Recap / Family Guy S 4 E 6 Petarded

Airdate: June 19, 2005

After "winning" at Trivial Pursuit during game night with the neighbors (Lois had switched Peter's cards with those from the preschool section), Peter deludes himself into thinking that he actually is a genius. After getting tired of Peter's newfound pretentious attitude, Brian challenges him to take the MacArthur Genius Grant-IQ test to make it official. After Peter takes the exam and eventually gets the results back, it turns out that Peter's not a genius — in fact, according to the test results, Peter's IQ is apparently so low that he's declared to be "mentally retarded".

After initially grousing over it, Peter decides to take advantage of it because people are more forgiving of those with mental disabilities. As always, Peter takes it too far — this time, it results with him severely injuring his wife (forcing Lois to stay in the hospital for who-knows-how-long in a full body cast) and getting the kids taken from him by Child Welfare, as he's deemed "mentally unfit" to take care of them.

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"Petarded" contains examples of:

• Acquired Situational Narcissism: Peter develops a pretentious attitude after he wins a game of Trivial Pursuit (that Lois rigged with questions from the preschool edition).
• Attention Deficit... Oh, Shiny!: Peter complains about being humiliated for being disabled, then runs out into the road chasing a red ball.
• Bait-and-Switch: In a Cutaway Gag, when a man in 1945 Hiroshima who got a parking ticket and mud splashed on his pants asks how his day can get any worse, he sees something falling above him and says "Oh... my... God". He gets attacked by a monkey.
• Bait-and-Switch Comment: When Peter finds himself in court after a failed scheme to regain custody of his kids, the courtroom scene opens with one, which is quickly lampshaded:
  Agent Jessup: Peter Griffin, you've inspired me... to distrust all mentally challenged parents!
  Judge Blackman: And thank you, Agent Jessup, for your comically misleading remarks!
• Brick Joke: A Cutaway Gag shows a National Geographic documentary about firetrucks, which portrays them as dangerous predators. At the very end, Peter gets attacked by a firetruck.
• Characterisation Click Moment: While Peter was already undergoing a bit of a downward spiral beforehand, this episode is the point where he officially transitioned from a well-meaning but abrasive and dim-witted Bumbling Dad to a selfish and moronic Psychopathic Manchild.
• Comically Missing the Point: After his diagnosis, Peter calls an old prom date to inform her and suggest she get herself tested, apparently under the impression his intellectual disability is contagious like an STD. Lois sets him straight.
• Cranky Neighbor: Peter was one briefly for Timer the Cheese Guy.
• Department of Child Disservices: Inverted, since Peter has given social services every reason to think he's a horrible father and place them with the more level-headed Cleveland until Lois recovers from her injuries.
• Disability as an Excuse for Jerkassery: Peter takes advantage of his mental condition to do anything he wants, like going into the women's' bathroom and announcing "Testicles!" over a restaurant loudspeaker. It comes back to bite him in the ass later when Lois is put in the hospital for severe grease burns and the kids are taken away to live with Cleveland, because his actions proved he’s unfit to be a single parent.
• Drugs Are Bad: Played for Laughs. Why Timer The Cheese Guy is awake at 3:00 in the morning. He tells Peter he smoked "a whole bunch of crack".
• Epic Fail:
  • As mentioned above, Peter does so poorly on his exam that he's declared to be "mentally retarded".
  • He also somehow nearly drowns in a bowl of soup, with the water wings that were provided by the restaurant for that exact reason not helping at all.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Even when trying to do good and prove he's a good father to social services, Peter interprets this as making Cleveland look like an even worse parental-figure by comparison (such as framing Cleveland for prostitution).
• Gave Up Too Soon: Quagmire spies on Meg's slumber party, but he gets bored by the mundane conversations. He loudly storms out, referring to this as a waste of his time.
  Ruth: That was weird. Hey, let's compare breasts!
  [girls start taking their clothes off]
• Hollywood Healing: Lois gets burned with a deep fryer and gets her whole body bandaged, but she's later seen unmarred with the only drawback that she's going to smell like fries for a few months.
• Hypocritical Humor: Peter has no scruples using his new disability status for personal benefit like getting a supportive buddy or just plain excusing unfettered behavior by claiming not to know better, yet chafes at anyone else taking precautions for his safety because he finds it discriminatory and patronizing, no matter how necessary it turns out to be.
