Original air date: 11/29/2001
Production code: 3ACX-08
Peter's newfound bond with his father-in-law, millionare Carter Pewterschmidt, is tarnished when Brian impregnates Carter's prize-winning greyhound, Seabreeze.
This episode contains examples of:
- A God Am I: Bill Gates shows this tendency while flying with a jet pack alongside Michael EisnerEisner: From up here, the people look like ants.Gates: They are ants, Michael. They are ants!
- Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?: After Brian takes Seabreeze, an angry Carter asks if Peter knows what he's going to do to him if he doesn't find that dog. Peter has an idea: Carter destroying the macaroni drawing he made of the two of them.
- Bat Signal: When Bill Gates needs a ride home, he uses a flashlight to shine the Microsoft symbolnote in the night sky, which summons a helicopter.
- Big Eater: Peter fears Brian will become this to compensate for losing his testicles, and imagines Brian turning into a furry ball of fat eating chocolate.Brian: I LOOOOOOOVE chocolate. But I can't eat it cuz then I'll get fat. But it's SOOOOOO good.
- Bittersweet Ending: Seabreeze's puppies not being Brian's saves him from being neutered, but he's disappointed that he won't get to be a dad.
- The Blank: Peter's poker face
. "Years of practice." - Black Comedy Rape: As Seabreeze is a canine and therefore not a human, the rape is primarily Played for Laughs. Also Turner having sex with Seabreeze is also used for comedy.
- Bow Chicka Wow Wow: Stewie does this after Brian runs out onto a greyhound track and violates Seabreeze.
- Brick Joke: Early in the episode, Ted Turner loses CNN to Carter in a poker game. At the end of the episode, when Seabreeze finally has her puppies, they are born looking like Ted Turner, revealing that Turner most likely impregnated her in revenge losing CNN in the poker game.
- Chocolate Baby: Implied when Carter visibly balks at the mention of Lois taking her mom to a shoe store where one of the employees is a "nice mulatto boy" who looks like someone.
- Coitus Uninterruptus: When Brian can't fight his sexual urges anymore, he runs out on to the dog race track and forces himself on Seabreeze in front of everyone in plain view.
- Cold Turkeys Are Everywhere: Despite his best efforts, Brian can't escape numerous temptations to satisfy his primal sexual urges, such as channel surfing to FOX's "World's Sluttiest Dogs" and Carter giving a very sexualized description of Seabreeze. He finally submits when he sees Seabreeze race and is so overcome with passion that he runs onto the track and grabs her to have sex.
- Don't Explain the Joke: Lampshaded when Peter is playing poker with Carter and his friends. When Peter is asked if aces are high or low, he responds that they go both ways. Everyone laughs.Ted Turner: Like a bisexual!Michael Eisner: Thank you, Ted. That was the joke.
- Double-Meaning Title: "Screwed The Pooch" is taken literally, with Brian giving into his urges and screwing Carter's prized racedog, and metaphorically with this act screwing up Peter's bond with Carter after finally getting on his father-in-law's good graces.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Peter does this while he and Carter watch Brian "in action":Carter: He's violating Seabreeze!Peter: Oh, no, he's just awkwardly positioning himself...now he's violating Seabreeze.
- False Dichotomy: Parodied; Carter's lawyers use complete non sequiturs for the second choice in order to assure that the negative first choice will be the one that Peter says better describes Brian. See Insane Troll Logic below.
- Fat Idiot: Peter's idea of Brian after he loses his testicles, a doughball who can only gush about loving chocolate in a Simpleton Voice.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Ted Turner is depicted as such.
- Friend-or-Idol Decision: What Brian did damages Peter's newfound good relationship with Carter. Carter is outraged, but he later offers to invite Peter to another poker game if he testifies against Brian. Peter is conflicted, but he ultimately sides with Brian.
- Funny Background Event: A serious conversation between Lois and Brian becomes completely secondary to the fact that Peter has just farted in the soundproof booth he has locked himself in, and is increasingly desperate to escape his own gas before collapsing into unconsciousness.
- Furry Reminder: Invoked. Brian doesn't want to acknowledge his instincts as a dog and is humiliated when he has to trick a normal dog into turning around just so he can smell her butt.
