No Meals on Wheels

"No Meals on Wheels" is a season 5 episode of the FOX animated television series Family Guy. Its title is a parody of the Meals on Wheels program.

Plot summary

After Peter begins wearing flannel pajamas, he begins to notice that he can shock people with static electricity by rubbing his feet on the carpet. Annoyed by this, Lois has the carpet completely removed. When this is done Brian finds an old coin under the carpet, which is sold for fifty thousand dollars. With the money, Peter and Lois decide to live their dream of owning their own restaurant, naming it Big Pete's House of Munch. The restaurant at first is a complete failure, however, Joe promises to bring his friends. Peter is at first excited because he believes it will become a hang out for police officers, only to find that Joe is actually bringing in fellow paraplegics. The restaurant becomes a huge success among handicapped people, however, Peter is convinced handicapped people are "uncool" and he bans them from entering. The handicapped people come back, and when not allowed into the restaurant, they unite into a giant robot and destroy the restaurant. After getting trapped under the rubble, Peter is wheelchair bound for two weeks. When he discovers how hard it is to be handicapped after 45 minutes, Peter apologizes to Joe.

Cultural references

• At the beginning of the episode, an enraged Tyra Banks turns into a giant iguana and devours a displeased America's Next Top Model contestant.
• Peter states that Mort is a bigger mooch than the Mexican Super Friends. This leads to a cutaway where we see a gathering of Mexican versions of various superheroes from DC Comics in the "Mexican Hall of Justice", among others Mexican Green Lantern, Mexican Aquaman and Mexican Superman. When the landlord complains about the number of people residing in the house, Mexican Superman claims that they are only visiting. This is proven to be false when Mexican Batman turns up with 60 copies of the key to the house.
• Peter implies that he would want to switch vocal cords with Patrick Stewart.
• Peter's statue at Big Pete's House of Munch is a parody of the Big Boy statue.
• The show makes a reference to the theme song to Maude and makes fun of its rather long theme song.
• In a cutaway, Stewie is seen having a psychiatric session with Violet and Pig-Pen, where he mocks Violet for not knowing why she gets urinary tract infections.
• Peter states that he hired M. Night Shyamalan to direct the TV commercial for his restaurant. This commercial is shown to be a parody of The Sixth Sense.
• Peter tells his friends that it was Ben Stiller who taught him to be himself. In the cutaway, Stiller is shown to have ridicously large ears, which he can even use to fly. As he flies away, Peter says "His movies are terrible".
• Peter's logo for the restaurant resembles the Big Boy logo.
• Peter makes a reference to M. C. Escher in a parody of MC Hammer. The setting of the video was based on Escher's Relativity.
• Peter makes a reference to Gil Gerard.
• When Mort Goldman is scared by Peter's "ScareJew," he screams "Protect Jon Stewart! He's our most important Jew!" Jon Stewart is the host of The Daily Show. The "ScareJew", though dressed as Adolf Hitler, is similar to Princess Clara's "JewCrow" from Drawn Together, though the "JewCrow" was a waiter with a sign saying "Tips please".