Recap / Family Guy S 4 E 4 Dont Make Me Over

Airdate: June 5, 2005

Meg feels depressed about her appearance and gets a makeover, which ties in with the subplot of Peter starting his own band, as Meg becomes the lead singer and lets fame go to her head — until a guest appearance on Saturday Night Live brings her back.

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"Don't Make Me Over" contains examples of the following tropes:

• All Just a Dream: Or in this case, A Saturday Night Live episode hosted by The Griffins.
• Acquired Situational Narcissism: Meg, after getting her makeover, becomes more spoiled and self-absorbed as a result of the attention she's getting.
• Animation Bump: The scene with Stewie whacking his thought cloud of Meg is noticeably more fluid than is usual for the show.
• Beautiful All Along: Meg, after the makeover, become a very attractive girl. Future episodes won't be so kind to her appearance.
• Bittersweet Ending: Meg loses her virginity to Jimmy Fallon and ends up being used for television comedy, much to her dismay. Also, her newfound pretty image and self-confidence don't last long. By the end she is back to her old self. And the Griffin family's music career goes nowhere, but they managed to use their experiences for a sketch comedy on Saturday Night Live.
• Break the Haughty: Meg suffers a brutal one when she becomes a tool for an SNL opener.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: In the last scene, Brian turns off the TV when "Live at the Apollo" comes on, then calls out the audience for assuming he's being racist.
  Brian: What?! I'm tired. It has nothing to do with the fact that it's a Black show. What, I can't be tired at one in the morning?
• Brick Joke: Brian's possibly latent, reflexive racism, as used in the last scene (see Gainax Ending, below)
• Call-Back: The scene where Gene Simmons appears and uses his tongue to pleasure an off-screen Lois references the Season 3 episode Road to Europe, where it's revealed Lois and Gene dated each other during high school.
• Calling Parents by Their Name: Meg starts calling her mother "Lois" as a sign of her Acquired Situational Narcissism.
• Continuity Nod: Gene Simmons from KISS shows up during Peter and the gangs' first band rehearsal, all for a gag involving his iconic Rock and Roll tongue being so freakishly long it slithers offscreen to interact with Lois, who reacts with a semi-flirty "Hi, Gene, didn't know you were here." This is in reference the former season, where Peter and Lois not only met Gene, but it was revealed Lois slept with him when they were younger.
• Corpsing: Discussedinvoked; Peter beats up Jimmy Fallon not for what he did to Meg, but for ruining SNL sketches he's ever been in by constantly looking at the camera and cracking up. While beating Fallon, Peter mentions that Carol Burnett used to do the same on her show but Fallon “hasn’t earned what she earned!” As an added bonus, Fallon actually laughs and looks at the camera every single time he is onscreen in the episode itself.
• Didn't Think This Through: Peter, Quagmire, Cleveland and Joe form their own band and are excited about their first gig at a prison... until they realize they don't know any songs just as they're about to perform.
• Driven to Suicide: Apparently, Meg is so ugly that a salesperson and a cameraman douse themselves in gasoline and light themselves on fire before tossing themselves out a window.
• Eat the Camera: Done on Brian Griffin's racist barking at the end of the episode.
• Everyone Loves Blondes: As a part of her makeover, Meg gets her hair dyed blonde.
• Faux Horrific: The mere sight of Meg can cause one to douse themselves in gasoline, light themselves on fire and jump out a window.
• Funny Background Event: During the faux SNL episode ending, in the far right of the screen, Gene Simmons can be seen licking President Bush. To the far left of the screen, Meg’s dead and decaying “real boyfriend” can be seen getting attacked by a wolf as was shown earlier in the episode.
• Gainax Ending: At the end we learn that the apparent final scene was really just the last SNL sketch, followed by what appears to be that show's end credits. Then ... Brian abruptly turns it off when Showtime at the Apollo comes on, and when his eyes come around to the camera he addresses it, getting defensive about how he turned off the show because he always goes to bed at 1 a.m. and not because he's racist (see Brick Joke, above). It could be seen as questioning the entire reality of the show, since it seems improbable that Brian is both backstage at SNL with the Griffins and watching the show at home (unless it's a rerun of said taped episode).
• Halfway Plot Switch: The episode goes from Peter and his guy friends trying to save the Drunken Clam, to them forming a band, to the Griffin family becoming a famous singing act, to Meg becoming popular and losing her virginity during a Saturday Night Live sketch.
• Hard-Work Montage: Peter and the gang attempt to fix up the Drunken Clam. Despite their best efforts, it seems to be made a lot worse.
  Peter: Boy, I do not envy whoever has to clean that mess up.
• Intercourse with You: The Trope Namer, which comes from a song Stewie and Brian were going to pitch to the family band's producer.
• It Meant Something to Me: Meg is distraught when it turns out that she lost her virginity on live television and Fallon was just using her for comedy.
• Ms. Fanservice: Dr. Diddy suggests Meg to be this for her new musical image. Surprisingly, Peter approves of this.
• Noodle Incident: When Peter sees the new Meg for the first time.
  Peter: Oh my God! Lois, it was twenty years ago! I never even heard the word rubber!
