Western Animation / Family Guy Presents: Laugh It Up, Fuzzball

Peter: "This is a story of love and loss, fathers and sons, and the foresight to retain international merchandising rights. This is the story of Star Wars. Let's begin with part 4."

A long time ago, but somehow in the future...

It is a time of civil war,
and renegade paragraphs
floating through space.

There's cool space battles,
and the bad guy is the
good guy's dad, but you
don't find that out until the
next episode.

And this hot chick is really
the sister of the good
guy, but they don't know it,
and they kiss, which is
kinda messed up. I mean,
what if they had done it
instead of just kissed?

Angelina Jolie kissed her
brother. Yeah, she did. You
know it, I know it, and
her dad knows it. That's
why they hardly ever talk
anymore. You can run away
to Africa, but you can't run
away from the truth.

Oh, by the way, here's
a tip for you: when this
is over, go out and rent
the movie Gia. She's way
naked in it, and makes out
with another chick and
everything. It's awesome.
I stumbled across it late
at night on HBO after I
had just got back from
hockey, and I almost
fainted. But I digest...

Princess Leia was coming
back from buying space
groceries when this
happened...

^note For the other Opening Crawls, see here

Family Guy was already Reference Overdosed, so Seth MacFarlane decided to take that up to eleven, and recreate the whole original Star Wars trilogy.

Thus the episode "Blue Harvest"^note Named for the fake title for Return of the Jedi to get around locations overcharging them to shoot there. recreated A New Hope, and was a commercial and critical success. Then came "Something Something Something Dark Side"^note Based on a Cutaway Gag from the show. recreating The Empire Strikes Back, and finally "It's a Trap!"^note Based on Admiral Ackbar's Memetic Mutation line, although it was formerly going to be titled "We Have a Bad Feeling About This" which was based on the Running Gag a Star Wars character would say in a dangerous situation recreating Return of the Jedi. Any other films are up in the air. It was joked that the since-cancelled Cleveland Show could do the prequels (but they did a parody of Die Hard instead).^note American Dad! did James Bond, incidentally. (Albeit with original storylines, as opposed to directly spoofing any particular film.)

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The "Laugh It Up, Fuzzball" episodes provide examples of:

