In this, the 200th episode, Stewie goes backwards in time and, unless he can stop it, he'll be back in Lois' womb and "unborn".
Tropes:
- All Jews Are Cheapskates: The moment Brian realises that time is in reverse is when he sees Mort putting a coin on the ground, instead of picking it up.
- Back to Front: The majority of the episode's gags depending on seeing the result before the cause is shown.
- Back to the Womb: After an entire episode of shenanigans, Stewie is rewound all the way back to the day of his birth, with his parents forcing him back into his mother's womb. Thankfully, Brian is able to repair the time machine before the expected Death by De-aging follows, allowing Stewie to be reborn - whereupon he remarks that he never realized what a "man cave" he had in Lois's uterus.
- Bestiality Is Depraved: Brian travels back to the sight of the Hindenburg disaster, where Herbert Morrison declares that the sight of Brian having sex with a woman somehow makes the scene even worse.
- The Bus Came Back: Cleveland appears for a backwards bathtub gag because time running in reverse causes him to move back to Quahog.
- Call-Back: To "The Cleveland-Loretta Quagmire" cutaway gag song "You Have AIDS", where Peter and his barbershop quartet are shown in reverse on their way to see the man at the hospital.
- Comically Missing the Point: A flashback cutaway shows Brian bringing home a woman with a pronounced stutter. Peter misinterprets this to mean that she's freezing, so he keeps raising the thermostat.
- Continuity Nod: The episode is full of references to prior events and cutaways.
- Death by De-aging: The threat to time flowing backwards. Brian only stops it right as Stewie's about to be born.
- The Diaper Change: Inverted; due to time reversing, Lois unchanges Stewie's diaper. She first removes his clean diaper, fetches a dirty diaper from the diaper pail, and puts it on Stewie's bottom. Stewie is horrified at this.Lois: Phew! Smells like somebody needs a diaper change!
Stewie: Damn right I do! Now get this turd-filled sack off... Oh my God, it just went back in my body! - The Ditz: Cindy (the first girl Brian shows the time machine to), who thinks the day of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination (April 14, 1865) is Valentine's Day. Brian decides to just roll with it instead of correcting her.
- Dumbass Has a Point: At the end of the episode, Chris comments that he heard Stewie (who had just been re-born) was talking. Lois writes it off as ridiculous.
- Human Cannonball: As shown through reverse time, Peter once attempted to use a cannon to fly to Australia (for some reason), only to end up hitting Cleveland's house.
- Manchild: Peter, of course. When Stewie and Brian go back to the day Stewie was brought home from the hospital, the entire family is fawning over him while Peter is lying on the couch, pounding his fists and crying, "I wanna be the baby!"
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: By messing around with Stewie's time machine, Brian ends up causing the flow of time to reverse, with him and Stewie being the only ones aware.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Stewie when he realizes reverse time is both accelerating and affecting them.
- "Oh, my God, we're getting closer to the beginning! You're Lacey Chabert!"
- Oh, No... Not Again!: Brian and Stewie's reaction to ending up back at the infamous ipecac incident from "8 Simple Rules For Buying My Teenage Daughter", only this time, it ends up going back into them.
- Oh, the Humanity!: Brian takes a date back to The Hindenburg explosion. The covering reporter lets loose the famous phrase, only to be even more disturbed by the sight of a dog and woman having sex."I know I said 'oh, the humanity' before, but seriously, oh the humanity!"
- The Other Darrin: In-Universe; Time running in reverse causes Meg's voice to revert back to Lacey Chabert.Stewie: Oh, my God, we're getting closer to the beginning! You're Lacey Chabert!
- Rewind Gag: The entire point of this episode. "WE ATE SO MUCH VOMIT!!", sex in reverse, the chicken fight goes backwards, Stewie having his diaper unchanged...Stewie: Oh my God, it just went back in my body!
- Running Gag: Reverse versions of two hallmark gags are shown:
- We get to see Peter get involved in a backwards chicken fight, where he and the Giant Chicken end up putting the town back together instead of causing destruction.
- There's also a backwards version of the Cleveland Bathtub Gag.Cleveland: Man, we got a whole lotta clovers on our lawn. No, no, no, no, no, NO!!!Peter: Oh, hey, Cleveland.(Peter flies backwards into a cannon operated by Chris.)Peter: Australia, here I come!
- Sdrawkcab Name: The title of the episode is "Family Guy" spelled backwards.
- Series Continuity Error: There was more than one ipecac bottle during the scene. Only one is shown.
- Shout-Out:
- "Here's where Brian goes berserk" is a reference to the "Here's where Cameron goes berserk" scene from Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
- Peter asking if Stewie's smart or more like him (even though this was long before any of the family knew he was mentally retarded), quoted verbatim from Forrest Gump asking about his son.
- Statler and Waldorf are in attendance at Ford's Theatre. One of them notes that Lincoln, who has just been shot, is the lucky one because "he doesn't have to sit through the rest of the show."
- Sound Effects Bleep: Stewie gets one when he upchucks over eating vomit, only for reverse time to send it right back in.
- Stable Time Loop: Stewie got his name because Brian went back in time.
- Staircase Tumble: Peter ends up going through one backwards.Peter: Dammit, I hate these new stairs!
- Take That!: Brian watches Meet the Press in reverse and observes that it consists of Republicans making ridiculous statements and the host then asking an unrelated question.
- Teeth Flying: Parodied during the reverse chicken fight as Peter and the Giant Chicken end up knocking teeth back into each other's mouth.
- Tempting Fate: Thanks to reverse time we see this happening backwards. During Peter's fight with the Giant Chicken, we see Seamus "falling" towards an explosion being reversed from a coffee shop that had been detonated by a stray grenade. After the explosion is undone, Seamus says: "Okay, Seamus, today's the day you finally ask out that barista. What's the worst that could happen?"
- Thermometer Gag: Stewie and Brian observe Herbert chasing a child in reverse while telling him to stand up because he's going to break the thermometer.
- Translation Convention: Time may be running backwards but no one's dialogue is.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Inverted, Played Straight, and then Inverted again. "WE ATE SO MUCH VOMIT!!"