• Jerk Justifications: Peter uses every and any excuse to act like a complete prick to those around him. When he wins a rigged Trivial Pursuit he becomes conceited and talks down to everyone, when he discovers he is mentally disabled he exploits his condition to get away with any trouble he causes. When it finally bites him back and he has to prove his entitlement to his kids, he decides to do so by framing Cleveland (their current guardian) for prostitution. By the end of the episode, he's got back his family and implied to still be acting like a narcissistic douchebag, just now over being intellectually disabled of all things.
• Karma Houdini: Played with, as while Peter's antics end up getting realistic repercussions, things naturally all snap back to normal by the end of the episode, unless you count Peter being attacked by a firetruck at the end.
• Karmic Butt-Monkey: Peter doesn't "lose" in this episode, but he doesn't really "win" either: he gets a swell head after winning a rigged game of Trivial Pursuit, so an annoyed Brian tells him to go take a test to prove he's a genius and receive a large amount of money as a reward. Not only does Peter bomb the test, the results revealed that he's intellectually disabled and people start treating him differently. He finds that one upside to this is that he won't get in trouble for acting like a jackass, but he ends up hurting Lois with a fryer he tried to steal. Due to being mentally challenged, he's declared unfit to be a parent and has the kids taken away from him until Lois heals; further antics like trying to make the kids' foster parent (Cleveland) look bad by bringing hookers to his house and then later pleading with the court, declaring he's been given "a bum rap", only makes things worse and gets him chewed out by the judge. He ends up getting the kids back, but only because Lois was released from the hospital, and then his victory short-lived when he ends up being attacked by a wild firetruck.
• Lethally Stupid: Due to his mental disability, Lois has to warn Peter to watch out for the passing cars as he chases a red ball across the road. Next, he accidentally hits Tom Tucker with his car (and may or may not have killed his hooker too). Then he accidentally splatters hot french fry oil on Lois when he attempts to remove a french fry deep fryer for fun. It's because of this that the state steps in and takes away his kids for their safety.
• Megaphone Gag: While visiting a fast food restaurant, Peter steals the mic for a PA system and declares: "Attention restaurant customers: Testicles. That is all."
• Mr. Vice Guy: Cleveland proves to be a good foster father to the Griffin kids, but when Peter tries to get him in trouble by framing him for prostitution, he demands all but two of the hookers to get out of his house. He just got out of a bad marriage, let him have his fun.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Peter after Lois' ends up in the hospital because of his shenanigans.
• Never My Fault: Peter complains in court about "getting the bum rap" just for being mentally challenged, disregarding even outside his stupidity, he had used his condition to act like an irresponsible jerk to his friends and family. The judge unsurprisingly debunks this, telling Peter straight up he is a monster.
• Not Helping Your Case: After finding how he's intellectually disabled and this becoming known to others, Peter resents all the precautions being taken for his safety, like a sign warning drivers of his presence and being given water wings when ordering soup at a restaurant. In both cases, he immediately proves those precautions necessary after complaining about them, both chasing a ball into the street and, more inexplicably, drowning himself in his bowl of soup. Though, the latter proved pointless, as the water wings didn't help at all and he needed Lois to pull him out.
• Paintball Episode: The first part of the episode features the cast playing paintball during Game Night...with real guns.
• Police Brutality: Peter mentions that he goes directly to jail for whistling at a white woman, a nod to the alleged circumstances that led to the murder of Emmett Till.
• Precision F-Strike: Brain, after being proven right about Peter not being a genius.
  Brian: Peter, I don't wanna say I Told You So about not being a genius, but... YEEEEAH, IN YOUR FUCKING FACE, FUCKWAD!!! (beat) I... I'm sorry about that.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Stewie gives a scathing one to Meg after she bemoans the embarrassment of having a mentally-disabled parent:
  Meg: I can't believe this is happening to me! I can never go back to school again!
  Stewie: Oh, yes, Meg, yes. Yes, everything was going swimmingly for you until this. Yes, this is the thing that will ruin your reputation. Not your years of grotesque appearance or awkward social graces... or that Felix Unger-ish way you clear your sinuses. No, no, no, it's this. Do you hear yourself talk?! I might kill you tonight.
• Shout-Out:
  • The number of prostitutes are counted in a manner similar to Sesame Street.
  • To cope with his mental disability, Peter gets Verne to be his social worker.
  • Stewie says Meg clears her sinuses like Felix Unger.
  • In a flashback, Peter meets Timer, “the Cheese Guy”, a character who appeared in the ABC network’s 1970s public service announcements on nutrition.
  • The doctor shows Peter where his test results place him in terms of intelligence. His chart shows “retarded” below “Average”, but above “Creationist”. The scene is a reference to a similar scene in Forrest Gump.