• Acting Unnatural:
  • In the first episode Peter-as-Han cautions Chris-as-Luke to "play it cool" when they're sneaking off to rescue Lois-as-Leia. This apparently entails slouching along jazzily to the strains of Cab Calloway's "Minnie the Moocher".
  • Used to spoof Han's "fly casual" line in the third episode, as the shuttle actually walks past the Star Destroyer while whistling.
    Stewie/Vader: Where is that casual acting shuttle headed?
• Actor Allusion:
  • At the end of the first episode, Peter and Chris discuss the Robot Chicken Star Wars parodies; Peter dismisses Robot Chicken, while Chris defends it. Chris is voiced by Seth Green, creator of Robot Chicken.
  • The Jedi special makes Green into a Butt-Monkey, which acts as Chris/Luke's Berserk Button. After the story, Chris asks Peter what he has against Green, and makes some comments about MacFarlane's talent instead; Brian, Stewie, and Peter all defend MacFarlane, and Meg (Mila Kunis), Lois (Alex Borstein), and Chris (Green) all say he's a dick.
  • Peter also mentions Without A Paddle which Seth Green starred in.
  • When Jabba gives the order to shove Luke into the Sarlacc pit (played by Meg), his Huttese is clearly "Miiiilllllllaaaa Kuuunisssssss"
• Adam Westing: Rush Limbaugh doing a spoof of his show as if it was in the Star Wars universe.
  • He also shows up in It's A Trap as the Rancor.
  • Surprisingly, Adam West doesn't do this.
• Affably Evil: Darth Stewie is this to some of the enemies, and out and out friendly to Chris/Luke in "It's a Trap!"
• Affectionate Parody: Of Star Wars. (Although it's less affectionate by the time they get to Jedi.)
• Armor Is Useless: The Stormtroopers in "It's A Trap!" complain about how worthless their armor is, since it can't even repel the Ewoks' stone-age weapons. Some of them even get blinded by arrows.
• Better than a Bare Bulb: The cast frequently lampshades the aspects of the Star Wars franchise.
• Big Blackout: Used in the frame story to justify Peter Griffin telling the Star Wars stories. True to form, once his reciting the story ends, the power comes back on. Lampshaded by Stewie:
  Stewie: What are we in, Iraq? This happens entirely too often!
• Bloodier and Gorier: It's a Trap! ups the level of violence a good deal from the previous two installments.
• Breaking In Old Habits: Chris/Luke Skywalker gets a replacement hand. The doctor tells him "Practice on a hot dog first. Otherwise you might rip your dick off."
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Frequently, often to remind us that this is a parody of Star Wars.
• Brother–Sister Incest: The squicky implications of Leia's line that she "somehow always knew" Luke was her brother are discussed. She reveals that it's no big deal back on Alderaan, "the Mississippi of the galaxy."
• Brought Home the Wrong Kid: In Blue Harvest, Peter mentions that he and Lois got halfway home with the afterbirth before going back to the hospital and swapping it out for Meg.
• The Bus Came Back: One episode of the show had a running gag of a character who would constantly call Peter a phony. Despite being only in one episode, for one gag, nine years earlier, he was brought back for "Something Something Something Dark Side" as Admiral Ozzel.
• …But He Sounds Handsome: At the conclusion of "It's a Trap!" Chris, Meg, and Lois all rip on Seth MacFarlane after the myriad jokes he'd made about Seth Green during the episode - at which point Peter, Stewie, and Brian all stick up for Seth, with Brian even employing this specific trope.
• But I Digress: The opening scroll for "It's a Trap" goes into an unrelated rant instead of talking about the plot:
