"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 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 the 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. However, Weinrib declined reprising the role as he could not accurately recall the character. "Petarded" gained a Nielsen rating of 4.4, making it the week's 42nd most-watched program. Critics and news sources responded with high praise and many regard this episode as Family Guys best. Various scenes in the episode were removed by broadcast censors, including one musical number ("Peter is Slow"). It features the guest performances of LeVar Burton, Gary Cole, Barclay DeVeau, Indigo, Phil LaMarr, Cloris Leachman, Len Maxwell, Natasha Melnick, Nicole Sullivan, and Lisa Wilhoit, as well as several recurring voice actors for the series.
Plot
The Griffins invite their neighbors over for game night. While playing Trivial Pursuit, Lois uses questions from the preschool edition for Peter in order to let him win. When Peter wins, he brags to everyone, believing himself to be smarter than everyone else. Irritated at Peter's arrogance, Brian challenges Peter to take the MacArthur Fellows Program test to prove he is a genius. The results of the test show that Peter is not a genius; in fact, the results show that Peter is technically "mentally retarded". Peter sinks into depression after being publicly labeled as intellectually disabled. While driving home with Lois, Peter accidentally knocks down Tom Tucker. Tucker, recognizing Peter as "the retarded fellow", does not press charges, and Peter realizes his condition means he can get away with anything.
While testing the limits of what he can get away with, such as interrupting church attendants by throwing Bibles, kicking open the stall doors in a girls' bathroom, and saying "testicles" through a microphone at a fast-food restaurant. While there, Peter goes behind the counter and sees a "Fryolator" and wants to take it home. However, he accidentally drenches Lois with hot grease, scalding her. While she is hospitalized, Child Protection Services takes custody of Meg, Chris, and Stewie on the grounds that Peter is mentally unfit to look after them. The three are placed in the care of Cleveland. When Brian tells Peter that he just has to show that he is a good parent, Peter thinks that the best way to do that is to show what a bad parent Cleveland is, so he brings seven prostitutes into Cleveland's house. This does not work as Agent Jessup sees through the plot and Cleveland orders Peter and five of the prostitutes out. In a last attempt, he appeals to the court for custody of his kids, but he is denied and avoids imprisonment only because the judge forgets that prisons exist.
After returning home and accepting that the Griffins may never be together again, Lois walks in, revealing she has completely recovered and reobtained custody of the kids. Peter is overjoyed that everything is back to normal, as well as the fact that Lois will smell like french fries for the next six months.
Production
thumb|150px|left|Family Guys creator Seth MacFarlane came up with the idea for "Petarded".
"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". 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.
In 2014, to celebrate the show's 15th anniversary, IGN published a list of the 15 best Family Guy episodes, with "Petarded" ranked the best, saying: "The show is at its comedic best with this episode, with musical numbers and family drama to back up the offensive humor." In his review of Family Guy, volume 3, Francis Rizzo III of DVD Talk wrote "... I will say there are some very good episodes in this set, starting with 'Petarded', which sees Peter declared mentally retarded. The ways he takes advantage of this status is classic Family Guy material, while the musical montage here, involving phone calls all over town, is actually quite funny. Plus, the appearance of the Naked, Greased-Up Deaf Guy gave hope that the creators still had that sense of the bizarre in them."
John Nigro of The Pitt News considered "Petarded" one of volume 3's best episodes along with "Breaking Out Is Hard to Do" and "Perfect Castaway". The Sydney Morning Herald critic Marc McEvoy commented "Petarded" to be "a real thigh-slapper". Kim Voynar of TV Squad gave the episode a mixed review, saying "... it just seemed to wrap up a little too quickly for me, like they ran out of time and were like, 'Oops, let's wrap this up now'. Other than that quibble, though, it was a fairly funny episode." Tom Eames of entertainment website Digital Spy placed the episode at number five on his listing of the best Family Guy episodes in order of "yukyukyuks" and described the episode as "one of the best episodes ever" for fans of offensive humor. He also noted that the episode did not "go down all that well at the time with censors and charity groups".