Jungle Love (Family Guy)

Did You Know?

• The episode was directed by Peter Shin and Seth Kearsley.
• It featured special guest appearances from Ralph Garman, Lisa Wilhoit, Danny Smith, and Nicole Sullivan.
• Carrie Fisher made her first appearance as Angela, Peter's boss.

Plot

Chris is looking forward to starting high school, but Joe warns him about the Freshman Hunt, a tradition where older students and even teachers beat freshmen with paddles. Lois drops Chris off and tells him not to worry, then immediately yells "Freshman!" to attract a crowd. Chris gets chased down and paddled by several people, including Mayor Adam West. Back home, he asks Brian for advice, and Brian shares stories from his Peace Corps days. Inspired, Chris joins the Peace Corps and heads to South America, where the locals take a liking to him. When he leads them in a dance to "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go," he accidentally marries the chief's daughter according to local custom. Meanwhile, Peter has been out of work for a while and gets a job at the Pawtucket Brewery, where employees can drink for free as long as they don't do it during their shift. Peter can't resist, so he gets demoted to the shipping department, where drinking is banned, and ends up working under Opie, a man with an intellectual disability who babbles unintelligibly but still has more competence than Peter. Lois finds out about Chris's marriage and takes the whole family to South America. When they arrive, Peter is treated like the richest man in the country with only $37, and he pays the natives small change to do whatever he wants. Chris accuses Peter of using the locals to run from his problems, but Lois points out that Chris did the same thing. Chris decides to go back to Rhode Island and tells his new wife he has to leave, casually mentioning he's a freshman and that she's only 11. The natives react by chasing the Griffins in a hostile way, just like the Freshman Hunt back home, and Chris realizes he can't escape his issues. The family escapes on a seaplane, but they leave Meg behind, face-down in the river, covered in darts and arrows.

Cultural references

The episode’s title nods to songs by both The Time and the Steve Miller Band. Cultural nods include Stewie turning into a tootsie, Lou Gehrig’s failed evil scheme, and Kevin Federline’s Magic Mirror, which is actually Peter. Wham!’s 1984 hit “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” plays. Chris’s paddling at school mirrors a scene from Dazed and Confused, backed by Alice Cooper’s “No More Mr. Nice Guy.” A cutaway shows Stewie in a stage version of My Left Foot; another has him violently attacking Will Ferrell after disliking the film Bewitched. The final scene echoes Raiders of the Lost Ark.