  "Luke Skywalker has returned to his home planet of Tatooine in order to— okay, you know what, we don’t care. We were thinking of not even doing this one. Fox made us do it. When we did Blue Harvest, they said, "Oh, you guys are crazy." They tried to talk us out of it, and it ended up making a ton of money. By then we were just finishing Empire, and we were absolutely exhausted. But Fox suddenly had dollar signs in their eyes, and they said, "Seth, if you don't do Jedi, we're not gonna let you leave to go direct your movie." I'm sorry. I took a muscle relaxer earlier and it's kicking in. I'm just so stressed because there's been a car parked in front of my house for three straight days and there's a pillow in the back seat. And I've never seen anyone get in or out of it, but it moves a couple feet one way or the other each day. Wouldn't it be funny if it was a bunch of raccoons living in there, moving it? You know, with their little paws on the steering wheel? And then another one working the brake and the gas? And the steering wheel raccoon and the pedal raccoon have to talk back and forth to each other 'cause the brake pedal guy can't see the road? I'm gonna keep thinking that, 'cause I know really it's probably a car bum. Look, just do me a huge favor and lower your expectations, okay? Just this one time. I promise I'll make it up to you. I mean, Star Wars, fine. Empire —still not bad. But on this one we ran out of gas. Seriously, we let the assistant write it. Hell, even the Fed Ex guy got a joke in, and he calls the baby "Steve." Anyway, here's Return of the Jedi starring Steve as Darth Vader."
• The Cameo: Coach McGuirk makes an appearance at the Mos Eisley Pub.
  • As do Bender, Roger and the Evil Monkey.
  • Creator Cameo: Dominic Pulchino, the director of the episode, while an animated version of Seth MacFarlane appears as the guy putting the frozen Han into the cargo hold in "Dark Side"
  • And for voice acting and character ones, Adam West and James Woods.
• Crossover: Characters from American Dad! and The Cleveland Show are in the third episode.
  • This is lampshaded by Stewie (as Vader) at the beginning of the third episode when Roger appears. Stewie is surprised and says something to the effect of "It's you [Roger]? Are we really out of our own characters? We have to use you?"
  • In the background in the Mos Eisley cantina, we see Coach McGuirk from Home Movies, Roger from American Dad!, and Bender from Futurama.
    • In Dark Side, the Wampa is played by Cookie Monster.
• Darker and Edgier: During It's a Trap!, Han!Peter outright admits that he's trying to invoke this trope, because he's sick of the cutesy Ewoks.
  Han/Peter: Alright, I want you to go outside, take off those helmets and dig your own graves with them!
  Leia/Lois: ...Han, isn't that a little dark?
  Han/Peter: SHUT UP! There's enough cutesy crap in this movie. I think we all need this!
• Dated History: The DVD release of It's a Trap features a throwaway gag of Osama bin Laden popping up in the middle of the Tatooine desert to announce "Still alive!" Less than three weeks before the television premiere, this ceased to be so. The sequence was edited out of the televised version.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: In the original Star Wars trilogy, Darth Vader is mortally wounded by Palpatine and allows Luke to remove his mask to take what little life he has left. Here, Luke!Chris accidentally snaps Darth Stewie's neck when trying to take the mask off, and if Stewie's ghost is being honest, he would have been perfectly fine otherwise.
• Dirty Old Man: Obi-Wan is this in the special, owing to who he is portrayed by (Old Man Herbert).
• Disney Death: Despite John Williams being killed in Blue Harvest, he appears again in It's A Trap.
• Dude, Not Funny!: In Something, Something, Dark Side, when Peter observes that Lando (Mort) might be the only black man in the galaxy:
  Brian: Heh. Let's hope, right?
  Peter, Lois, and Quagmire: Woah!
• The Elevator from Ipanema: In "Blue Harvest", an elevator muzak version of "The Imperial March" plays when the protagonists are in the elevator.
• Gangsta Style: Cleveland/R2 shooting a TIE Fighter that way.
  "Yeah-heah! That's how we do it in my neighborhood, Bitch!"
• Go Through Me: Quoth Aunt Beru - "Over my burnt carcass."
• Hunting Is Evil: Discussed when Luke/Chris talks about hunting womp rats with his T-16.

