page_title: Petarded
section_title: Production
hierarchical_section_title: Petarded / Production
caption_attribution_description: English: Seth MacFarlane at the 2010 Comic Con in San Diego
context_page_description: "Petarded" is the sixth episode of the fourth season of the American animated television series Family Guy. It originally aired on Fox in the United States on June 19, 2005. It was written by Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild and directed by Seth Kearsley. In the episode Peter takes the MacArthur Fellows Program test to see if he is a genius. However, he performs so poorly that he is declared technically mentally retarded. Attempting to take advantage of the situation, he accidentally hospitalizes Lois while attempting to steal from a restaurant and loses custody of Meg, Chris, and Stewie.
  The episode's title is a double entendre, being both portmanteau between "Peter" and "Retarded" and also a reference to the Shakespeare-coined phrase "hoist with his own petard." This title practice would later be used on a few more episodes, namely "Peterotica" and "Petergeist".
  "Timer", a character from 1970s Saturday morning public service announcements, made an appearance in the episode. Series producers tried to get Lennie Weinrib, the actor who had voiced him in the original cartoon segments, to make a guest appearance in the episode.
context_section_description: "Petarded" was written by Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild and directed by former The Goode Family director Seth Kearsley before the conclusion of the fourth production season. Despite Sulkin and Wild writing the episode, the idea for "Petarded" came from series creator and executive producer Seth MacFarlane. The episode featured an appearance by "Timer", a character from 1970s Time for Timer Saturday morning cartoon public service announcements. Seth MacFarlane attempted to hire Lennie Weinrib, the actor who provided his voice for the character to appear in "Petarded" but, as MacFarlane describes in the DVD commentary, "he was a little old ... and he didn't remember doing it". Weinrib died one year after the debut of "Petarded".
  In the original draft of the episode, Peter being asked easy questions during Trivial Pursuit was meant to be by chance, but executive producer David A. Goodman proposed the storyline of easy questions being given to Peter by Lois. Prior to the episode broadcast, several sequences were shown after Peter discovers he can get away with anything on the basis that he is mentally challenged including a "how loud can I yell" experiment, as well as tackling down an opponent going for a touchdown while attending a New England Patriots game, but they were not deemed funny enough and scrapped.
  Various scenes in the episode were changed or removed because of broadcast censors. Originally, just after Peter hands Brian his test results from the MacArthur Program, Peter was to ask "Would a retarded person have peed in their pants?", then urinate in his trousers. However, because broadcasting standards prohibited this, it was changed to "Well, would a mentally retarded guy have hired a bulldozer with a drunk driver to level half of his house in celebration of his fantastic test results?". Brian stating to Peter "In your fucking face, Fuckwad" after Peter performs poorly on the test was censored from television broadcasting and on the censored track on the DVD, but can be heard uncensored on the uncensored audio track. This marks the first time that the word "fuck" has been heard uncensored in a Family Guy episode. The Family Guy orchestra sung and recorded a song for a sequence which showed several Quahog citizens learning and talking about Peter being declared as retarded. However, this was removed from the episode because broadcasting standards believed it used the word "retarded" too many times. After Peter loses custody of the kids, Chris was originally to stay with Mort Goldman, Stewie with Cleveland and Meg with Quagmire. During this original sequence, Mort was to tell Chris that he has two anuses, causing Quagmire to force Meg to lock him in a safe room as he could not trust himself around Meg's friends, but the series was prohibited from broadcasting it by an unknown authority, presumably broadcasting standards.
  In the episode's DVD commentary, MacFarlane addressed what viewers perceived to be a rather abrupt ending to the episode. As Peter has lost all hope in getting custody of his kids back, Lois walks through the front door, returning from the hospital, and has brought the kids home with her. MacFarlane stated, "Some of the fans actually noticed, commented on the fact that this was a very abrupt resolution, but, to that I would say, you're not watching CSI ... wouldn't you rather we throw in more jokes and fill up the time, and then hustle to the finish line at the last minute?".
  In addition to the regular cast, actor LeVar Burton, voice actor Gary Cole, actress Barclay DeVeau, actress Indigo, voice actor Phil LaMarr, actress Cloris Leachman, actor Len Maxwell, actress Natasha Melnick, voice actress Nicole Sullivan, and actress Lisa Wilhoit guest starred in the episode. Recurring guest voice actors Johnny Brennan, Ralph Garman, writer Mike Henry, writer Danny Smith, writer Alec Sulkin, and writer John Viener made minor appearances. Recurring guest cast member Patrick Warburton reprised his role of Joe Swanson in the episode.
caption: Family Guy's creator Seth MacFarlane came up with the idea for "Petarded".
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