Meg complains after Peter leaves her at the roller rink, so Peter takes her to buy a car. However, convinced by a swindling salesman, Peter buys a tank instead. Meanwhile, Quahog suffers from a heat wave, exasperated by the electricity-hoarding shopping corporation, Superstore USA, whose arrival in Quahog has put strain on local businesses and cost many residents, including Peter, their jobs. Even though Meg works at the store, Peter spearheads a protest of the store, but flip-flops after experiencing its "industrial" air conditioning and gets a job there instead.
Meg is promoted to assistant manager at Superstore USA, and is given the job to fire her father, as he is grossly incompetent, sleeps on the job and plays hide and seek in the coat racks. However, she chooses instead to resign, causing Peter to begin to say "I love you"; it is interrupted, though, by Stewie and Brian, who use the tank to destroy the shopping center, reverting conditions in Quahog to normal.
Spoilers end here.
Censorship
There are two scenes cut from the FOX version of this episode that appear on the Cartoon Network version:
One is a scene where Brian explains why he never shops at a retail store like Wal-Mart which leads to a cutaway where Brian is shopping at K-Mart and a mentally retarded boy pets Brian so hard that Brian bites him (an Adult Swim bumper mentioned that this scene was cut from the FOX version when this episode first aired).
A second scene after Meg states she is going to get a job, Chris offers her a job smelling his feet, then runs around the room hysterically until he soils himself. This scene was used in an Adult Swim promo for the episode.
Another scene that aired only on Canada's Global Network (and on Cartoon Network) is where Stewie throws a can in the trash and Brian waits until Stewie leaves the room before putting it in the recycling bin. Stewie then pops his head back in the door and mocks Brian by calling Brian, "The Earth's bitch".
In Canada the word "fuck" is left uncensored when it aired on the east coast.[1] But it's later censored when it re-aired in Canada.
Notes
When Meg states that she is the only one in her family with a job, she says this before Chris mentions that he lost his paperboy job to the Superstore.
The car dealership "Wilkins Hyundai and Subaru," which was last seen in the episode "Patriot Games," appears again in this episode.
The car salesman in this episode is the salesman from the "Quahog Circuit Shack" who sells Peter his TiVo in Stewie Griffin The Untold Story.
In the United States, 9.65 million viewers tuned in to this episode.[2]
A poster at the start misspells the commonly used product of the show Pawtucket Patriot ale. The poster states "PAWTUCKET PATRTOT ALE".
"United Skates of America," the roller rink where Peter leaves Meg, is a real chain with 17 locations across the United States[3] including one in Rumford, Rhode Island.
Paddy Tanniger, the caddy manager, from the episode Fore Father, is run over in this episode by the tank and is presumed dead — a fact which is supported by a statement made by one of the show's producers on a Season 4 commentary.
When Stewie and Brian are complaining about the heatwave, they take down Superstore USA with the tank, even though Joe took the tank away before earlier in the episode.
Brian sweats throughout the episode, despite being physically incapable of doing so.
Peter fires the tank at Clevelands house exposing him in his bathtub before it falls to the ground is reused again in "Barely Legal" .
When Joe sends the last ping-pong ball out the window, Peter says he will get some more from Mr. Moose, a reference to the character from Captain Kangaroo who, as a regular joke, has ping-pong balls dropped on the Captain.
Outside the theater where Peter performs a musical version of Red Dawn, there is a large sign with the poster art for the musical Wicked.
The Easter-egg hunt scene with Richard Gere is referring to an old rumor about him going into an ER to get a gerbil removed from his rectum.
While working at Superstore USA, one of Meg's duties is to give Sloth, the deformed strongman from the 1985 film, The Goonies, a Baby Ruthcandy bar. He then states that he is "already in a committed relationship," presumably with Chunk.
While protesting outside the Superstore USA, Peter raises his fist and erroneously chants "GATTACA!" (a movie from 1997) instead of the famous line "ATTICA!", from the movie Dog Day Afternoon.
The General Lee is one of the cars available at the dealership.
Peter saying "When I walk into Superstore USA, I get the sensation... THAT I'M STANDING ON A MOUNTAIN TOP WITH THE WIND BLOWING THROUGH MY HAIR !" is a take off of the 'When I bite into a York Peppermint Patty, I get the sensation' commercials
When Diane Simmons reads an on-air message from the Quahog electric company, she screams "Hey, you guyyyyys!!" a la Rita Moreno from The Electric Company, which is then followed by an animated version of the opening sequence from the show's first season.
"Superstore USA" is a reference to Wal-Mart and other similar retailers
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