  C-3PO/Quagmire: You shoot small animals for fun? That's the first indicator of a serial killer, you freak!

  Luke/Chris: There's two suns and no women! What the hell am I supposed to do?!

• Hyperspace Is a Scary Place: It looks like—-no, is the first Fourth Doctor opening of Doctor Who.
• I Like Those Odds:
  C-3PO/Quagmire: Sir, the odds of successfully navigating an asteroid field are 2-1!
  Han/Peter: Never tell me the o- oh! Actually, that's not bad. Yeah, let's keep going.
• I'm a Humanitarian: In "It's a Trap", the scene from Jedi where an Ewok is killed in battle and another Ewok nudges him to no avail is parodied: After a couple nudges, the live Ewok starts eating the dead Ewok.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy:
  • In "Blue Harvest", when the group are fleeing the Death Star, no one is ever hit, even when Han (Peter) and Chewie (Brian) spend about 25 seconds standing at the doorway trying to get a couch through the door.
  • In "Something Something Something Dark Side":
    Stormtrooper 1: Did we ever hit anything with these guns?
    Stormtrooper 2: I hit a bird once.
• Italian-American Caricature: In "Blue Harvest", when Beru yells at Luke, a stereotypical Italian-American neighbor (overweight, slicked-back hair, white tank top, gold jewelry) sticks his head out of a window and yells "Hey! Shut up-a with the noise-a!" He's then joined by a chorus of identical-looking Italian-Americans who all start yelling at each other to "Shut up-a with the shut up-a!"
• Joke Exhaustion: In "Blue Harvest", Stewie makes multiple Star Wars-themed poop jokes.
  Leia (Lois): Governor Tarkin, I recognized your foul stanch as soon as I was brought on board.
  Darth Vader (Stewie): Actually, that was me. I made a darth doody. I sithed my pants. My diaper's gone over to the dark side. I have pages of these, I can go on.
• Kick the Dog: Chris/Luke casually mentions how he shoots wamprats, to which an appalled Quagmire/C-3PO says, "You kill small animals for fun?! That's the first indication of a serial killer, you freak!"^note He may joke, but in the Legends canon (the only canon at the time the episode was made), this was actually given a logical explanation: Anchorhead's government had placed a ten-credit bounty on each womp rat killed - their size and habits, plus being Explosive Breeders, made them severe pests to local human and alien populations. Luke and his friends took advantage of this, using the money they earned to help pay for their education and upgrades to their speeders.
• A Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far, Far Away...: Parodied in all three specials:
  Blue Harvest: A long time ago, but somehow in the future...
  Something, Something, Something, Dark Side: A long time ago, when the gays weren't all in your face about it...
  It's a Trap!: A long time ago, after M*A*S*H but before AfterMASH...
• Made of Explodium: The speeder bikes in It's A Trap explode when they run into things... even though here they're 10-speed bicycles. The last trooper explodes after he gets off the bike.
• Mailbox Baseball: During "Something, Something, Something, Dark Side", Darth Vader (Stewie) leans out of the window of the Executor to smash a mailbox perched on an asteroid.
• May the Farce Be with You: Family Guy's take on the Star Wars Trilogy.
• Mobile Fishbowl: In It's a Trap! Admiral Ackbar is Klaus, the goldfish from American Dad!, who pilots a robot body from a water-filled globe at the head. At one point, he gets annoyed at a cat that keeps pawing at the bowl.
• Mood-Swinger:
  Stewie/Vader: (ominously) The Force is with you, young Skywalker, but you are not a Jedi yet... (upbeat) You're gettin' there! You're gettin' there, though!
• Motivational Lie: Subverted in Something, Something Dark Side. One Imperial soldier asks why the rebels are really so bad to begin with, and Stewie claims that they kidnapped the dog of another crewmember. It seems like obvious wartime propaganda, but in the next scene it turns out that not only did they kidnap him, they killed and ate him too.
• N-Word Privileges: Spoofed.
  • This is the original scene in The Empire Strikes Back:
    Princess Leia: Why, you stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf herder!
    Han Solo: Who's scruffy-looking?
  • And the scene in Something, Something, Something Dark Side:
    Lois: Why, you stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf herder!
    Peter: *hits Lois* You can't use that word! Only we can use that word!
• Noodle Incident: Several, with three occurring in "Blue Harvest," both involving Obi-Wan/Old Man Herbert:
  • The first was in the scene where Obi Wan/Old Man Herbert receives the SOS signal from Princess Leia/Lois Griffin, where the latter mentions that (Obi-Wan) owes her for keeping several Alderaanian children silent for obviously sexual reasons, but the only thing we got out of her was "Joey Lawrence Haircut" due to Obi-Wan/Old Man Herbert fast forwarding through the details due to Luke Skywalker/Chris Griffin being nearby.
  • The second was when Darth Vader/Stewie Griffin encounters and duels Obi-Wan/Old Man Herbert, where it is mentioned that Vader/Stewie had placed a restraining order on Obi-Wan/Herbert with a distance limit of 50 yards for reasons unspecified.
  • Obi-Wan/Herbert also briefly mentioned something about sock puppets when telling Luke/Chris to use the Force to place the proton torpedos into the Death Star's thermal exhaust port that he entertained Luke/Chris with as a kid, but elaborates no further other than warning him not to mention the sock puppet shows because it would get him into trouble if he mentioned them.
• No OSHA Compliance: The alarming lack of railings on the platform next to the Death Star planet-blower-upper gun is lampshaded.
• "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: Brian notes Lando is wearing Han's clothes, and then looks at the audience and tells them to watch Empire again, as it actually does happen in the real movie.
