Petarded

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.

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.

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, Peter goes behind the counter and sees a "Fryolator" and wants to take it home.

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.

"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.

[1] Despite Sulkin and Wild writing the episode, the idea for "Petarded" came from series creator and executive producer Seth MacFarlane.

[5] 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.

However, because broadcasting standards prohibited this, it was changed to "Well, would a mentally retarded guy have hired a bulldozer with a drunk driver to level half of his house in celebration of his fantastic test results?".

[4] The Family Guy orchestra sung and recorded a song for a sequence which showed several Quahog citizens learning and talking about Peter being declared as "retarded".

[2] After Peter loses custody of the kids, Chris was originally to stay with Mort Goldman, Stewie with Cleveland and Meg with Quagmire.

MacFarlane stated, "Some of the fans actually noticed, commented on the fact that this was a very abrupt resolution, but, to that I would say, you're not watching CSI ... wouldn't you rather we throw in more jokes and fill up the time, and then hustle to the finish line at the last minute?".

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.

"[8] 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".