Review: Family Guy “No Giggity, No Doubt”

Quagmire almost hooks up with a high schooler, but instead finds out that he’s a father.

Overview:

Peter gets involved with some Patriot fans going to the football game on a party bus. He becomes obsessed with getting on party buses. One of these buses consists in chaperoning high school students to the prom, where Quagmire shamelessly hits on Meg’s peer Courtney. Unfortunately, he discovers that she is his own illegitimate daughter. After finding out she doesn’t know her mother and has nowhere to live, he invites her to stay with him.
Somehow, Quagmire convinces Peter and Meg to join him and Courtney on a camping trip. After getting lost in the woods, Quagmire admits his frustration with becoming a father. But, being captured in a forest fire gives him a chance to rethink his life.

Our Take:

This episode starts off with Peter forgetting his lines. Which may seem like a pretty lame joke, but for some reason it still made me laugh. I am not explaining it well, but the manner that it took this episode to get going was done in a fourth wall breaking clever joke. Considering the many episodes of Family Guy and other animated sitcoms, you would think that a joke like this would have been done before, but I can’t think of an example. It is subtle jokes like this that can make Family Guy so enjoyable to watch. And, it instantly got me in the mood and ready to watch the show.

How many times have we seen Quagmire’s single bachelor life messed around with? The answer is a lot. But, this go around, Quagmire is thrown into the role of single father to a teenage daughter. He seemingly embraces the dad title by going all out, including making some terrible dad jokes. Watching Quagmire be a better father than the rest of us is a little disheartening. But, seeing him breakdown was much more realistic. As for how cannon this situation is, I am not certain if it will continue forward. I guess we will have to wait till next week, or five episodes from now (knowing Family Guy) to find out if Courtney continues to live with Quagmire. Either way, his character won’t change, but he may have a teenage girl living in his house now.

There was a pretty significant cut scene in this episode that included Peter listing off almost every reoccurring character on the show. The list also mentioned memorable one-shot characters and some of Seth MacFarlane’s other shows. After the lengthy list, Peter is called outside to see all of the characters that he mentioned. It is an impressive view of all of your favourites and even an illustration of The Orville. There is also a particular moment for those that have passed like Adam West. It was a short moment of the episode, but considering the epicness of it, it was worth a mention, and a gif should be made of the ten seconds soon.

You would think having a teenage girl living with Quagmire would be a powder keg of brilliant jokes to be manifested. Though it wasn’t the funniest episode of Family Guy, that’s for sure. Sure, there are a few solid jokes, but nothing shocking or over-the-top like we look for from this sitcom. But, what the episode lacks in humour, it is made up for in a strong plot. Often, my biggest complaint, this is one of the few episodes this season that Family Guy had one storyline that carried through without confusion and had a tangible conclusion. For that, I would have to say this was a strong show, without being a memorable home run.