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"Da Boom"
Family Guy episode
The Griffins after Y2K.
Episode no.	Season 2 Episode 3
Written by	Neil Goldman Garrett Donovan
Directed by	Bob Jacques
Production no.	2ACX06
Original airdate	December 26, 1999
Guest stars
Patrick Duffy Victoria Principal Jack Perkins Will Sasso
Episode chronology ← Previous Next → "Holy Crap" "Brian in Love"
Family Guy (season 2) List of Family Guy episodes

"Da Boom" is the third episode of season 2 of Family Guy, originally aired on December 26, 1999. In it, Peter's newly adopted fears of the Y2K bug are realized after he cancels his family's New Year's Eve plans. After the Y2K apocalypse the Griffins must find a Twinkie factory to survive and establish a new town.^[1]

This is the first episode that aired with Mila Kunis as the voice of Meg, though it was the sixth produced. The episode also marks the first appearance of Ernie The Giant Chicken (who is unnamed in this episode). The fight is originally started by Peter, after he tries to use an expired coupon that the chicken gives him outside a restaurant. Peter's violent feud with the Giant Chicken became a running gag in the series.^[2]

Plot

After a man in a chicken suit warns Peter that the world will end because of Y2K, Peter locks his family up in their basement on December 31, 1999. A nuclear holocaust then occurs a few seconds after midnight, destroying much of the world and mutating, injuring, or killing many of the surviving citizens of Quahog. The Griffins remain free from mutations but Joe is melted into his driveway, his son Kevin is vaporized, while Quagmire and Cleveland have fused together and are now called "Clevemire", with the former wishing to be called "Quagland". Peter eats all the dehydrated food before and the family travels to Natick, Massachusetts, in hopes that the Twinkie (spelled "Twinkee" in the episode) factory survived. On the way, Stewie is exposed to nuclear waste and soon mutates into an octopus-like creature. Upon their arrival at Natick, they establish a town, dubbed New Quahog.

Their starting food supply is the Twinkee factory that was protected by a rock formation. Because it was Peter who knew about the factory's existence and led everyone else here, he is permitted to become the head of the town's government. Joe and "Clevemire" join him to form a ruling council. Despite their advice, Peter makes several disastrous mistakes, most notably by giving the citizens careers by having them draw one out of a hat. The last straw is when Peter tears up the city's water irrigation system in order to use its pipes to make guns, outraging the citizens. Meanwhile, Stewie, who has "gained girth" according to Lois, suddenly lays hundreds of eggs in the basement of their house.

Despite Peter's insistence that he is fit to be a leader, the townspeople run him out of New Quahog, and his family follows him. The citizens proceed to burn the guns Peter made when Stewie's spawn hatch and destroy the city; ironically, the citizens could have saved themselves with the guns. As the family walks away, oblivious to the town's destruction, they decide where they should go next: a Carvel factory in Framingham, Massachusetts.

The episode ends in a live-action parody of a famous episode of Dallas ("Blast from the Past"), where Pamela Barnes Ewing wakes to find her husband Bobby in the shower. She tells him about the episode, which was apparently a dream, thus retconning the entire episode. Although after she tells him about the dream, he says "What's Family Guy?" and both of them turn and look confused with Bobby looking directly at the camera, breaking the fourth wall.^[1][3]

Reception

Ahsan Haque of IGN rated the episode a 10/10, saying "Overall, this episode easily ranks as one of the best in the series. Almost every joke succeeds, and the far-fetched alternate reality storyline thoroughly entertains. Despite the fact that all of the events in the episode are revealed to be a dream, it doesn't take away from the high degree of amusement provided."^[4]

References

External links

• Da Boom on Family Guy Wiki, an external wiki
• Da Boom at the Internet Movie Database
• "Da Boom" at TV.com