I Am Peter, Hear Me Roar

Plot summary

Peter and the neighbors are notified by mail that they will receive free boats if they attend a timeshare sales pitch. However, during a high-pressure sales interview, Peter trades the boat for a mystery box, which turns out to contain tickets for a comedy club. At the club, Peter becomes drunk and attempts to tell jokes on stage. Before his brief performance, during which he mostly abuses the audience, he puts his beer bottle upside down in his pants from the inside, which spills down through his crotch. The audience, amused that Peter looks like he wet himself, laughs hysterically, leading drunk Peter to believe they liked his jokes. Peter thus believes his humor to be a hit.

Continuing his hubris, Peter tells a sexist joke at his job at the Happy-Go-Lucky Toy Factory that offends female coworker Sarah Bennett, whose lawyer, Gloria Ironbox, offers to drop sexual-harassment charges if Peter goes to a sensitivity-training program. But since this has no effect, he's further sent on a women's retreat, where he continues to make insensitive comments until he endures pain comparable to childbirth: taking his bottom lip and stretching it behind his head.

By the time he returns home, he has become very effeminate. At first, Lois appreciates Peter's new sensitive nature, but she soon tires of him spending more time in front of the mirror, doing pregnancy tests and scolding Lois for slavishly attending to her husband. She appeals to Peter's friends for help, even going to Quagmire's house to confess that the "new" Peter is not meeting all her needs. Meanwhile, the other guys try to bring Peter back to normal by bringing him among his "fellow men." Cleveland takes Peter to a black convention where Peter blames the assemblage for all the crime and problems and chides them that they should be ashamed for ruining society; they believe he is a racist and chase him through the streets.

But when Peter and Lois attend a women's gala, Gloria insults Lois by saying that her current lifestyle is the reason for Peter's former disrespect of women. Lois reminds her that she is a woman and that she has a choice and she chooses to be a mother and homemaker. When Gloria says Lois' children must be "screwed up," Lois furiously punches her and the women get into a clothes-shredding catfight. Aroused by the scene, Peter pulls Lois out and rushes her home to have sex. When they finish, Lois comments on how wonderful it was; her voice startles Peter as he has already forgotten that she is still there, but since she is, he asks her to make him a sandwich. This pleases Lois because it means he is back to his old self.

Reception

In his 2008 review, Ahsan Haque of IGN, rating the episode an 8.5/10, stated that the episode is "cleverly written" and features "a couple of the best scenes in the entire series". However, he noted that "the over-the-top satire might not hit the right chords with everyone".

Lawsuit

In July 2013, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario dismissed a frivolous and vexatious complaint filed under the name "Gloria Ironbox." The complaint was dismissed largely because the tribunal quickly learned that the name was the same of that of a parody feminist character in this episode. The complaint attacked the "heteronormative" and "phallocentric" nature of the A&W Burger Family. The complainant sought $50,000 in damages and an order requiring A&W to adopt product names which better represented the "LGBTQ2S" community. One suggested product was the "Pillow Biter", described by Ironbox as "a large and thick dark wiener stuffed firmly between two, white, clenched buns." The Tribunal found the complaint "outrageous", "frivolous and vexatious" and "an abuse of process."