Episode 10 - Big Man on Hippocampus
22 March 2012
Synopsis: Peter leads his family on the game show Family Feud. Angry at losing, Peter gets into a scuffle with host Richard Dawson and loses his memory. When Peter relearns about sex he goes out to have it with other women. This drives Lois away and the family move out leaving Peter alone. Quagmire takes this opportunity to step in and seduce Lois but Peter’s memory returns just in time.
The Good: As you would expect there are a lot of jokes and some are more enjoyable than others. This wasn’t an episode with many I enjoyed but I won’t condemn them all as unfunny just because they weren’t to my tastes.
As you would expect with a Family Feud parody, Peter gave ridiculous answers which ended up appearing on the board. So it was nice when he claimed that he was part of the survey, at least an explanation of some sort. Stewie’s fun answers to Lois’ questions was a nice set piece gag.
Meg getting roundly abused for making an outrageous joke was kind of funny. In that it was a terrible double standard from everyone to condemn her and that fitted with the theme of her ill treatment.
Flashback ratio (good-medium-bad): 1-3-2
The Bad: The majority of jokes though displeased me for a variety of reasons. As usual we get shock value jokes which have little actual shock or value. The jokes about Lois’ lower regions are just uncomfortable and foetus and suicide jokes are equally unnecessary. Then they brought in Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson to repeat a joke which Peter already made (506). And as for the Grand Theft Auto joke, that’s about as dated and played out a gag as any you could come up with right now.
The story itself was a waste because the amnesia plot leaves you so many fun options, hardly any of which were explored here. But when you spend a third of the episode on a parody of Family Feud instead, what do you expect? I wasn’t too impressed with using Ernie the Giant Chicken in such a frivolous way but I don’t really care. As for Quagmire seducing Lois, that too felt like it could have had its own episode. Of course Quagmire the character isn’t as well defined as he should be. In recent seasons he has shown more than just his original sex-pest side but these scenes didn’t make it clear who he was and therefore why we should laugh.
Best Joke: Sadly it was just a silly voice that made me chuckle. It was the porcupine acting way too happy to have found a pineapple. But there you go, a simple joke can work just fine.
The Bottom Line: Nothing too horrible, just a bit of a waste of a good plot.
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