No Meals on Wheels

Plot

Peter is annoyed by his friend Mort Goldman constantly borrowing his personal belongings, and eventually decides to create a "Scare-Jew", using his suit, which depicts Adolf Hitler in an attempt to keep Mort away from his house, which works later on. Frustrated, Lois takes him to a clothing store to get a new suit, where Peter finds some flannel pajamas. While wearing them, he suddenly notices that he can shock people with static electricity by rubbing his feet on the carpet. Annoyed by this, Lois asks Quagmire to completely remove the carpet, which leads the family to find an antique 18th century Rhode Island ship token, hidden under the carpet, which the family sells for $50,000. With the money, Peter and Lois decide to live their dream of owning a restaurant, naming it "Big Pete's House of Munch".

The Griffins' business has a shaky start and loses money until Joe promises to bring his friends to the restaurant. Peter is at first excited at the thought of his restaurant becoming the hangout for police officers, but eventually finds that Joe is actually bringing in fellow paraplegics. The restaurant becomes a huge success among handicapped customers, but Peter is disappointed that what was supposed to be a cool restaurant has become a "cafeteria at the veterans hospital," and did not want to take the profits for granted. Angered, Peter bans them from entering with a "no shirt, no shoes, no legs, no service" policy. Joe is perplexed why Peter would turn away loyal paying customers, much less a good friend like Joe, but Peter stubbornly refuses to allow handicapped customers. In response, the handicapped unite into a giant robot known as "CrippleTron", which begins attacking the restaurant while Peter, Chris and Stewie are on the roof. Stewie eventually takes matters into his own hands and defeats CrippleTron, which falls on Peter, breaking one of his legs. After being taken to the hospital, Peter needs to use a wheelchair for two weeks while his broken leg heals. Peter apologizes to Joe, who accepts his apology on the basis that he is glad to see Peter understand the difficulties of being disabled and that he does not want to continue holding a grudge against Peter. The two make amends, and things go back to the way they were and Peter closes down the restaurant.

Production

The episode was written by main cast member Mike Henry, who provides the voice for the Family Guy character Cleveland Brown, among others, and it was directed by series regular Greg Colton. In animating the Cripple-Tron sequence, Colton largely utilized computer technology to create the sequence, in addition to traditional animation and computer-generated imagery.

"No Meals on Wheels", along with the four other episodes from Family Guy's fifth season, were released on a three-disc DVD set in the United States on October 21, 2008. The sets included brief audio commentaries by Seth MacFarlane and various crew and cast members for several episodes, a collection of deleted scenes, a special mini-feature which discussed the process behind animating "100th Episode Special", and a mini-feature entitled Family Guy Live.

In addition to the regular cast, voice actor Barclay DeVeau, voice actor Keith Ferguson, singer Arnold McCuller and actor Patrick Stewart guest starred in the episode. Recurring guest voice actors Lori Alan, Johnny Brennan, writer Steve Callaghan, voice actor Chris Cox, writer Danny Smith, writer Alec Sulkin and writer John Viener also made minor appearances.

Reception

In a slight decrease from the previous week, the episode was viewed in 7.97 million homes in its original airing, according to Nielsen ratings, in the United States. The episode also acquired a 2.8 rating in the 18–49 demographic, slightly edging out The Simpsons, in addition to significantly winning over series creator Seth MacFarlane's second show on Fox, American Dad!, in both rating and total viewership. It was the 35th most-watched episode of the week.

Reviews of the episode were mostly mixed, stating that the episode had "its moments, [...] but as a whole, it was somewhat lacking." Ahsan Haque of IGN found it to be "one of the most bizarre and tasteless episodes of the season." Furthermore, Haque noted, "as with almost every episode of Family Guy, the plot takes many strange twists and turns. That often this leads to a muddled story with no sense of direction." Haque also stated, that he was "amused by Peter's static shocking escapade" and "liked the restaurant themed story angle," saying that it was well executed. Overall, Haque finally noted that the episode managed to recapture some of the show's "so-offensive-you-have-to-groan" feel that was prevalent during the first few seasons. The fight with the Cripple-Tron ranked tenth position on IGN's Top 10 Fights in the show. Brett Love of TV Squad found the cultural references to be a "mixed bag," but noted his enjoyment of the restaurant scenes, as well as Quagmire's brief appearance. In closing his review, Love stated, "Overall, this one just didn't work for me. It's worth a look for a couple of the bits, but not an episode I'll watch when it gets repeated. [...] They can't all be gems."

The Parents Television Council, which has frequently criticized the series, named the episode the "Worst TV Show of the Week" for the week ending April 6, 2007, for its insensitivity toward the disabled, as well as its gag depicting Adolf Hitler as a scarecrow, or "Scare-Jew," as it was referred to in the episode.