• Off with His Head!: Chris/Luke does this to Danny Elfman. See Take That! below.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Need proof that Cleveland's voiced by a white guy? Look no further than R2's pronunciation of "2-pack"'s name in Blue Harvest.
• Orchestral Bombing: Most notable during the Millennium Falcon/TIE-Fighter battle. Peter/Han sings along to it.
• Overly Long Gag:
  • Most spoofing actual scenes from the movies.
  • In Jedi, the scene of all the heroes nodding to each other before making their move is repeated over and over in It's a Trap!. Finally, Smails says, "Well?? We're waiting."
• Parody Assistance: George Lucas helped production, as he's a fan (and stated Family Guy and Jackass are the only TV shows he regularly watches).
• Pimped Out TIE Fighter: One of the patrolling TIE fighters in the first movie is pimped out, complete with ridiculous bling, hydraulics and annoying loud subwoofers.
• Plot Armor: Lampshaded by Peter/Han in the second episode when flying through the asteroid field.
  Peter/Han: Look, we got four or five of the main characters on this ship. I think we'll be fine.
• Power Outage Plot: Downplayed in all three specials, in which the Framing Device has the Griffin house get hit by a power outage and Peter decides to retell the original Star Wars trilogy. When the power failure happens in the third special, they waste little time on banter and go straight to the Return of the Jedi retelling.
• Punch-Clock Villain: One of the Imperial guards pleading with Peter/Han says he just does data entry.
• Reference Overdosed: It's still Family Guy, so this can't be left out.
• The Smurfette Principle: To the point where the guys are shocked when Mon Mothma appears (done by a character voiced by Carrie Fisher).
  • The DVD commentary for "It's a Trap" mentions that Fisher was initially reluctant to voice for the special, but relented when she came to the conclusion that she'd be playing Angela and not Leia.
  • Before Mon Mothma shows up, this is lampshaded in Obi-Wan's reveal of Leia as Luke's sister: "Think about it. Who's the only damn woman in this whole freaking galaxy?!"
  • And as soon as Mon Mothma shows up, Leia immediately declares "I don't like her" before Mon Mothma even has a chance to say anything. Somehow, Leia is threatened by there being another person of her gender in the galaxy.
• Something Else Also Rises: Herbert's lightsaber is limp until he sees Chris. At that point it... throbs.
• Space "X":
  • The Opening Crawl for the first special ends with "Princess Leia was coming back from buying space groceries when this happened..."
  • Then there's this dialogue in the same special:
    Tom Tucker: What's the weather like, Ollie?
    Ollie Williams: SPACE WEATHER!
    Tom Tucker: Thanks, Ollie.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Biggs, mostly because he wasn't able to take off for the battle due to an unspecified injury that resulted in him being confined to a wheelchair.
• Take That!: Some spoofs of this, some straight ones, like at Danny Elfman.
  • A giant one towards Fox in the text crawl of Something Something Something Dark Side, saying how the network that cancelled a lot of good shows in Seth's opinion didn't deserve the time and money it invests. Which it then furthered the point by interrupting the crawl to have a CG purple elephant waltz across the screen just to waste money.
    Text Crawl: Did you see that? Know what that cost? $58,000. I mean, what a waste. It wasn't even that funny. That's $58,000 that could have gone to curing leukemia. Or muscular dystrophy. Or... what does Michael J. Fox have? That.
  • Also done at the end of It's a Trap! towards the series creator Seth McFarlane, by Chris, Lois, and Meg as revenge for Peter Griffin constantly ripping down Robot Chicken.
  • Some of the jokes in It's a Trap seem a little less... affectionate parody than the other two.
    Peter: Did the Ewoks braid your hair?
    Lois: I know, it's not as good as Empire.
• The Teaser: Each installment begins with the Griffin family watching various television programs before the lights go out.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Sandwich: At one point, Chris/Luke comments on the fact that someone threw out half a pizza and asks who would do that.
• This Is Gonna Suck:
  • At the beginning of "It's a Trap", the family doesn't seem so thrilled once they realize they have to go through Jedi.
    Stewie: (annoyed) We're about to do Jedi, aren't we?
    Peter: (wearily) Let's just get through this.
  • Also done during the text crawl.
    "You know what, we don’t care. We were thinking of not even doing this one. Fox made us do it."
• Title Drop: "It's a trap! Also, whose cat?"^note Jabba's?
• Too Dumb to Live: "Something, Something, Something, Dark Side" has Dak decide he can take on the Empire by himself. In a snow speeder. He is promptly killed after confronting the Imperial fleet.
• Universal-Adaptor Cast: The story of Star Wars is retold with the characters of Family Guy filling in for all of the main players.
• Unusual Euphemism: "Save Yub Nub ^note the (unofficial) name of the Ewok celebration music at the end of Jedi... pre-Special Edition, anyway. for me. Come to think of it, you can also shave your yub nub for me."
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Boba Fett disappears mid-battle instead of being consumed by Meg/Sarlacc. Presumably, this was cut for time.
• Whole-Plot Reference: "Blue Harvest" to A New Hope, "Something, Something, Something, Dark Side" to The Empire Strikes Back and "It's A Trap" to Return of The Jedi.
• Would Hit a Girl: Peter/Han hits Lois/Leia for calling him a nerf herder. He claims only he's allowed to say that word.
• You and What Army?: In one episode, Chris/Luke asks Carter/Emperor Palpatine "You and what lightning hands?", then gets zapped.

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