The Kiss Seen Around the World

Infobox Television episode
Title =The Kiss Seen Around the World
Series =Family Guy


Caption =Meg and Neil share their moment.
Season =3
Episode =8
Airdate =August 29, 2001
Production =3ACX02
Writer =Mark Hentemann
Director =Pete Michels
Guests =Hugh Downs, Ralph Garman, Josh Peck and Abe Vigoda
Episode list =List of Family Guy episodes
Season list = Infobox Family Guy Season 3
Prev =Lethal Weapons
Next =Mr. Saturday Knight__NOTOC__"The Kiss Seen Around the World" is an episode from the third season of the FOX animated series "Family Guy". It is the 36th episode to be aired. It guest stars Hugh Downs as himself, Josh Peck as Charlie the bully "(uncredited)", Ralph Garman as Gene Rayburn and Abe Vigoda as himself.

The episode title is a parody of the famous description of the shot in Lexington, Massachusetts at the very start of the American Revolution, the "the shot heard around the world", and the assassination that sparked World War I. The episode name can also refer to the famous home run by Bobby Thomson in 1951.

Plot summary

Channel 5 announces they want two high school interns, and Meg, who has a crush on news anchor Tom Tucker, applies and is selected entirely due to her relative ugliness. The other intern turns out to be Neil Goldman, who himself has a crush on Meg, though Meg finds him repulsive. When the Mass Media Murderer threatens to kill Hugh Downs atop City Hall, Tom and Diane decide to send the interns to cover the event (rather than go themselves, thinking that the Murderer will kill anyone who arrives at the scene). The news copter is shot down. Fearing death and lamenting that she never got her first kiss, Meg kisses Neil, but Hugh Downs captures the Mass Media Murderer. That very night, Neil puts the kiss on the news.

The next day, Neil gives everyone at school a T-shirt showing the kiss, and that evening Meg has to suffer through a dinner with his parents.

In return, Meg goes on TV to declare she hates Neil Goldman, and that she only kissed him was because she thought she was going to die. She then conducts on-the-street interviews, asking if anyone would kiss Neil. No one would; even Mort Goldman, Neil's father. She declares that she never liked him, and never will.

A despondent Neil threatens to jump off the City Hall roof. Meg's image of Tom Tucker is shattered when she realizes he doesn't want to save Neil, but just get a funny story for ratings. Neil falls, but Meg breaks his fall. She tells him that just because she doesn't like him, it doesn't mean she wants him to kill himself. However, Neil said he never wanted to kill himself. At that moment, a guy calls him a phony.

Meanwhile, Peter and Lois buy Stewie a tricycle, which Stewie absolutely loves. A bully steals Stewie's tricycle. He gets no help from the police and, when he attempts to bulk up to fight the bully, a gym just tries to hard-sell him a membership. In retaliation, Stewie captures the bully with a net launcher and ties him up in the basement to interrogate him. However, just as Stewie is about to start torturing the bully, Lois appears with the tricycle, which she found abandoned on the street.

Censorship

*In syndicated airings, the entire scene where Stewie tries to report his tricycle stolen to a cop who thinks that everyone is a baby is cut.

Cultural references

* The toy store where the Griffins shop is called "Toys 'R' Overpriced", a parody of Toys "R" Us.
* The man who calls Peter a "phony" and later levels the charge at Neil is referred to in the credits as "Holden Caulfield", the protagonist of the classic 1951 novel "The Catcher in the Rye", who often accused others of being "phonies".
* Neil’s class presentation is on the 1967 "" episode “Arena.” Several of his statements are incorrect. It is episode #19 of the series rather than #18. Also, the stunt double for William Shatner in "Arena" was Dick Dial, [ [http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Dick_Dial Dick Dial (Shatner's stunt double) at Memory Alpha] ] not "Fred Lubins".
* Neil passes Meg a note reading “I Want You” and points at her while dressed as Uncle Sam. This is a reference to World War I and World War II military recruitment posters.
* Tom Tucker tells the high school students “I pity the fool who does drugs,” a reference to the catch phrase of 1980s icon Mr. T.
* The scene in which Meg fantasizes about Tom Tucker emerging from a swimming pool and removing his shirt with the Cars song “Moving in Stereo” playing in the background mirrors the famous nude scene of Phoebe Cates in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High".
* When Meg screams "Oh, my God, I'm missing the news!", Peter replies “We all miss the news, but Huey Lewis needs time to create and we all have to learn to be patient,” referring to the rock band Huey Lewis and the News. While this episode was in production, the band had not released an album in six years. However, they released "Plan B" four months before it aired.
* Tom Tucker’s “interview” with Dustin Hoffman consists of sliced-together clips from his films "The Graduate", "Rain Man", and "Hook", in a reference to "Weird Al" Yankovic's interviews with celebrities on Al TV.
* The scene where Peter and Brian travel back in time to 1492 parodies the segment “Peabody’s Improbable History” on the popular cartoon show "The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show".
* Peter videotapes a bag blowing in the wind and makes a speech about beauty and the serenity of life, like a character in the 1999 film "American Beauty"
* Neil asks a hologram named Al, “Why haven’t I leaped?,” a reference to the science fiction show "Quantum Leap", in which a character travels through time and cannot leave a certain period until he sets events “right.”
* When Stewie asks the bully how old he is and the bully replies, "seven", Stewie says, "My, you're practically a lady." This is a reference to The Sound of Music, when Maria is introduced to the children.
* When Lois comes into the basement with Stewie and his bully in an awkward situation where the bully is tied to a chair, Stewie claims they are playing house-- Roman Polanski's house. This is a direct reference to the child rape charges pressed by Samantha Geimer, where the director apparently sodomized her in a basement.

*In one of the scenes, the bully that was tormenting Stewie was reading a magazine that was showing a boy getting a wedgie, the first time it was seen in the show.

Previous episode reference

During a news broadcast, Tom Tucker mentions the loss of Betsy LeBeau to Fred Johnson in a school board race. LeBeau was mentioned as a candidate for school board in the past episode "Running Mates".

Legacy

The Mass Media Murderer is also the robber in the convenience store in "To Love and Die in Dixie" who threatens Chris.

Notes

This episode is the first episode of the third production cycle to air which utilizes a slightly more universal style of character design regarding facial expression, though it was the second one made in this style ("Emission Impossible" was the first). It also introduces Peter and Lois' slightly modified designs, in which they are no longer designed to have eyebrows.

References

* S. Callaghan, “Kiss Seen Around the World.” "Family Guy: The Official Episode Guide Seasons 1–3". New York: HarperCollins, 2005. 152–155.
* A. Delarte, “Nitpicking Family Guy: Season 3” in "Bob’s Poetry Magazine", 2.August 2005: 42–43 [http://bobspoetry.com/Bobs02Au.pdf http://bobspoetry.com/Bobs02Au.pdf]

External links

*FGwiki