The Story on Page One/References

• The flashback showing Brian’s college years, during which he was harassed for being a dog, parodies the 1992 film School Ties, in which Brendan Fraser’s character is harassed for being Jewish (in the movie, the message on the wall read “Go Home, Jew!” instead of “Go Home, Dog!”).
• The guard at the Dean’s office shouts, “Nobody sees the Dean, not nobody, not no how,” a reference to the Wizard’s guards in The Wizard of Oz.
• Lois says that, when she was in college, the National Guard shot some of her friends, indicating that she went to Kent State during the 1970 shootings on the campus.
• Peter says that he wanted to name Meg after Twiki, a robot from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.
• A cutaway to Meg’s probable future without a college education show her modeling in a bikini at a “bum fight,” an event in which homeless people fight one another in exchange for food, alcohol or some other incentive. These events were captured in the controversial 2002 documentary Bumfights.
• When Meg goes to interview Mayor West, he asks her if she is Sarah Connor, a character from The Terminator.
• When Peter’s typing on the typewriter, the camera pans around him, then he tosses the paper from the typewriter, where it then forms the logo for Stephen J. Cannell Productions. It may be the only logo (of three, the others being UBU Productions and Tri-Star Pictures) from the world of TV, movies or home video to have been parodied on Family Guy.
• After holding an exploding bomb from Mayor West, Meg has Daffy Duck’s bill on the wrong side of her head, and then states, “Of course, you realize, this means war,” parodying a frequent gag on Looney Tunes.
• Stewie uses his mind control device to force Chris to sing “Puttin’ on the Ritz” by Irving Berlin. This refers to a scene in Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein where the monster performs the same song.
• The scene in which Thomas Jefferson’s family is shown as mostly black children is a reference to the recently unveiled evidence that he fathered children with his slave Sally Hemings.
• Peter tells Luke that Dark Side of the Moon synchs up with The Wizard of Oz. Perry mentions that he heard the same from Beverly Hills 90210 co-star Shannon Doherty but thought that she was “just being a bitch,” a popular tabloid portrayal of the actress.
• A scene from Big is parodied when Stewie walks up to a Zoltar machine and says “I wish I was big.” The machine responds with “I wish I could weigh people.”
• There is a scene where Peter in a flashback is a Ghostbuster and interrupts the famous potter wheel scene in the movie Ghost and sucks up Patrick Swayze.
• In the scene where Luke Perry is reading “every high school newspaper,” his “wife” calls from off-screen “Luke! Luke, time for dinner!”, quoting Aunt Beru from Star Wars: A New Hope when she calls him to dinner after he finds Leia’s message in R2.
• A cutaway shows Ricky Martin dressing up as a woman after a concert and performing under the name Jewel.
• Peter thinks that Luke Perry, and not Tom Cruise, starred in Rain Man.
• The snack that Stewie is eating after the scene with Adam West in the toilet are Fig Newtons
• In his interview with Meg, Adam West says " 'Got Milk?' That's a funny one, too. Oh, and uh... 'I Gotcha, diagonally! Pretty sneaky, sis!' That one's also funny." The first quote is the tagline of an ad campaign for milk. The second is from a classic commercial for Connect 4 by Milton Bradley.

References

• S. Callaghan, “The Story on Page One.” Family Guy: The Official Episode Guide Seasons 1–3. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. 116–119.
• A. Delarte, “Nitpicking Family Guy: Season 2” in Bob’s Poetry Magazine, 2.May 2005: 26–27 http://bobspoetry.com/Bobs02My.pdf

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