• Papa Wolf: Double-subverted. Peter beats up Jimmy Fallon, not because he had sex with her on live TV, but to get revenge on Fallon's horrible acting and constant cracking up when he was a cast member on SNL. Peter then goes looking for the guy who slept with his daughter (not knowing that it was the same guy he just beat up).
• Reduced to Dust: The karaoke machine at the Drunken Clam, after Peter swings Joe around like an electric guitar after they finish their number and demolishes it.
• Shout-Out:
  • When Peter, Cleveland, Quagmire and Joe are going to perform in the Quahog prison, Peter yells: "Hello Cleveland!!" This is a reference to This is Spın̈al Tap.
  • The Griffin Family Band is similar to The Brady Bunch Variety Hour and The Partridge Family.
  • As Stewie rides on Brian’s back, he quotes Yoda from The Empire Strikes Back.
  • A cutaway shows Neil Armstrong faking the moon landing at a television studio called Stage 51, a reference to Area 51, a military base well known in conspiracy theory lore.
    • Also during the cutaway showing the fake moon landing, Neil Armstrong walks out of the studio, where he is approached by a fan, who questions why Armstrong is not on the moon. Armstrong stutters at various reasons as to why there is no moon landing, choosing instead to attack the fan with his helmet. This is a reference to when Buzz Aldrin attacked a skeptic who was insulting him about not being honest about the moon landing claims
  • Bill Cosby appears before a commercial break as he did in Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids.
  • For their band Peter dresses like a member of Devo, Cleveland like a member of a funk band, Joe like a glam rocker, and Quagmire like Tommy Lee, drummer of Mötley Crüe.
  • Dr. Diddy’s name is a cross between Dr. Dre and Sean "Diddy" Combs, two hip hop music performers and producers.
  • When Lois worries that Meg might develop a "coke problem,” Peter replies “No Coke! Pepsi!” a catch phrase from the “Olympia Cafe” sketches of Saturday Night Live's late 1970s era.
  • During the “1980s fixing-stuff-up montage,” “One Foot in Front of the Other” by Bone Symphony is heard. It played during a montage on Revenge of the Nerds. The robot that sweeps the floor is also from that film.
  • When the guys temporarily give the Clam a Coyote Ugly theme, they dance on the countertop to the tune of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” by The Charlie Daniels Band.
  • While the Clam is a karaoke bar, Mort Goldman performs Maureen McGovern’s 1973 hit “The Morning After.”
  • Peter attempts to satisfy angry inmates by telling a story about Lake Wobegon, the setting of Garrison Keillor’s radio show, A Prairie Home Companion, which often featured quaint stories of rural life.
  • This episode ends like a typical episode of Saturday Night Live with Peter, acting as the host, waving goodbye to the audience, surrounded the cast and musical guest, which was apparently Counting Crows. Peter exclaims, “Our thoughts are with you, Chevy,” presumably referring to Chevy Chase.
  • After the faux SNL episode ends, Showtime at the Apollo begins. The variety show, filmed at the Apollo Theater, used to air on NBC affiliates after the current episode of SNL ended.
• Spoiled Brat: After Meg is praised one too many times for her new looks and goes into the life of a pop star, she develops an ego and an attitude problem with her family. Meg mistook lust for love and started believing that she can do no wrong and believes the band is nothing with her.
• Status Quo Is God: Meg reverts back to her old self because she felt it was too hard being beautiful.
• Sweet Tooth: Meg assertively asks Lois for Skittles.
• Take That!:
  • Peter's line about meeting such SNL cast members as John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Chris Farley, Phil Hartman, and Horatio Sanz. The joke is that Peter is such an idiot that he doesn't know that Belushi, Radner, Farley and Hartman are dead. Horatio Sanz is still alive, but hasn't really done anything since SNL, so it's the writer's way of saying that Sanz's career is dead.
  • News anchor Tom Tucker says that the next news story will concern “Joan Rivers speaking from beyond the grave,” despite the fact that the comedian was still alive when this episode first aired.
  • The episode mocks former SNL cast member Jimmy Fallon for “laughing and looking into the camera in every sketch [he’s] ever been in” (which was a big deal back when Fallon was on SNL, but doesn't really hold water, since Fallon hasn't been on the show since the end of the 2003-2004 season, and this episode aired in 2005)
  • Meg's stardom is also a jab at child stars and sexualisation from the media, as Meg was put on a pedestal for her looks and she was never reigned in on how to be humble with fame.
  • On a dare, Stewie runs naked through a mall and loudly announces that he just escaped from Kevin Spacey's basement. ^note  This is oddly prescient considering the episode was released 12 years before Spacey was publicly accused of numerous acts of sexual misconduct, one of the accusers having been a minor at the time.
• Their First Time: Meg loses her virginity with Jimmy Fallon. Unfortunately for her, the whole thing was used by Fallon for a Saturday Night Live Sketch.
• Titled After the Song: The title "Don't Make Me Over" is taken from a Dionne Warwick song, written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David.
• The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter: Meg becomes this after she gets a makeover. Too bad it's only temporarily.

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