Peterotica

File:Peterotica.jpg

Peter giving a fan an autograph on her breasts

Peterotica is an episode from season 4b of FOX animated television series Family Guy. Aired April 23, 2006. Production code 4ACX27.

Plot summary

Peter buys an erotic book, which he actually reads but is very disappointed by. His friends suggest he writes his own erotic book, which sells well from its beginning stages as a xeroxed, stapled tome to its later incarnation as a professionally produced audiobook read by Betty White, and produced by Carter Pewterschmidt.

A distracted driver listens to the audiobook and crashes into the Kool-Aid Man's house while trying to take his shirt off. He sues Carter because the audiobook states that Carter was the publisher, whose entire assets are promptly seized. Carter goes to Quahog to kill Peter with a rifle, but after Lois convinces him not to, he lives with the Griffins, while his wife marries Ted Turner.

Meanwhile, Stewie practices to be a gymnast in the Olympics. He practices pole vaulting with the unconscious Chris as a cushion. His training climaxes with an in-the-house vault that winds up getting him a large shard of glass in his head.

Peter tries to teach Carter how to be a regular person. Peter's attempt fails and Carter tells Peter what's wrong with his life. After Peter realizes his life sucks, he and Carter try to find ways to make money. Peter and Carter try several different ways of making money including stealing Lois's wallet, selling Meg pot, making a teen Drama TV show a la Dawson's Creek and robbing a train, but each attempt fails. At the end Barbara comes to Quahog to retrieve Carter, telling him that she divorced Turner and took half his assets. Peter gets nothing. When Lois tells Peter she turned down $10 million from Carter a few years ago, Peter fantasizes about killing her.

Cultural references

• Peter, Quagmire, Cleveland, and Joe visit an adult book store named "Pornoslavia: Formerly Kenny Rogers' Roasters", where Peter watches a coin-operated movie booth showing "The Naughty Flapper Girl", which depicts a woman voting for Taft. Also, while in the adult book store, Quagmire performs a short parody "Make 'Em Laugh" originaly performed by Donald O'Connor in Singin' in the Rain.
• In a film entitled The Picnic, Jude Law and Renée Zellweger have their picnic ruined by ants. Zellweger, whose face is distorted to look like that of an anteater in what Peter refers to as her "scrunch-face routine", proceeds to consume the ants while Del Amitri's "Roll to Me" plays.
• Stewie has a Mac laptop and amuses himself with the text to speech feature available in e.g. SimpleText.
• The three porn books shown on screen are references to classical literature: "Angela's Asses" to Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt, "Shaved New World" to Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and "Harry Potter and the Half Black Chick" to the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling
• Julia Roberts is portrayed as narcissist in a tsunami relief television spot.
• The Tracey Ullman Show cut-away is a reference to The Simpsons who had their own filler on that show before having their own TV series. Noteworthy is the family's poorly drawn appearance and unrefined voices which are similar to the way The Simpsons characters were portrayed on the Ullman's show.
• Peter sings the famous Sabre Dance theme from Aram Khachaturian's Gayane ballet whilst riding a unicycle.
• The show "Quahog Creek" is a reference to the WB drama Dawson's Creek. The theme features Peter standing in a rowboat singing "I don't wanna wait, for my lunch to get colder, I want to eat right now.." to the tune of the Dawson's Creek theme by Paula Cole
• An attorney-at-law, whose client is the man who got into the car accident, shows up at Carter Pewterschmidt's door to announce his intention to sue Carter as the publisher, since his name appears on the cover of Peterotica. Carter activates a trapdoor, dropping the attorney into his rancor pit. The lawyer defeats the rancor in the same manner as Luke Skywalker did in Jabba the Hutt's palace in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. After the lawyer climbs back out of the pit, Carter comments, "I didn't realize Greenberg [the lawyer's name] was a Jedi name".
• Stewie claims that getting hurt while doing his vault will get him onto a box of Wheaties. This is a reference to Kerri Strug, who in 1996 helped the US Woman's Gymnastic Olympic team win gold. She injured her ankle on her first jump and then landed her second jump before collapsing in pain. This performance not only earned her a gold medal but also put her on the Wheaties box.

Notes

• This episode marks the third appearance of Kool-Aid Man (seen previously in "Death Has a Shadow" and "Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story"). While driving, a man listens to an audio book in which Betty White reads Peter's erotic novel The chick from work who was italian or maybe some kind of spanish. As he attempts to remove his shirt, his car crosses the median, crashes through the guard rail, and bursts through the wall of Kool-Aid Man's house. Kool-Aid Man, who was seated reading a newspaper, remarks, "Wow. You know, from the other side, that's kind of annoying."Later,when Peter is pushed through the wall from a train just seconds after the wall was fully redecorated and back in its normal state, the Kool-Aid Man yells "Oh,come on!!"
• In the episode "Death Lives," Peter refused Carter's check for $1 million to stay away from his daughter. In this episode Peter fantasizes about killing Lois after she mentions she turned down $10 million from her father, implying that he has changed his way of thinking after Carter convinced him that the simple lifestyle is bad.

Subplot

According to Fox's website, this episode was also supposed to have a subplot of Chris becoming a genius and competing with Stewie to take over the world. This could have been an original part of the episode, but cut for time.

From Fox's website:

"After reading an erotic novel, Peter decides to write one of his own and gets Carter to publish it. But when Carter gets sued for Peter’s book on tape, he loses all his money and is forced to become a middle-class citizen, much to his chagrin. Meanwhile, with the flick of a switch, Chris becomes a genius and competes with Stewie to take over the world on the “Peterotica” episode of FAMILY GUY Sunday, April 23 (9:00-9:30 p.m. ET/PT) on FOX. (FG-427) (TV-14; D, L, S) CC PA: Viewer discretion is advised."