banister. Exaggerated when the rest of the family also gets stuck there, somehow. In the end of the episode, the same thing is revealed to have happened to another family.
  Stewie: They're not even going to explain how we all got stuck?
• Hormone-Addled Teenager: Chris rather disturbingly asks Mila Kunis and then Sarah Paulson if they're still lactating.
• Interface Screw: If you care more about the actual episode and not the commentary, the latter can become this.
• It's All About Me: Sarah Paulson shouts at everyone to be quiet when her character comes back on so she can hear her lines. Apparently this is a major part of why she and Peter "divorced".
• Lame Pun Reaction:
  • Nicki Minaj, Iggy Azalea, and Madonna robbing a bank, or in other words, a "Skank robbery".
    Stewie: I'm sorry, that's not funny.
  • And another one, when Brian made a crack about Philip Seymour Hoffman's death, by calling him "Philip See-Less Hoffman". He also is ashamed of the joke and asks for it to be edited out.
• Laughing at Your Own Jokes: Chris laughs hysterically every time he watches himself tell a joke on the show.
• New Technology Is Evil: Lois had this idealism at the beginning of the episode, believing phones to do nothing but brainwash people, but she learned the hard way that these phones had some good in them when the house was robbed and she couldn't call the police, on account of getting rid of all the phones earlier.
• No Fourth Wall: This whole episode was already pretty meta, to begin with, what with the characters all being portrayed as actors, who play themselves. But then Seth MacFarlane himself, comes on set to tell the actor versions of the characters that they, themselves were also completely fictional.
• One-Hour Work Week: Peter misses work to wait in line for the new Crabapple phone.
• Only Sane Man: Shannon Smith was the only person, who actually gave any real commentaries about the show.
• Orphaned Punchline: With characters talking over the dialogue, there's a lot of these, such as Chris accusing Peter of being a witch and pelting Peter with cabbages. This is of course averted in the Season 17 DVD's standalone version of "New Phone, Who Dis?"
• Out of Focus: Done intentionally, with Shannon Smith getting little to no time to contribute to the commentary.
• Overly Long Gag: Peter singing the entirety of "Halfway Down the Stairs", without contributing any jokes or any of his own twists was one thing, but that the robber reprises the entire song was another thing, and really only done, in order to make another "implied dialogue" joke that was long enough, so that the story in the commentary could go on long enough to tell their story.
• Pedophile Priest: Two jokes about this in the same scene. First, the priest said he was driven out of town by the Spotlight Team, and then Herbert the Pervert, ran a bunch of altar boys into his van.
• Playing Sick: Peter fakes sick to get out of going to the colonial county.
• Plot Armor: Everyone in the church died from the rogue Jesus attack, except for the Griffins, Tom, Ollie, Herbert, and all the other recurring characters who were in there at the time.
• Potty Emergency: Chris, Brian, and Meg all need to use the bathroom at some point, but while Lois pulls over for the first two, she refuses to do so for Meg, resulting in a Potty Failure from her and a Vomit Indiscretion Shot from the others.
• Rule of Three: On their drive to the colonial society, Lois pulls over so Chris and Brian can go to the bathroom, but not for Meg.
• Self-Deprecation: The character's commentary on the "Halfway Down the Stairs" scene is this toward the show's usage of overly long gags, which many have accused of existing simply to serve as filler, as well as their attempts at parodying pop culture but not doing anything beyond simply making references.
• Shout-Out: Seth MacFarlane makes a reference to American Dad!, commanding the other voice actors to form a human shield around him on his way out to keep the staff of his other series from seeing him.
• Sinister Minister: Jesus Christ turned into a horrendous, demonic creature and attacked everybody in the church, by breathing fire on them, and clawing them to death.
• So Unfunny, It's Funny: The last joke in the show features another family with their heads stuck in the banister of their own staircase meeting the Griffin family. The father jokingly asks them, "So, I take it you guys are from out of town?" and everybody laughs. This joke was apparently left nonsensical and unfunny on purpose.
  Peter: I never got that joke.
• Ticket-Line Campout: Peter plans on waiting in line to get the new Crabapple phone.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Lois, Chris, Stewie, and Brian barf out of all four windows of the car when Meg craps her pants after Lois refused to pull over for her.
• A Wizard Did It: Lampshaded. After finding out that Peter got his head stuck in the banister, the family all somehow manages to their heads stuck in the banister as well, without any explanation as to how or why they did that.
  Stewie: They're not even going to explain how we all got stuck? [sigh] Season 16, ladies and gentlemen. Suddenly, the family is stuck in the banister slats.