Original air date: 8/29/2001
Production code: 3ACX-02
Meg takes an internship at Channel 5 News so she can work with alongside Tom Tucker, who she harbors a crush on. She's mortified when she's partnered up with Neil Goldman and when the two are held hostage by the Mass Media Murderer, she and Neil share a kiss that quickly becomes headline news. Meanwhile, Stewie's first tricycle is stolen by a local bully.
This episode contains examples of:
- Abhorrent Admirer: Neil for Meg.
- Age-Gap Romance: A teenage Meg has a crush on the adult news anchor Tom Tucker.
- Art Shift: The Peabody's Improbable History parody cutaway (featuring Brian as Mr. Peabody himself and Peter as Sherman) is animated in the style of Jay Ward.
- Bait-and-Switch: Neil caps off his school project by saying that Kirk was superior to Picard. The teacher refers to Neil's project as ridiculous...before saying Picard was clearly the superior captain.
- Big Damn Heroes: After escaping from the Mass Media Murderer, Hugh Downs returns to stop him from shooting Meg and Neil.
- Boisterous Weakling: When the man comes to warn Tom Tucker and Diane Simmons of the Mass Media Murderer, he says he is wielding a “high-powered rifle.” However, the Murderer is using a pistol in the next scene.
- Brick Joke: After Neil reveals he was never planning to jump, that same guy harassing Peter appears and calls him "a great, big phony!"
- Broken Pedestal: Meg drops her infatuation with Tom after he suggests they record Neil falling to his death and add cartoony sound-effects to go along with the footage.
- Call-Back: During a news broadcast, Tom Tucker mentions the loss of Betsy LeBeau to Fred Johnson in a school board race. LeBeau was mentioned as a candidate for school board in the past episode “Running Mates”.
- Comically Missing the Point: Stewie is completely oblivious to Charlie's attempts to intimidate him and thinks he just wants to borrow his tricycle for a test ride. It's several hours before Brian tells Stewie that Charlie was stealing his bike.
- Did Not Get The Guy: Meg loses interest in her crush Tom Tucker when she sees that he is a sick psychopath who sees a potential suicide as funny.
- Dirty Coward: Upon learning the gunman is the Mass Media Murderer, Tom and Diane send young newcomers Neil and Meg to cover the story in their places.
- Dude, Not Funny!: An attempted invoking comes when Neil is humiliated and plans to jump off the roof of city hall. Tom Tucker is assigned to cover the breaking news. As police are trying to talk Neil down, Tucker takes his cameraman aside and discusses what to do if a fatal jump is recorded on tape: add cartoon-type "object falling" sound effects, along with humorous commentary in an attempt to amuse the audience. Before it is invoked, Meg (who had a crush on Tom throughout the episode) overhears Tucker and his cameraman talking and tells him that what he plans on doing is wrong.
- Everyone Has Standards: Meg may find Neil repulsive and annoying (and she's far from the only person who thinks so), but that doesn't mean she wants him to kill himself. She even calls Tom Tucker out for making light of the event and loses all interest in him.
- Gone Horribly Right: Neil says he wasn't planning to jump, but while on the ledge, he gets blown off by a helicopter.
- Graffiti of the Resistance: The guy who kept calling Peter a phony tags Peter's car with the word "PHONY" to show that Peter is "a big fat phony".
- Harmful to Minors: A teacher, Mr. Lazenby is arrested for teaching that evolution was put into motion when Gil Gerard, star of the television series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, “used a time machine, went back and ejaculated into the primordial ooze.”
- I Ate WHAT?!: Subverted when Neil tampers with Tom Tucker's coffee:Tom: What the hell is in this?!
Neil: Sweet'n Low! That's for trying to steal my woman!
Tom: Go back and bring it to me with urine in it like I asked!
Neil: (Meekly) Yes sir. - Jerkass:
- Tom Tucker, by his even thinking about editing in a cartoon slide whistle sound effect into what he hopes will be a successful suicide attempt captured on video, all to make a joke out of the suicide of an unpopular if not annoying teenager.
- The guy who calls Peter & Neil big fat phonies, who vandalizes Peter's car, harasses him outside his home and then Neil after he nearly fell to his death.
- Charlie, a bully who harrasses a one year old and steals their tricycle. To his detriment, that one year old happens to be Stewie.
- Jump Scare: In-Universe. Stewie is startled by a Hasbro Perfection game.
- Love Triangle: Neil has an crush on Meg, who is infatuated with news anchor Tom Tucker.
- Manipulative Editing: Parodied. Tom claims he secured an interview with Dustin Hoffman, but he filmed himself asking questions and spliced in clips from The Graduate, Rain Man, and Hook.
- Mugging the Monster: The bully who stole Stewie's tricycle clearly had no idea he had stolen it from a megalomaniacal Evil Genius Enfant Terrible. If it wasn't for Lois finding it and coming just in time, he would've been presumably disemboweled/suffered a Groin Attack from one of Stewie's torture devices.
- Obvious Stunt Double: Neil’s class presentation is on the 1967 Star Trek episode “Arena.” Several of his statements are incorrect. It is episode #19 of the series rather than #18. Also, actor William Shatner's stunt double in the episode was Dick Dial, not Fred Lubbins.
- Oh, Crap!: When Meg sees that her kiss with Neil is broadcasted on the news for the world to see.
- Plot Allergy: This episode reveals that Meg is allergic to peanuts.
- Running Gag: "Hey, this guy's a big, fat PHONY!"
