Don't Make Me Over

"Don’t Make Me Over"
Family Guy episode
An attractive Meg and her family become singers.
Episode no.	Season 4 Episode 4
Written by	Gene Laufenberg
Directed by	Sarah Frost
Production no.	4ACX03
Original airdate	June 5, 2005
Guest stars
Bob Widmer as The Tin Man Tara Strong as Meg's singing voice Gene Simmons as Himself Jimmy Iovine as Himself Lisa Wilhoit as Connie D'Amico
Episode chronology ← Previous Next → "Blind Ambition" "The Cleveland-Loretta Quagmire"
Family Guy (season 4) List of Family Guy episodes

"Don’t Make Me Over" is the fourth episode of season four of Family Guy. The working title of the episode was "Extreme Makeover: Meg Edition." The guest stars are Bob Widmer as the Tin Man, Tara Strong as Meg's singing voice, and Gene Simmons as himself.

Plot summary

Meg is turned down by a popular boy named Craig Hoffman (named after the supervising producer for the first three seasons) for a date and begins to feel sensitive about her appearance, so she looks to her family for support. In an effort to cheer her up, Lois takes Meg to the mall to go clothes-shopping, though that has very little effect. Discovering Channel 5 Asian reporter Tricia Takanawa is giving away free makeovers, Lois tells Meg that a makeover would boost her confidence. After the makeover, Meg becomes extremely attractive and her popularity skyrockets. At first she was still herself while at school, towards the end of the episode, she starts acting like a snob.

Meanwhile, The Drunken Clam is suffering due to the aforementioned mall having been built right across the street, so Peter and friends try to fix up the bar (as a parody of Revenge of the Nerds) but only made it worse in the process and also try a Coyote Ugly theme for the bar which proved ineffective. Then, Peter and friends drag out a karaoke machine that Horace had kept in a storage room. When Peter, Cleveland, Quagmire, and Joe team up to sing Journey's song "Don't Stop Believing", people swarm to the bar. Thrilled with their success, the group starts a band and travel to their first gig at a prison. The band, named "Fat, Horny, Black, and Joe", is about to launch into their opening number when they realize at the very last minute that they don't know any songs, and the prisoners riot as a result. Peter's family, who are attending to support him, hastily take the stage and sing "Buy Me a Rainbow," a schmaltzy 70's-style variety-show number (reminiscent of the musical performances of The Brady Bunch), with Meg (now attractive) as lead singer. They are an enormous hit, and they sign a contract with a record executive, Jimmy Iovine.

Their producer Dr. Diddy states that exploiting Meg's new look to make her a teen sex symbol will make them rich and Peter completely agrees stating "That's the smartest thing I've heard anyone say about anything". The rest of the family is subsequently ignored, especially Brian, who keeps barking at the producer, who is black. Meg's newfound stardom goes to her head, causing resentment among the other family members; nevertheless, they travel to New York to perform on Saturday Night Live. Meg is immediately seduced by Jimmy Fallon and loses her virginity to him; she fails to realize that the entire encounter is being aired on live television as part of the show (even as Fallon keeps glancing at the camera and chuckling) until it is too late. During the monologue, Peter attacks and beats up Jimmy Fallon (not so much because he stole Meg's virginity, as because of Fallon's shameless mugging and constant cracking up in every SNL sketch he was in when he was a castmember on the show, citing that, unlike Carol Burnett, Jimmy Fallon hasn't earned the right to do that).

The Griffins return home, where Meg reverts to her old look, saying "being beautiful is too much work." Lois replies smugly "Haha, not for me." It is then revealed that the entire show is on a set, and the Griffins leave the living room and walk to the main stage where the rest of that episode's cast has gathered, and Peter thanks everyone in the style of Saturday Night Live. The episode ends with Brian at home turning off the TV when Showtime at the Apollo starts. Brian claims it's not because it's a black-oriented show, but that it's 1:00 in the morning and he is sleepy. Thinking that nobody is believing him, he proceeds to bark in to camera with his open mouth ending the episode.

Reception

This episode was the most-watched program on the night it originally aired, beating a rerun of Desperate Housewives on ABC. John Eggerton commented about the episode's viewership number that the episode had "language and sexual references...that rival anything on Wisteria Lane and that would make Popeye blush".^[1] This episode had a viewership of 7.23 million.^[2] L. Brent Bozell III used this episode as an example of how he dislikes the show.^[3]

References