- Gone Horribly Right: Peter went into a soundproof booth to be able to completely ignore Brian. Peter couldn't hear a thing, but that meant Brian and Lois couldn't hear him as he suddenly realized he was running out of air and tried to escape.
- Headphones Equal Isolation: Brian testifies in court that Meg's real father is a man named Stan Thompson. Unfortunately Meg is listening to music at the time and remains oblivious.
- Historical In-Joke: When Carter first introduces Peter to Bill Gates, he tells him that he's an anti-trust lawyer from the US Justice Department. Gates immediately punches Peter in the face before Carter explains he was joking.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Peter puts himself in a soundproof box so he wouldn't have to talk to or hear Brian, only to then let out an especially heinous fart that leads to Peter passing out from lack of oxygen as he struggles to break free.
- Hope Spot: Peter wins over Carter during the poker game, and they become friends. Then they go to the race track, where Brian sees Seabreeze in action...
- Insane Troll Logic: Carter's lawyers try to prove that Brian is an unfit father.Lawyer: Mr. Griffin, which of the following two phrases best describes Brian Griffin: Problem Drinker or African-American Haberdasher?Peter: Uh, do I-I guess problem drinker, but that's uh-Lawyer: Thank you. Now: Sexual deviant or magic picture that if you stare at it long enough, you see something?Peter: Well, sexual deviant, but that other one's not even, eh-Lawyer: Thank you.
- Interspecies Romance: Seabreeze apparently had puppies with Ted Turner.
- It Was His Sled: The episode that named the trope. One of the movies Peter taped over was Citizen Kane. "It's his sled. It was his sled from when he was a kid. There. I just saved you two long, boobless hours."
- Kangaroo Pouch Ride: Peter climbs into the pouch of a kangaroo. The results can be seen here.
- Late to the Punchline: Peter spends days standing by a newspaper stand staring at a cartoon in The New Yorker (with the caption "I'd be more apathetic if I weren't so lethargic") before he finally gets it. He notes it's "kind of funny," before returning the magazine and getting a copy of Juggs.
- Odd Friendship: Peter forms one not just with Carter, but also Bill Gates and Michael Eisner.
- Persona Non Grata: Due to taping over the movies he was renting, Peter has been banned from the video store.
- Pinocchio Nose: Peter knows Ted Turner is bluffing when he blinks twice; he first noticed it after watching a Barbara Walters interview, when Ted said he'd be with Jane Fonda forever.
- Rage Breaking Point: In a cutaway, at Denny's, Brian sits by a baby, who is disruptively crying, and Brian reacts like this:Brian: Waaaaaaaaaah! Waaaaaaaaaah! You like that, huh?! You like that?! Waaaaaaaaaah!! You just tune this out, don't you?!! Waaaaaaaaaah!!! Well, tune this out!!!! Waaaaaaaaaah!!!!![the customers and employees are shocked, and the baby attempts crying again]Brian: Wah![the baby tries to cry again]Brian: Wah!![the baby tries to cry, once again]Brian: Shut up!!!
- Reaching Between the Lines: One cutaway gag involves Peter getting an email from Carter, which contains Carter's fist punching him out of his chair.
- Recycled Premise. Brian isn't the first dog in an animated FOX sitcom to ruin a greyhound race by pursuing, mounting, and (allegedly) impregnating one of the dogs, in the middle of the track, before a crowd of onlookers.
- Take That!: Carter's lawyer damages Brian's credibility in court by pointing out how he rented Bio-Dome and Son in Law, both starring Pauly Shore. Brian explains he rented those movies for Peter after the video store kicked him out for taping over their films.
- The Tell: Peter points out that Ted Turner has a poker tell in the form of blinking twice when he lies, and he's so confident in it that he pushes Carter to call his bluff, betting to divorce Lois if he loses (and indeed, Carter has the better hand). After the game, Peter explains he learned it after he saw Turner in an interview claiming he and Jane Fonda would be together forever.
- Whale Egg: Averted, but Peter admits he always thought dogs laid eggs.
- Xanatos Gambit: Peter convinces Carter to call Turner’s bluff with the promise of divorcing Lois if he were to lose.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: Peter finally gets on his father-in-law's good side... only for Brian to screw things up in more ways than one.
