Family Guy: Mother Tucker

The episode starts off at a disappointing air show (no crashes), which leads to a new job opening for Brian as a radio talk show host. Creating a sophisticated morning show, Brian doesn't do very well - until he receives help from Stewie, who makes his show a Howard Stern-esque program featuring more noises and profane dialog than any of the wholesome content that Brian was striving for. But with ratings up Brian ditches all self-respect and adds as many fart noises to his program as possible. By the end of the episode Brian sees how he has sold out and quits the program.

While this is happening Peter's mother comes back to town and reveals that she has left his father, and is going to date again. After going to a singles meeting, she eventually hooks-up with the local news reporter Tom Tucker. Like a child dealing with his new stepfather, Peter goes through this transition like a five year old - denying, hating, and then embracing. Eventually Peter's mother leaves Tom, but Tucker stays the good stepfather and continues to help Peter grow up. In the end, we find that Peter recognizes that Tom's actual son needs his father more than he does, and so he allows Tom to leave - and reject his own responsibility as a parent (in true Family Guy form).

There were many things that were great about this episode, but the funniest aspect of the show this time around was their take on radio. From the first time I saw the radio jockeys I got the impression that they are immature, simple-minded idiots who pander to the lowest common denominator - and isn't that the truth? Everything about these type of radio shows was dead-on: the overplaying of excessively long soundbytes, the made-up mascots (i.e. the manic monkey), the stupid show titles (i.e. Weenie and the Butt), and the total aloofness to tact.

When seeing Stewie and Brian duplicate this mentality with their hilarious characters, I got something that is way out there… but somehow remains within the realm of feasibility in the world of shock-jocks and radio DJs - and that just adds to the humorous nature of the show. So even though this storyline seemed to end rather abruptly, it was still funnier than anything I have seen on the show in a long time.

The other very funny bit of the show was Peter's reverting to a child. Even though he is pretty stupid, he conducts himself as an (dumb) adult most of the time, so when I get to see him act like a young child it is pretty funny. Now this is something that could easily be overdone, and not be funny at all - but MacFarlane did a great job with Peter's voice making him sound exactly as a child would in the given situations.

My favorite scene was taken almost exactly taken from the movie Kramer vs. Kramer - when Peter's mother left and it was just Tom Tucker and Peter at the dinner table together, and Peter disobeys Tom by leaving the table and eating ice cream leading to a spanking. So even though this could have easily gone over the line, or been pretty lame, it was actually really funny.

The random jokes were really funny (especially the celebrity monotone roundtable and the Mannequin/The Ring bit), the story was actually crafted well, and the characters didn't act too far off from what you would expect.