This is probably my favorite episode of Family Guy. When Chris witnesses a robbery and fingers the crook, the Griffins are placed into the Witness Protection Program and moved to "the DEEP south." Lois spends most of the episode playing straight man to everyone else's jokes and sight gags, but the rest of the family is kept busy. Meg becomes popular for the first time in her life when her classmates (who get regularly outwitted in school by a pig) are fascinated by the fact she's lived in the city where people watch "movin' pitchers" and use deodorant. Chris makes a friend in local kid Sam, (whose father runs a revisionist Civil War reenactment group), but isn't all he appears to be. Stewie becomes obsessed with being a banjo player (he even sings the now-classic Family Guy song "My Fat Baby Loves to Eat" while pickin' an' graining'). Peter, who fulfills a dream of acting like one of The Dukes of Hazard and yet is STILL one of the smarter people in town, spends much of the first half being attacked by a raccoon before eventually becoming sheriff simply by agreeing to sit, eat pie and drink moonshine all day with borderline alcoholic Brian as his deputy. What makes this episode so funny is while it's easy to take potshots at southern "Salt of the Earth" types, these jokes don't fall into the usual clichéd traps. They find entirely new clichés to create on their own. One of my favorite parts is the tale of Sam's grandfather who drowns face down in a shallow lake after he jumps in to save himself when he thinks he's drowning after seeing his reflection in the water (Chris, fitting in more than he should want to, admits that's why Lois makes him take showers).
Review of To Love and Die in Dixie
