Breaking Out is Hard to Do/References

• The episode’s title is a reference to the Neil Sedaka song “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do.”
• Stewie threatens to asphyxiate himself like “that boy from INXS.” The band’s lead singer Michael Hutchence was found dead in 1997. The death was ruled a suicide but rumors that Hutchence died while performing autoerotic asphyxiation.
• At the supermarket, Chris is beckoned into a shelf by a sketchily-drawn hand and pulled into the animated world of the music video for a-ha’s 1985 hit “Take on Me,” and is lead through the things that happen throughout the music video, until he escapes by falling out of the freezer.
• When Brian suggested that he hadn’t remembered another ham, Lois made an excuse that Brian was too busy eyeballing that Redbook with Glenn Close on the cover.
• While Joe Swanson chases The Griffins through the sewer, Tie fighters appear and Joe destroys them, another reference to Star Wars.
• Lois steals a painting by French post-impressionist Henri Matisse.
• Brian tells Lois her behavior is “worse than that Winona Ryder thing.” Lois thinks he is referring to the actress’s 2001 shoplifting incident, but he actually meant her performance in the 1993 film The Age of Innocence.
• Stewie plays a game with Rupert that mimics common plots from Hanna-Barbera cartoons like Scooby-Doo: finding a ghost in an abandoned house.
• A cutaway shows Peter riding the luck dragon Falkor, from fantasy novel The NeverEnding Story by Michael Ende, and the movie of the same name. Falkor says Peter is too heavy and crashes into the ground. Throughout his flight Peter pumps his fist and shouts “Yeah!” in exactly the same way Bastian (the main character of The NeverEnding Story) did in the movie. When Falkor crashes he digs deep into the ground and a distinct “Yeah!” can be heard, though it does not sound as enthusiastic.
• A flashback shows Chris watching the 1958 science fiction film The Blob.
• Lois’ book club reads The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, a popular book club choice in the early 2000s.
• While in Asiantown, Peter mistakes three passers-by for Chinese martial arts star Jackie Chan. Incidentally, Chan is in town and mistakes Peter then Chris for caucasian actor Ethan Hawke and Meg for actor Frankie Muniz of the sitcom Malcolm in the Middle.
• In Asiantown, Stewie mentions that he has not seen any female babies. This is a reference to news reports of male-preference sex-selective abortion in China.[1]
• Peter tells the owner of the sumo association that he’s “a born athlete, just like Greg Louganis.” The show then cuts away to a meta-reference in which Peter mentions that they could make a joke about the diver’s diagnosis with AIDS, the 1988 incident in which he hit his head on a diving board, or the fact that his name rhymes with anus. They decide on a “no body hair joke.”
• Mayor Adam West plays with a Lite-Brite toy.
• A commercial for “Asian Trix” parodies that of the American breakfast cereal, as well as referring to the sex term “Asian tricks.”
• The Asian operator of the helicopter Joe charters, which is very similar to the helicopter used in the movie and TV series Blue Thunder, says that, when he fires rockets, he pretends he is shooting at Jamie Farr and Alan Alda, stars of the Korean war-set TV series M*A*S*H.
• When the Griffins are in the sewers, they encounter the characters from the 1985 film The Goonies. Peter asks Chunk to wave around his belly in a “The truffle shuffle” as he does in the film.
• The Griffins run into 1980s teen star Corey Haim, who when questioned by Stewie actually lives in the sewer.
• The chase scene between the Griffins and Joe in Asiantown is reminiscent of the final chase in Revenge of the Pink Panther in which Inspector Clouseau and company are chased through Asiantown to the same music as featured in this scene.
• One cutaway shows the time when Peter invited Karl Malden to do cocaine only for him to snort it all due to his large nose.

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