I Take Thee Quagmire

"I Take Thee Quagmire"
Family Guy episode
Quagmire proposing to Joan.
Episode no.	Season 4 Episode 21
Written by	Tom Maxwell Don Woodard Steve Callaghan
Directed by	Seth Kearsley
Production no.	4ACX23
Original airdate	March 12, 2006
Guest stars
Adam Carolla as Death Nicole Sullivan as Joan Alex Trebek as Himself Bryan Cranston
Episode chronology ← Previous Next → "Patriot Games" "Sibling Rivalry"
Family Guy (season 4) List of Family Guy episodes

"I Take Thee Quagmire" is the twenty-first episode of season four of Family Guy, originally broadcast on March 12, 2006.^[1] Peter wins free maid service for a week, where he intentionally creates extra work for her. Quagmire meets her and instantly falls in love with her, leading him to propose to her after the second date. After the marriage, Quagmire comes to regret his new relationship, but learns Joan, his new wife will kill him and herself if he divorces her, so he fakes his own death.^[2]

Plot

Peter is a contestant on Wheel of Fortune and wins. He chooses the prize of one week of free maid service. When his maid Joan arrives, Peter has her pull items out of his belly button, and rides her back to the store. Quagmire meets Joan at the Griffin household. While alone outside, he announces he is in love with her. Peter decides to over-work Joan on her last night by giving Meg a watermelon, which explodes in her face. After dating Joan, Quagmire proposes marriage to her, which she accepts and the couple prepares their marriage ceremony. Lois, Peter and their neighbors visit Quagmire's house, finding that he has changed his personality significantly. Peter still believes this to be a prank and shows Quagmire porn magazines in an attempt to change him back to his former ways. Lois begins to question whether she should breastfeed Stewie any longer, as he is hurting her when feeding.

By the time of Quagmire's wedding, Lois' breasts have gotten even bigger. While at the reception, the top of her shirt rips open. Peter notices that Quagmire is staring at Lois' huge breasts, and spills champagne on them. Peter then "helps" Lois by shaking her, which makes her large breasts jiggle. This arouses Quagmire, and he realizes that he has made a mistake by marrying Joan. He informs Joan that some of his friends think they should get a divorce after discussing it with Peter, Joe and Cleveland, but she threatens to cut herself and him if he divorced her. As a result, Peter decides to help Quagmire fake his death. He shows Joan a video of Quagmire being attacked by a ninja, a Nazi, a "pots and pans" robot, and the body being consumed by a dinosaur held by Peter (to the theme of Jurassic Park). Joan is unconvinced by the video. Peter and his friends operate plan B; which consists of Quagmire pretending to suffer a heart attack and dying. Quagmire is buried in a coffin with enough oxygen to last him a short period of time so Peter can return after the funeral has finished and dig him up. However, when Mayor West announces that all coffins must be buried in concrete (to guard against zombies), Peter exclaims he is not dead, and brings Quagmire out of the coffin, alive. Death shows up to retrieve his body. After pleading for Quagmire's life (and touching Death's arm, thus killing her), Death takes Joan instead, as "she was suicidal and her last name was Quagmire." However, before he leaves, Quagmire asks Death to leave the body for another five minutes, thus turning him back into his old usual self. Lois allows Stewie to be breastfeed again, thus delighting him.^[3]

Production

Steve Callaghan wrote the episode, along with Tom Maxwell and Don Woodard.

This episode starts by depicting the game show Wheel of Fortune.^[4] When Brian is watching Malcolm in the Middle on television, a scene begins showing the mother of the fictional family screaming at the children and father. Jane Kaczmarek was asked to do the voice as she was the original actor in the series, however she refused. MacFarlane said that he gets a message that Kaczmarek wishes to portray that character as likable, and does not wish to jeopardize that.^[5] The father during that scene was voiced by Bryan Cranston, the original actor in the series, who accepted the role.^[5] Seth MacFarlane comments that "this is the first real Quagmire story we've ever done."^[5] A scene was made of Stewie attending a meeting similar to those at Alcoholics Anonymous, however the meeting was designed for those who are too addicted to breast milk.^[6] The format of Wheel of Fortune is somewhat similar to the layout of the modern-day program, but the scene also features several aspects which are now no longer broadcast, and were featured in the 1980s.^[5]

Censorship

Two scenes during this episode were censored for television broadcasting. When Quagmire meets Joan and invites her out on a date, Cleveland asks, "Is that a banana in your pocket, or a erection in your pocket?" Although this entire scene was not censored, Fox Broadcasting Company bleeped "erection" (which, according to DVD commentary, made what Cleveland said sound worse than what was intended).^[7] The scene where Peter is promoting 'Crystal Pepsi' was shown only on the DVD, because it is prohibited to promote one product over another on television.^[5]

Cultural references

When Mayor West is playing as a contestant on Jeopardy!, he spells the name of the host, Alex Trebek backwards, sending him back to the fifth dimension; this is a reference to when DC Comics supervillain and nemesis to Superman, Mister Mxyzptlk, is sent to the fifth dimension when someone makes him say his own name backwards.^[5] When Peter and the children are flying through space and singing, this is a reference to The Great Space Coaster.^[5] The two Asian men who meet Peter at the traffic lights when riding Joan's back speak in a very similar tone to Howard Cosell, a reference to the 1985 cult film Better Off Dead.^[5][6] When Quagmire fantasizes about being alone in the forest with Joan and speaking to her in Elvish, this is a reference to a scene from Lord of the Rings.^[5][7] When Peter pulls out a toy t-rex in the scene with Quagmire's fake death, he hums the theme to the 1993 film Jurassic Park. The scene when Adam West falls on his knees and curses in front of the Statue of Liberty's foot is a reference to the film Planet of the Apes.

Shortly after this episode aired, Jared Cohen, a real life Jeopardy contestant, did not know the correct answer to Final Jeopardy!, and put in "Kebert Xela" for the answer as a joke.

Reception

Bob Sassone of TV Squad commented that "this episode had one of the more hysterical/disturbing images of this TV season: Lois flashing her breasts to Brian after giving Stewie his lunch."^[8][9] Michael Drucker of IGN noted that "the Volume four episodes are easily funnier than the volume three ones", thus referring to the episode.^[10]

References

External links

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