Wasted Talent

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"Wasted Talent"
Family Guy episode
Episode no.Season 2
Episode 20
Directed byBert Ring
Story byDave Collard and
Ken Goin
Teleplay by Mike Barker and
Matt Weitzman
Production code2ACX15
Original air dateJuly 25, 2000 (2000-07-25)
Guest appearances
Episode chronology
 Previous
"The Story on Page One"
Next 
"Fore, Father"
Family Guy season 2
List of episodes

"Wasted Talent" is the 20th and penultimate episode of the second season of the American animated television series Family Guy , and the 27th episode overall. The episode aired on Fox on July 25, 2000. This episode marks the first time that Chris Griffin has had no speaking lines in an episode. This episode is rated TV-PG-D (TV-14 on Adult Swim reruns) in the United States and 15 in the United Kingdom.

Contents

Plot

Lois desperately searches for one piano student who can beat her rival Alexis Radcliffe's student at the piano competition. Meanwhile, Peter drinks even more Pawtucket Patriot beers than usual in an attempt to find a hidden silver scroll and win a tour of the brewery. The next day, Joe finds the first silver scroll. Sometime later, the last scroll is found, causing Peter to give up. Tom Tucker later admits he made up the story about the last scroll being found and then puts a carnivorous earwig in his ear to make up for it. Peter decides to drink one more beer, which turns out to have the last silver scroll. But as Peter runs all the way homeward, he falls, clutches his kneecap, and moans over and over again.

The next day, Peter and Brian go to the brewery tour (based on Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory ). Pawtucket Pat (Michael McKean) is seemingly killed on his front walkway, but the killer turns out to be Cheech Marin, hired to pull off a gag. Since the brewery does not have wheelchair ramps, Joe leaves the tour. After experiencing the "beer room", Peter and Brian split off from the group to try a beer that never goes flat, despite Pat's warning that they have not worked out all the kinks. When Peter and Brian drink the beer, they begin floating upward towards a ceiling-mounted exhaust fan. To save themselves, they fart repeatedly until they reach the ground. When Pat finds Peter and Brian in the forbidden room, he bans them from the brewery.

Angry at Pawtucket Pat, Peter tries to get Lois's attention by playing the piano, showing that he can play piano perfectly when drunk. Lois decides to enter Peter as her student in the piano competition and keeps him in a state of constant inebriation. Peter's piano repertoire is TV show theme songs. Stewie then asks Peter to play "Lonely Man" from The Incredible Hulk as he is mimicking Bruce Banner asking for hitchhiking (slowly walking to the doorstep while doing so). At the competition, Peter is so drunk that he cannot even find the piano. Lois has to turn him around to face the piano, then move him over a couple of inches to play in the correct key. Peter and Lois win first place, but Lois frets that she may have harmed his health for her own selfish need to win. Peter defensively tells her that his brain cells are intact. There is one left, and it realizes that it is the only cell in the brain. He can finally read all of his books; he then bends down and breaks his glasses, exclaiming "That's not fair! It's not fair! There was time now!". This is a reference to The Twilight Zone episode "Time Enough at Last".

During the credits, Stewie (in the live-action scene) is at the roadside, asking for hitchhiking but passing-by drivers ignore him (while "Lonely Man" is still playing).

Production

Mike Barker and Matt Weitzman wrote the teleplay of the episode. Mike Barker and Matt Weitzman by Gage Skidmore.jpg
Mike Barker and Matt Weitzman wrote the teleplay of the episode.

The episode's storyline was written by Dave Collard and Ken Goin, and the episode's teleplay was written by series regulars Mike Barker and Matt Weitzman, and directed by series regular Bert Ring before the conclusion of the second production season.

Cultural references

Reception

In his 2009 review, Ahsan Haque of IGN, rating the episode a 7.8/10, said that "Wasted Talent" has a "decent quantity of hilarious moments" but it is not as memorable as other episodes in season 2. He stated that the storyline is not cohesive enough, and the scenes about the Pawtucket Patriot Brewery "take up a little too much screen time". [1]

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References

  1. Haque, Ahsan (18 August 2009). "Family Guy: "Wasted Talent" Review". IGN. Archived from the original on 2009-08-21. Retrieved 2009-12-07.

Sources