Daily Cartoon: Family Guy S09E04 “Halloween on Spooner Street”

It’s a Friday and we’re closing out our third week of Halloween cartoon recaps! The time flies when you’re having fun.

Today we’re checking out the Season 9 Halloween-themed Family Guy. Over the years, they’ve done a number of Halloween episodes, so why this one? Because I Googled something and found a list that ranked this particular one the best of all in the series. Easy enough, right?

Full disclosure: I am not what you would call a fan of this show. I absolutely loved its initial run before being cancelled, but grew tired of it rather quickly after it was resurrected. Since then, I’ve caught episodes here and there with very mixed opinions on what I’d seen. It’s not even a Seth MacFarlane thing as I very much enjoy American Dad and loved The Cleveland Show while it was around. Something about Family Guy though just grinds my gears.

Yes, that was just a Family Guy reference to illustrate my dislike of the show. Big whoop, wanna fight about it?

Now that the table’s been set, let’s get on with the show. Fire up your Hulu machines and hit that play button!

Season 9, Episode 4: Halloween on Spooner Street

Original Air Date: November 7, 2010

It’s Halloween in the Griffin household and Chris has decided to don blackface for his Bill Cosby costume. Lois is immediately horrified and, after explaining to Chris that it’s racist, she tells him to go back upstairs and change into that Indian Chief costume she bought him. Solid opening joke.

Peter’s grabbing dozens of eggs from the fridge and, when Brian questions him, Peter explains that each Halloween, him, Joe and Quagmire have a thing each year where one person is “it” and the other two bombard It with pranks all day. This year, it appears to be Quagmire’s turn to be It.

Quagmire, for his part, is selling this big. He’s got the blinds and curtains closed, but sees the mailman drop a package for him. He decides the run for it, but the second he turns around, he’s tattooed by an avalanche of eggs being pegged at him by Peter and Joe. Prank #1 is in the books.

After some afternoon lovemaking, Quagmire is laying in bed telling “Jessica” how much he enjoyed their session. Jessica turns around, pulls off her wig and it’s fucking Joe saying, “Got you again!” This shit has taken a dramatic turn almost instantly.

For their next trick Joe stabs Quagmire with a needle containing Hepatitis-C. Quagmire is unfazed because…duh…he already has it. Peter pulls out another containing Meningitis, but Quagmire is a carrier. This goes on until Joe and Peter are completely out of known diseases. Peter, thinking on his feet as always, hops a flight to Senegal, traipses the African safari on the back of an elephant and captures a mosquito that’s carrying something science hasn’t even discovered yet, but causes Quagmire’s head to instantly blow up, turn purple and send blood dripping from his ears once it lands its vicious bug bite. Halloween is awesome, you guys.

Stewie hears kids trick-or-treating and is convinced the town has been taken over by monsters and the undead. The immediate response is to pull out a machine gun and begin firing at all the unsuspecting children from his upstairs window and…wow. We’re really doing this, aren’t we, Family Guy? Mercifully, Brian walks in and puts a stop to this by explaining to Stewie what trick-or-treating and Halloween in general is.

Meg is dressed as a slutty cat and is going to a high school Halloween party. OK. Stewie is dressed as a duck and Brian takes him out to experience trick-or-treating. Their first stop is at Mayor Adam West’s house where he’s handing out Cornish Game Hens and gravy. Honestly, pretty solid score there. Definitely beats all those tiny boxes of raisins the old ladies in my neighborhood would give out. Fuck them old bags. They’re probably all dead now anyway. Karma. Raisin karma.

Somehow Stewie and Brian get separated and Stewie gets his entire Halloween haul taken by some bullies on bicycles. Just when he thinks things can’t get worse, Quagmire’s mosquito bites him and his head is now swollen, purple and bleeding. Yay. Can’t wait to see how Stewie exacts his revenge. Oh…so this is the episode with that famous joke about being a Mets fan that gets sent to me by a thousand people every April like clockwork.

Fuck Family Guy.

Joe’s still a cop and is on duty tonight. There’s a thing with a domestic dispute between midgets that Peter plays circus music over it and…sigh…Family Guy.

Brian and Stewie track down the bullies and, rather than just give it back, the kids spray paint Brian pink. Obviously, the Pink Panther walks by and welcomes Brian to the hell that comes with being pink. (Insert exasperated sigh.)

At Meg’s Halloween party, her plan of keeping her mask on so nobody knows who she is is working perfectly. During Spin The Bottle, she lands on a boy dressed as Optimus Prime and heads into the closet. It’s dark and it’s been way longer than seven minutes so the other kids open it up because they also need to use the closet. Once opened, it’s discovered that Optimus Prime was Meg’s brother Chris and they’ve been making out this whole time and this is super gross, but is probably one of the most searched themes on PornHub right now.

Brian and Stewie are still in revenge-mode to get back at those bullies. It ends with Lois talking to one of the bully’s mom, getting the candy back, then insisting that the bully give Stewie his candy and then shaking down the mom for cash. Welp.

There’s also a bit where Quagmire says his grandfather was a Japanese kamikaze pilot in World War II. He uses this to bring Joe and Peter to an Air Force graveyard, hop in a still functional Japanese plane and tease crashing it into an old air craft carrier in the harbor, scaring Joe and Peter shitless so he can repay the prank of tricking him into having sex with Joe.

Final scene we get Stewie sharing some candy with Brian and Chris and Meg walking back into the house boasting that they each hooked up, but failing to reveal that it was with each other. Dear god, run the credits

Final Thoughts

If, according to whatever list I read, this was REALLY the best Halloween episode this show has to offer than, my god, how terrible are the rest?! I don’t get this show at all and I don’t get why it was so popular. I don’t get how so many people quoted that “Surfin’ Bird” thing from over a decade ago and had no idea that Pee-Wee Herman made it a pop culture thing in the 80s let alone that it was a song from the 60s.

Eighteen? This show is on it’s goddamn 18th season right now? Holy fuck. I don’t get it, man. It’s not my thing and that’s absolutely fine. I don’t have to like everything, but I really cannot comprehend how anyone else thinks this is funny. I know funny, trust me and this is not it.

They can’t all be hits and, unfortunately, the week ended on a complete stinker. I’m sure Seth MacFarlane doesn’t give a fuck what I think. He’s a goddamn millionaire. And, honestly, if I were him, I’d feel the same way and just keep pumping out shit like this to continue to troll people like me. Maybe I deserve this, but this was really bad. Thanks for reminding me why I stopped watching this show long ago.

Until next time.

Joe

Twitter: @MaxSexPow

Email: ShoesOnSports@gmail.com