- Schmuck Bait: While Brian catches Meg kissing the television, Tom Tucker can faintly be heard saying “More news from the White House today on why President Bush stuck his finger in an electric socket. The president responded, ‘Dick Cheney told me that’s where leprechauns hide their gold.’”.
- Self-Induced Allergic Reaction: After seeing that the kiss between her and Neil is now all over the news, Meg is so upset that she tells her parents she will be going up to her room and eat a whole bowl of peanuts — knowing that she is allergic to peanuts.
- Serious Business: Neil and his teacher briefly argue about who is the “superior officer”: Captain James T. Kirk from Star Trek or Captain Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation.
- Shout-Out:
- The title refers to the phrase "Shot heard 'round the world," used to refer to a number of significant historical events.
- Tom Tucker tells the high school students “I pity the fool who does drugs,” a reference to the catch phrase of 1980s icon Mr. T.
- The scene in which Meg fantasizes about Tom Tucker emerging from a swimming pool and removing his shirt with the Cars song “Moving in Stereo” playing in the background mirrors the pool scene of Phoebe Cates in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
- The plot of the episode is similar to the 1982 teen sex comedy The Joy of Sex. This film has a sub-plot about a virginal female high-school student with a crush on an anchorman. She invites the anchorman to a motel room to seduce him, but at the last moment, realizes the anchorman is not a nice person and decides not to have sex with him.
- When Stewie asks the bully how old he is and the bully replies, "Seven", Stewie says, "My, you're practically a lady." This is a reference to The Sound of Music, when Maria is introduced to the children.
- When Lois finds Stewie’s bully tied up, he says, "We’re playing house." Lois asks why the boy is tied up, and Stewie says "Roman Polanski’s house," a reference to the director being accused of child rape.
- Al from Quantum Leap appears to tell Neil (or presumably Sam Beckett, who has leapt into Neil) how he can Set Right What Once Went Wrong and leap out.
- Peter videotapes a bag blowing in the wind and makes a speech about beauty and the serenity of life, parodying the 1999 film American Beauty.
- The scene where Peter and Brian travel back in time to 1492 parodies the segment Peabody’s Improbable History on the cartoon show The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.
- Tom Tucker’s “interview” with Dustin Hoffman consists of sliced-together clips from his films The Graduate, Rain Man, and Hook.
- When Meg screams, “Oh my God, I’m missing the news!” Peter replies “We all miss the news, but Huey Lewis needs time to create and we all have to learn to be patient,” referring to the rock band Huey Lewis and the News. While this episode was in production, the band had not released an album in six years. However, they released Plan B four months before it aired.
- Brian lifts up a copy of the game Stratego to find actor Abe Vigoda, who tells him that Steve Guttenberg is hiding behind the Chinese checkers. Both actors have had few high-profile roles in their later careers.
- The man who calls Peter a “phony” and later levels the charge at Neil is referred to by the staff and fans as “Holden Caulfield”, the protagonist of the 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, who often accused others of being “phonies”.
- Approximately 40 seconds into the episode, when Peter and Brian are commenting on the Toy Disc guns, one of the toy boxes on the shelf behind them has a symbol on the lid which could be the 'all seeing eye' of the Illuminati.
- Skewed Priorities: Tom Tucker is more concerned about his career and news media rather than Neil contemplating jumping from a building.
- Spoofs "R" Us: The Griffins shop at a store called Toys R Overpriced.
- Stealth Insult: According to Hugh Downs, Dan Rather is "an okay guy in small doses."
- Suicide as Comedy: Subverted, hard. Tom Tucker hopes that Neil will jump off the building and that it will be captured on tape, so they can make humorous commentary about the event on the news. Meg is horrified by this, lambasts him for making light of such an event, and loses her crush on him.
- Take That!:
- When Lois finds Stewie with Charlie in the basement:
Lois: What's going on down here?
Stewie: We're playing house.
Lois: That boy's all tied up.
Stewie: (Beat) Roman Polański's house.- Tom Tucker would rather have coffee with urine than coffee with Sweet'n Lownote .
- While pretending to play the keyboard, Peter says “I’m Yanni sans the attitude,” referring to the new age star who is often criticized as pretentious.
- The toy store where the Griffins shop is called “Toys R Overpriced,” a parody of Toys ‘R’ Us.
- The Mass Media Murderer holds television journalist Hugh Downs hostage. The killer states his hatred for CBS’s Dan Rather.
- Turned Off By The Jerkass: Meg develops a crush on news reporter Tom Tucker. But when he tries to edit a suicide attempt in a humorous way for views, Meg is disgusted with Tom and loses her crush on him.
- Unrequited Love Switcheroo: Neil lampshades this thinking that Meg likes him after all when she saves him from falling. Turns out Meg doesn't have feelings for Neil but she didn't want him to hurt himself either.
- Villainous Breakdown: Even after Stewie kidnaps them, the bully continues sneering at him....until he reveals his elaborate torture device, at which point he promptly sobs and begs for mercy.
- Visual Pun: When Meg received a note from Neil saying "I want you" she turns to face him and he is dressed up like Uncle Sam pointing at her. She scoffs and crumpled the note.
- Wacky Sound Effect: In the climatic scene, where Neil is threatening to jump from the roof of Quahog City Hall, Channel 5 and other news stations have arrived at the scene to capture footage of the standoff. Tom Tucker — along with trying to goad Neil into jumping — tells his producer that once Neil jumps to (during editing) add a cartoon slide whistle to the footage. Meg overhears this and calls Tom out as a cruel, ratings-hungry asshole.
