5. I Dream Of Jesus
Season: 7
Episode: 2
Original Air Date: October 5th, 2008 Many critics feel that Family Guy can often take a single joke or gag, once hilarious, and run it into the ground until it is no longer funny. It's a valid point, even if you don't always view it as a terrible thing, thinking that some shows would be lucky to have that many funny jokes to run into the ground to begin with. There may not be a more repeated joke in Family Guy history than the several plays of "Surfin' Bird" by The Watchmen in this episode. The song reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1963, but thanks to Family Guy, received a huge amount of publicity 45 years after its release. Even if you've never seen this episode, there's a good chance you've heard someone jokingly sing the song at some point. The song is such a strong point of the episode that people tend to forget what the entire episode is about. Peter hears the song at a restaurant, and he says it's his favorite song of all-time, so he obtains the record from the restaurant when they tell him they were ready to throw it away. He drives his family crazy by playing the song almost non-stop, and then blows thousands of dollars on purchasing television time to talk about the song. Brian and Stewie steal the record while Peter sleeps, and they destroy it. The following morning, Peter angrily heads to the record store to purchase another copy. At the record store, he finds that Jesus Christ has returned and is an employee there. The rest of the episode is your normal Family Guy ridiculousness. Peter and Jesus become close friends, and Peter convinces Jesus to make his return public, so Jesus hits the talk show and awards show circuits, becoming a huge celebrity, and ignoring Peter for his new Hollywood friends. However, after being arrested, Jesus asks Peter to bail him out, and he realizes that he might not be mature enough to make a proper return just yet. He leaves, but not before giving Peter a gift for everything he has done... a brand new copy of "Surfin' Bird", which Peter begins to play again. If you aren't tired of hearing the song by the end of the episode, you're in the minority. Most feel they took a random gag, made it funny, then made it hilarious with repetition, then took that repetition too far, making the joke unfunny. If you haven't seen the episode, you should go out of your way to check it out, and see how you feel about it.