Recap / Family Guy S 7 E 4 Baby Not On Board

Airdate: November 2nd, 2008.

Peter is given an unlimited gas coupon for a year by Carl the convenience store clerk and Lois decides to use the card for a family road trip, but they accidentally leave Stewie behind and Stewie must learn to fend for himself until his family either comes back from the vacation or return after realizing they left him at home.

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Tropes present in "Baby Not On Board" include (YMMV Goes here):

• Ass Shove: Peter wakes the family up with a bugle horn and plays it as they go down the stairs. When he blows it in Chris' ear, Chris screams that if Peter blows the horn again, he will ram it up his ass.
• Big Eater: Stewie gets caught at McBurgerTown "sneaking a fish sandwich" during work. The pictures taken of him shows him devouring multiple fish sandwiches and then vomiting from overeating. Then he keeps on eating.
• Blatant Lies: Stewie's "what?" when confronted by a McBurgerTown employee about his sneaking food for him to eat.
• Bowdlerization: The following scenes were cut/altered between the TV version and the DVD version:
  • Peter's line, "Plus I've had a lot of time to rub one out, which in space is great..." has "rub one out" changed to the more direct "masturbate" when shown on Adult Swim and the DVD version. According to the DVD commentary, Seth MacFarlane and the other writers had to come up with a list of masturbation euphemisms in case the censors objected to the use of "masturbate" (he then joked that Peter's following line, "... like living in a snow globe" wasn't a problem with the censors).
  • The scene of Peter waking everyone up with a bugle so they won't be late for their family trip (and Chris snapping, "Fuck! You blow that fucking horn again, I swear to God, I will ram that fucking thing up your goddamn ass!") was cut entirely on TV, but can be seen on DVD.
  • The scene of Stewie trying to change his own diaper has a cutaway of Joseph (Jesus' mortal father according to the Bible) sitting outside his bedroom while Mary and God have sex.
  • The scene of Peter trying to watch a porno playing in the other car: On the TV version, he refers to the porno as Operation Dumbo Sex. On the DVD, it's Operation Dumbo Screw.
  • The end with Quagmire and Cleveland chained in the basement and forced to watch the DirecTV channel tutorial: When the episode first aired, it ended with Cleveland telling Quagmire that he's getting his own spin-off (The Cleveland Show). In reruns, it was replaced with Quagmire yelling, "Crap!" when the channel tutorial starts up again. On DVD, "Crap!" is changed to "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!"
• Cluster F-Bomb: In the uncensored version, Quagmire is reduced to this at the end after getting fed up of having to watch the DirecTV help channel playing over and over again.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: Stewie chains up Cleveland and Quagmire in the basement with the DirecTV help channel playing on a continuous loop.
• The Dreaded Toilet Duty: Stewie was furious about having to clean the bathroom at his new job at Mc Burgertown and refused to clean it a second time. However, his disgust to go back was understandable. ^note It should be noted he was also working as a cashier and the fry station as well.
  Stewie: No! No! It was literally only on the floor. All right? There was no attempt to get near the toilet. It's like they just... Pressed their buttocks against the wall.The only part of the floor that didn't have poo on it was the part that had baby on it.
• Easily Forgiven: Peter's rebuttal to Lois's "The Reason You Suck" Speech manages to make Lois feel bad.
• Flanderization: Peter's stupidity is amped up in this episode by a million percent. It gets so bad that he leaves the car he's driving to watch a movie with another family in a car leaving the car he was driving to crash almost killing his entire family.
• Karma Houdini: To go along with the above-mentioned Easily Forgiven, Peter once again suffers no consequence for literally almost getting his family killed due to his sheer stupidity and lack of focus. What makes this one especially bad is the fact that he probably wasn't even paying attention to Lois calling him out and just felt like quoting Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
• Improvised Diaper: Near the end of the episode, when Stewie runs out of clean diapers, he is down to using Meg's last hat.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Lois manages to dish a harsh but incredibly justified one out to Peter, actually stating that a monkey would be comparable to him. Peter conjures up a rebuttal quickly.
  Lois: You are unbelievable! The last four days have been a living hell! Our baby is at home all by himself yet instead of getting us home you've managed to make things worse at every turn! A monkey would be a refreshing step-up from you—a monkey would talk less. Here's a little tip: if your instincts tells you to do something, don't do it. If your instincts tell you not to do something, it's probably the right thing to do!
  (Beat)
  Peter: You wanna hurt me? Go right ahead, if it makes you feel any better. I'm an easy target. Yeah, you're right. I talk too much. I also listen too much. Oh, I could be a cold-hearted cynic like you. But I don't like to hurt people's feelings. And you think what you want about me; I'm not changing. I like... I like me. My kids like me. My friends like me. 'Cause I'm the real article. What you see is what you get.
• Shout-Out:
  • Home Alone: The subplot of Stewie being left behind and setting traps to capture whom he thinks are burglars (they're actually Quagmire and Cleveland) in his basement.
  • Planes, Trains and Automobiles: Another John Hughes film. Peter's speech and the fact that he brought shower curtain rings.
    Chris: Haha, movie references!
  • The cutaway with Fozzie Bear performing for Arabs parodies the "fat sailor" joke from The Muppet Movie.
  • Cleveland and Quagmire are forced to watch the DirecTV help channel tutorial on an endless loop until Quagmire loses his shit.
• Take That!: To The War on Terror:
  Peter: Ground Zero. So there is where the first guy got AIDS.
  Brian: Peter, this is the site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
  Peter: Oh, so Saddam Hussein did this?
  Brian: No.
  Peter: The Iraqi Army?
  Brian: No.
  Peter: Some guys from Iraq?
  Brian: No.
  Peter: That one lady who visited Iraq that one time?
  Brian: No. Peter, Iraq had nothing to do with this. It was a bunch of Saudi Arabians, Lebanese and Egyptians, financed by a Saudi Arabian guy living in Afganistan and sheltered by Pakistanis.
  Peter: So you're saying we need to invade Iran?
• Too Desperate to Be Picky: When food runs out at the Griffin house, Stewie gets a job a McBurgerTown to make money to get food. He gets caught devouring many fish sandwiches during work due to his severe hunger and gets fired because of this.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: Even by Peter's standards, he's a complete dolt in this one, and Lois lets him know this.