Family Guy had been canceled in 2002 due to low ratings, but was revived by Fox after reruns on Adult Swim became the network's most-watched program, and more than three million DVDs of the show were sold.

[1] The executive producers for the fourth production season are series creator Seth MacFarlane, along with David A. Goodman and Chris Sheridan.

Starting with this season, MacFarlane would hand over showrunner duties to two writers, with Goodman and Sheridan being the inaugural co-showrunners.

[3] When the reruns were shown on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim in 2003, Family Guy became the channel's most-watched show with an average 1.9 million viewers per episode.

Murphy and the orchestra recorded an arrangement of Bernard Herrmann's score from North by Northwest, a film referenced multiple times in the episode.

During production, an episode of South Park was released entitled "The Passion of the Jew" that also featured Gibson as a prominent character.

[50] MacFarlane won the Annie Award for Best Voice-over Performance for providing the voice of Stewie in "Brian the Bachelor".

[50] At the Annie Awards the following year, John Viener was nominated in the category Writing in an Animated Television Production, for writing "Untitled Griffin Family History", but lost the award to Ian Maxtone-Graham, who wrote the episode of The Simpsons titled "The Seemingly Neverending Story".

[55] The episode has also been praised by Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune, who called it "Family Guy's most rebellious outing yet".

[56] The Boston Globe critic Matthew Gilbert felt Family Guy's fourth season was as "crankily irreverent as ever".

"[58] Media watchdog group the Parents Television Council, a frequent critic of the show, branded the episodes "North by North Quahog",[60] "The Father, the Son, and the Holy Fonz",[61] "Brian Sings and Swings",[62] "Patriot Games",[63] and "The Courtship of Stewie's Father" as "worst show of the week".