page_title: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Fonz
section_title: Production
hierarchical_section_title: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Fonz / Production
caption_attribution_description: English: Publicity photo of Fonzie (Henry Winkler) and Richie (Ron Howard) from Happy Days.
context_page_description: "The Father, the Son, and the Holy Fonz" is the 18th episode of the fourth season of the American animated television series Family Guy. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on December 18, 2005. The episode follows Peter's decision to find a new religion for himself. After several failed attempts, he chooses the one man who has always been there for him, Fonzie, and starts the First United Church of the Fonz.
  The episode was written by Danny Smith and directed by James Purdum. It received mostly positive reviews from critics for its storyline and many cultural references. According to Nielsen ratings, it was viewed in 8.26 million homes in its original airing in the United States. The episode featured guest performances by Paula Abdul, Tom Bosley, Gary Cole, Charles Durning, Sherman Hemsley, Phil LaMarr, Sherry Romito, Marion Ross, Amir Talai, Fred Tatasciore, Sarah Utterback and Wally Wingert, along with several recurring guest voice actors for the series.
context_section_description: Episode writer and executive show producer Danny Smith has written all Family Guy episodes to date to feature Francis; the first was "Holy Crap". After Francis puts up the Christian cross on the Griffins' dining table, Stewie's line, "Yeah, nothing says 'eat up' like a bleeding, half-naked Jew nailed to a piece of wood," was censored from the FOX and syndicated airings, but retained on the Cartoon Network, TBS, and DVD versions. A sequence shows Peter saying, "I'm sorry, but if another person says taint today, I am going to bust a nut", after the doctor informs him and Lois that Stewie was exposed to tainted holy water, was intended to be included in the episode, but was removed for unknown reasons. After Stewie is placed in a square box to quarantine him, Lois is shown leaving him halfway through changing his diaper—Stewie then says "finish the job, woman! It smells like New Orleans in here". The script for this episode, including this sketch, was prepared before the events of Hurricane Katrina, so it was never intended to coincide with the events of Katrina. On all airings (including the volume 3 DVD set), Stewie's line has been changed to "It smells like Brian Dennehy in here!"
  The Fonz Statue in Peter's church was originally meant to depict The Fonz in a way similar to Jesus's depiction on the Christian cross, but it was rejected due to broadcasting standards. An animated scene showing the congregation of Peter's church singing the Happy Days theme tune was created but never used as the series producers were unable to obtain the rights to it. The series producers were not able to get Henry Winkler or Garry Marshall to guest-star in the episode, so to fill the time gap, they created the scene about Madonna, which they deemed to be "quite funny".
caption: The producers were unable to get Henry Winkler, who played the Fonz (left), to guest star in the episode
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