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| "Road to Germany" |
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"Road to Germany" is an episode of the FOX animated series Family Guy that aired on October 19, 2008. It is Brian and Stewie's fourth road adventure, following "Road to Rhode Island", "Road to Europe" and "Road to Rupert".
Plot
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While the neighbors are all personally betting on Academy Award winners at the Griffins' house, Mort desperately needs to go, having taken a laxative and a "stool hardener" at the same time. Since the upstairs bathroom is already occupied (by Meg, who was being filmed by Quagmire), Mort then runs into Stewie's room and finds a booth that appears to be a portable toilet. But when he steps into it he activates what is actually a time machine, creating a bright flash and sending him back in time. An hour passes and the others grow concerned about Mort's absence, so Brian goes upstairs to check on him. Stewie comes in and sees that the time machine has been activated. Rick Moranis and and the backup dancers from Little Shop of Horrors come in and explain the situation. Since Mort needs the return pad, a device that will send the user back to the present, which is in Stewie's possession, Stewie and Brian decide to go back in time to bring Mort back.
Stewie and Brian end up in Warsaw, Poland, and find Mort in a synagogue at his grandparents' wedding reception; Mort believes he is in Heaven, since he is with all his long-deceased relatives. Since no one would ever experience their own grandparents' wedding under normal circumstances, Stewie and Brian let Mort stay a little longer and stick around themselves to enjoy the party, despite Brian's concerns that the date, September 1, 1939, sounds disturbingly familiar. As it turns out, this is the day of the Nazi Invasion of Poland, which promptly occurs.
The three try to use the return pad but it fails and they are chased by Nazi soldiers. With the dangerous situation they're in, Stewie and Brian decide to go to England, the only place where Mort would be safe. They disguise Mort as a Catholic priest and try to sneak out of Poland, but Mort is called to perform last rites for a wounded soldier, doing so unconvincingly. A second priest arrives and Mort is exposed, so they flee on a motorbike (Stewie falls off and, in a parody of Back to the Future, he gets back on using a custom skateboard, leaving their pursuers to crash into a truckload of manure). The three arrive at a Nazi harbor, hijack a U-boat and outsmart their pursuers again in an undersea chase by launching a newspaper showing a picture of Hitler shaking Mickey Mouse's hand at their boat's pane, horrifying them into crashing on the seabed. They reach the battle-torn but nonetheless Nazi-free England, and Stewie discovers that the return pad is low on uranium fuel, and that the only place they'd find more is at a "secret" nuclear testing facility in Berlin, Germany.
Stewie, Brian and Mort join the Royal Air Force and participate in a dogfight against attacking Nazis, aided by Prince Vultan (as portrayed by Brian Blessed) and his Hawkmen. However, they are shot down and sent crashing into the mountains; in a parody of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, they leap out of their plane in a raft, slide down the mountains and into a raging river. Traversing the rapids, they reach Berlin and disguise themselves as Nazis, with Stewie as Hitler, and easily obtain the needed uranium to charge the return pad. Before they leave, they run into the real Hitler, who inexplicably does an extended mirror scene with Stewie before the latter spits in his face. Hitler orders their immediate execution, but offers to spare them from immediate execution in exchange for a musical number, a tradition for Stewie and Brian's road trips. Stewie and Brian begin performing one, but Mort cuts them off, demanding that they "just get in the time machine!", which they do.
Back in the present (and still dressed as Nazis), Brian is concerned that Mort knows too much, but Stewie explains he planned ahead by sending themselves 30 seconds before Mort entered the time machine. So that things will return to normal, he kills the Mort who traveled with them by shoving him back into the time machine and destroying it with his raygun, right before the other Mort comes in, asking if he can poop in the room; Stewie and Brian shout, "No!", to which Mort responds, "Too late."
Notes
This is the first "Road to..." episode not to include any musical numbers. While Stewie and Brian did begin to sing one, they were cut off at the first line. This also features the shortest screen time Peter and Lois have had to date, appearing only in the first two scenes.
This episode features fewer cutaway gags than any other episode of "Family Guy" to date, with the only exceptions being "Family Guy Viewer Mail 1" (which featured no cutaways), and "Blue Harvest" (which featured one).
This is the first time that Stewie references his British accent, and the possibility of him being homosexual, when he is trying to enlist as a RAF pilot.
Production
After reading the script aloud, Jewish executive producer David A. Goodman, said "I'm going to get kicked out of my temple." This episode will be Brian's second time-traveling adventure following "Meet the Quagmires" as well as Stewie's third (the first two being "Mind Over Murder" and Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story). It was the first "Road to..." episode not directed by Dan Povenmire, who left the show to create Phineas and Ferb for Disney Channel.
Cultural references
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- The opening theme was a remix of the opening credits of the miniseries The Winds of War, which was about World War II.
- In the opening scene, Steve Buscemi is seen hosting the Oscars.
- Before Stewie and Brian go back in time, Stewie asks Rick Moranis and the back-up singers from the film version of Little Shop of Horrors to explain what happened to Mort.
- Stewie warns Brian that stepping on a mosquito could alter the future drastically, then dismisses the warning offhand as in the 1952 short story A Sound of Thunder.
- Mort's worry that the Nazis will "rub dirt in my assneck and all over my assy nipples" is a reference to the Jerky Boys skit "Sol's Nude Beach". John G. Brennan of the Jerky Boys voices the Mort Goldman character for Family Guy.
- The scene where the Nazis are chasing Brian, Stewie, and Mort, is a recreation of a scene in Back to the Future with the same music. Stewie falls off the motorcycle and rides a makeshift skateboard with the Nazis on his tail, as Stewie escapes, the Nazis crash into a truck of manure. When the Nazis are covered by manure, one of them exclaims "Das Poop!", a play on the U-boat epic Das Boot.
- A Nazi sailor refers to Mort as Art Garfunkel.
- The scene where the Nazi submarine crashes underwater and is followed by police cars crashing into it is a parody of a scene in Blues Brothers.
- When Brian reveals that Germany is experimenting with uranium, Stewie asks why the United States doesn't respond. Brian looks at the camera and suggests the U.S. has not responded, because they don't have any oil, in reference to the fact that the U.S. won't drill for oil.
- While flying, Stewie refers to Brian as "Goose" as in the film Top Gun.
- During the air battle, Hawk Men from Flash Gordon join to fight the Nazis to a Queen song.
- When the trio discovers there are no parachutes, they leap out of their plane in a raft, slide down the mountains and into a river as in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom while the Indiana Jones theme plays.
- The scene in which the three obtain Nazi uniforms features the sound of a Blaster, alluding to a scene in the movie Star Wars.
- On Stewie's Nazi uniform there is a McCain-Palin button.
- The scene in which a scientist shows off his collection of 100 red "luftballons" (balloons), one of which pops, is a reference to the song "99 Luftballons" (a.k.a. "99 Red Balloons").
- Mean Joe Greene tosses Stewie a vial of uranium similar to Greene's famous Coca Cola commercial.
- The scene where Stewie mirrors Hitler's actions in a doorway is a recreation of a scene in the Marx Brothers film Duck Soup.
- The special effects which emerge from the time platform when Stewie, Brian, and Mort activate it, forming an electric box around the characters that falls into the ground, is a recreation of the special effects that accompanied the time-traveling phone-booth in the 1989 film Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.
References
- "Listings — FAMILY GUY on FOX". The Futon Critic. 2008-10-11. Retrieved 2008-10-11.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - TV Preview: Family Guy Entertainment Weekly
- ^ Haque, Ahsan. "Family Guy: Road to Germany Review", IGN., October 20, 2008. Accessed October 20, 2008.