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Sibling Rivalry is an episode from season 4b of FOX animated television series Family Guy that aired on March 26, 2006 and is directed by Dan Povenmire. Production code 4ACX24. Guest starring Wallace Shawn as the voice of Bertram.
Plot summary
After a pregnancy scare, Peter reluctantly agrees to get a vasectomy, but before the surgery, he goes to donate his sperm in case he and Lois want another baby. However, while donating his sperm, he accidentally knocks a large rack of samples over and replaces them himself so that he won't get in trouble.
One of the recipients of his sperm are a lesbian couple, who give birth to Stewie's half-brother, Bertram, who appeared in the episode "Emission Impossible".
After the vasectomy, Peter's sex drive becomes nonexistent. Lois channels her sexual frustration into eating and she becomes fat. Peter ridicules her for the weight gain, but after they inadvertently have sex Peter's interest is renewed (claiming it to be the hottest sex they've had yet) and things heat back up, until her unhealthy eating habits get the best of her. She suffers a heart attack, and during the surgery the doctor removes the fat (to get to her heart) and return her to normal.
Meanwhile, Stewie's half-brother and archrival Bertram confronts him and they declare an all-out war for control over the playground. A confrontration between Stewie's stealth fighters and Bertram's helicopter gunships is inconclusive. Bertram resorts to biological warfare, infecting Stewie with chicken pox.
Stewie infiltrates Bertram's camp and engages him in a swordfight. After a long fight, Stewie finally prevails, disarming Bertram. Later in the night, Stewie and Christopher Moltisanti suspiciously dig a hole - which is later revealed to be for planting a young tree. Stewie then comments that Bertram ran off.
Cultural references
- A cutaway shows Lee Harvey Oswald defending President John F. Kennedy from a gunman on the grassy knoll as Oswald loads his sniper rifle and saying that he will become a American Hero. This is a play on several conspiracy theories regarding the JFK Assassination.
- For their sexual role-playing, Peter uses the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. While Lois claims to be a schoolgirl who needs to be spanked, he claims he is a Paladin with 18 charisma and 97 hit points who has a Helm of Disintegration and does 1d4 (one roll of a 4 sided die) damage as his half-elf mage wields his +5 Holy Avenger. After Lois comments that a paladin can't use a Helm of Disintegration, he then says he is a black guy. Interestingly there is no "Mage" class in the latest edition of D&D (version 3.5). Also, the +5 Holy Avenger is a real blade in Shadows of Amn and can only be wielded by a Paladin. In Throne of Bhaal, the Blade can be upgraded by an Imp named Cespenar, which turns it into a +6 Holy Avenger.
- When naming his kids, Peter mentions the kids from various shows that are currently airing on Nick at Nite, including Family Matters and The Brady Bunch (in reality, Family Matters has never aired as part of the Nick at Nite lineup). When Brian mentions this, Peter begins naming Street Fighter II characters, including Zangief (although Peter pronounces the name "Zang-geef"), Chun-Li, Blanka, E. Honda, and Guile, before naming various colors. Let it be noted that while he mentions Chris and Stewie, he doesn't mention Meg, most likely another jab at her character.
- When infiltrating Bertram's H.Q. Stewie's clothing and maneuvers are reminiscent of the movie First Blood Part II.
- Sauron, the villain from The Lord of the Rings is shown as The Eye of Sauron in a scene where he is trying to find his lost contact lens.
- At the playground, Stewie's giving orders and quotes a flophouse resident in the Blues Brothers, "Did ya get me my Cheez Whiz, boy?" as a man who looks like Dan Aykroyd from the movie throws him his Cheez Whiz.
- After recovering from the chicken pox, Stewie returns to the playground to confront Bertram. As Stewie approaches his tent, Bertram quotes Darth Vader from Episode IV A New Hope: "I sense something, a presence I've not felt since..."
- A cutaway scene features Peter in a jail surrounded by inmates who force him to strip, squeeze his boobs together, and sing the chorus from Kelis's 2004 hit "Milkshake". This is possibly an homage to the scene after the credits in the movie A True Underdog Story in which Ben Stiller does the same thing in his fatsuit.
- Stewie and Brian find a black version of Waldo in an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog.
- The helicopters flown by Bertram and his army may resemble the G.I. Joe Dragonfly XH-1; however, this may not be intentional as the XH-1 was simply modelled after the real-world AH-1 Cobra. Stewie's army's planes flown are similar to the F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter.
- Parodying George W. Bush and the Iraq War, Stewie says "We've got to fight him over there at the swingset, so we don't have to fight him here at the sandbox." He also comments on his lack of an exit strategy.
- The sword fight is a parody of the sword fight in The Princess Bride. Many of the moves are similar or the same to moves in the film between Inigo Montoya and the Dread Pirate Roberts. Wallace Shawn, the actor who voiced Bertram in this episode had a lead role in The Princess Bride, playing the Sicilian outlaw, Vizzini. His distinctive voice is another reference to this film.
- In one scene, Scrat from the movies Ice Age and The Meltdown is shown trying to take a nut out of a side of a glacier, and Peter tells him off for trying to steal his nuts. Apart from Peter, the scene was animated in 3D, and Chris Wedge reprised his role as Scrat from the original movies. The episode originally aired the week before Ice Age: The Meltdown opened. Fox aired promotions for the movie throughout the evening.
- Christopher Moltisanti from The Sopranos helps Stewie plant a tree.
- Stewie makes fun of the comic strip B.C. during the episode.
- During the scene right before Lois and Peter have sex, Peter is watching Morgan Freeman in a fictional program called "The Narrarator", making fun of Morgan Freeman's voice.
Notes
- Stewie's sperm brother, Bertram from the episode "Emission Impossible", is finally born and returns in this episode. Stewie refers to the events of the previous episode as "our microscopic encounter."
- The barbershop quartet from "The Cleveland-Loretta Quagmire" also returns. A continuity error occurs when the quartet starts: the bass enters and has a blond mustache, when Peter asks about how the vasectomy is done, the quartet sits him down and the next transition shows the bass with a brown mustache. The next time we see the bass, his mustache is blond again.
- This is the second episode in a row where Brian expresses his sexual desire for Lois, this time to Peter.
- The middle of the vasectomy song lasted for a minute, where the quartet in a deadpan manner describes a strange example of vasectomy.
- Peter appears to have a fat fetish in this epsiode (which is only discovered after inadvertently having sex with the fat Lois), but on "Chitty Chitty Death Bang", one of Peter's T-shirts reads, "No Fat Chicks". Also on "A Fish Out of Water", Peter rejects Quagmire's idea to whore himself out to fat chicks in order to pay off the loan for the boat.
"Sibling Rivalry (Family Guy)"