  • A voiceover counts the prostitutes Peter brings to Cleveland’s house. This is a parody of the Baker films.
  • "I'm A Tumor" is to the tune of “Rock Me Amadeus” by Falco.
  • The "Peter is Slow" musical number, cut from the aired episode but featured in the DVD release, is a reference to the "Telephone Hour" number from the movie version of the musical, Bye Bye Birdie.
  • A cutaway parodies the 1985 film Mask about disfigured California teenager Rocky Dennis.
  • When Peter declares it is the worst day of his life, Lois reassures him by telling him others have had worse. A Hiroshima man gets a parking ticket, gets splashed with mud by a car, and a mandrill falls from the sky on him, all on August 6, 1945, the day that the atomic bomb was dropped on the city.
  • After Peter shoots Quagmire, he says "Relax, Quagmire, you’re doing better than Peter Weller in the opening scene of RoboCop." Weller is then seen being shot by Joe, Cleveland and Mort.
  • During game night, the neighbors play Twister, Trivial Pursuit, "paintball" with real guns and Two Decades of Dignity, a fictitious civil rights board game that resembles Monopoly. Cleveland mentions you don’t win at the game, you just "do a little better each time."
  • Instead of a calculator at his MacArthur grant test, Peter has a See ’n’ Say, an educational toy for young children.
• Status Quo Is God: After losing the case, Peter laments he's lost everything and is going to give up. Lois then immediately walks in, fully recovered, with the kids, and thankful that everything is back to normal.
• Suddenly Shouting:
  • A professor of Rhode Island State Office of Mental Health gets rather flustered when the officially mentally disabled Peter Griffin corrects him on a mistake.
    Professor: So as you can see, you are just over the line of mental retardation.
    Peter: Don't you mean just under the line?
    Professor: THE DAY I'M CORRECTED BY A RET... I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Just, please trust the analysis.
  • Brian dips into it as well while rubbing in Peter's face that he was right about Peter not really being a genius.
    Brian: You know, Peter, I hate to say "I told you so" about not being a genius, but... EEEYEAH! IN YOUR FUCKING FACE, FUCKWAD! (beat) I...I'm sorry.
• Take That!:
  • On Peter's intelligence chart "retarded" is below "Average" and above "Creationist"
  • Peter telling Brian that his putting Lois in the hospital for severe grease burns and losing custody of his kids is "turning out worst than Stewie's iPod commercial." Cue the cutaway gag of Stewie dancing to "Warrior" by Scandal on his iPod.
  • While Peter is defending himself in court, he lists off celebrities that have been exposed as unfit parents, specifically Bing Crosby who reportedly beat his sons, Joan Crawford of the film Mommie Dearest and the Ramsey family.
  • Stewie watches the CBS Evening News. The show mocks anchor Dan Rather’s whistling intonation, likening him to a tea kettle.
  • Jake and the Fatman shows Jason "Fatman" McCabe as too sleepy and distracted by food to solve crimes.
• Tempting Fate: When Brian asks Lois if she thinks "wow, I married that guy?" due to how stupid Peter is, Lois says she just supresses those thoughts and asks what's the worst it could do. Cue a tumor in her brain singing "I'm A Tumor" to the tune of "Amadeus".
• A Threesome Is Hot: When Peter tries to frame Cleveland as a bad foster parent (by leaving seven prostitutes waiting for him in his house), Cleveland angrily orders Peter and five of the prostitutes to get out. Leaving two for himself.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Peter—justified in that this episode reveals that, technically speaking, he's mentally disabled, so all those past times he did stupid things was presumably because of his intellectual disability.
  • The entire cast decide to play Paintball with actual guns. Only Lois briefly questions the idea.
    Peter: Alright, alright. Nobody fire at Lois, she's scared.
• Unconventional Courtroom Tactics: During court, Peter tries to call in a surprise witness that consists of a "ghost that never lies" that only Peter himself can conveniently see or hear (the presiding judge is oddly okay with this too). Funnily enough, Peter still manages to incriminate himself through this "ghost" testimony.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Lois and Brian. Because Lois let Peter win at Trivial Pursuit, Peter became convinced that he was a genius and acts like an insufferable Know-Nothing Know-It-All. Brian essentially challenging Peter to prove that he was a genius led to Peter taking an intelligence test that labelled him as "mentally retarded". This soon led to Peter exploiting this for as long as possible until the consequences caught up to him.
• X-Ray of Pain: As Lois reveals she suppresses her emotions regarding Peter's stupidity, we get a view of a Peter-like tumour in her brain.
• You Monster!: The Judge says this to Peter, unfazed by his Rousing Speech.
• Your Mom: Chris says that his dad is smarter than Meg's dad. She reminds him that they have the same dad.
  Chris: My dad's smarter than your dad!
  Meg: We have the same dad, idiot!
  Chris: Yeah, but mine's smarter!

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