Season 4 · Episode 6 · First aired 19 June 2005

Petarded

Episode 6 of Family Guy season 4 (S04E06), the 56th Family Guy episode overall. Written by Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild and directed by Seth Kearsley. First broadcast on 19 June 2005.

Story

At a games night, Lois feeds Peter preschool Trivial Pursuit questions so that he wins, and he boasts he is smarter than everyone. Brian, irritated, dares him to sit the MacArthur Fellows Program test. The results class Peter as intellectually disabled rather than a genius, and he sinks into depression. After he knocks down Tom Tucker, who declines to press charges, Peter finds the label lets him get away with anything. His misbehaviour ends when he scalds Lois with hot grease at a fast-food restaurant. While she is in hospital, child protection services rule Peter unfit and place Meg, Chris and Stewie with Cleveland. Peter fills Cleveland's house with prostitutes to make him look a bad parent, then loses a custody hearing. Just as he accepts the family may never reunite, Lois returns home recovered and with custody restored.

Production and reception

Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild wrote the episode from an idea by Seth MacFarlane, and Seth Kearsley directed. Wikipedia, Petarded
The Trivial Pursuit rigging was David A. Goodman's suggestion; in the first draft Peter's easy questions came by chance. Wikipedia, Petarded
MacFarlane tried to hire Lennie Weinrib to reprise Timer, a 1970s public service announcement character, but Weinrib could not recall the role, so MacFarlane voiced it himself. Wikipedia, Petarded
Broadcast censors removed a song about Peter's diagnosis sung by Quahog residents, on the ground that one word, retarded, recurred too often in it. Wikipedia, Petarded
The episode drew a Nielsen rating of 4.4 as the week's 42nd most-watched programme; in 2014 IGN ranked it the best Family Guy episode of the show's first fifteen years. Wikipedia, Petarded

Voices

Voice	Characters
Seth MacFarlane	Peter Griffin, Brian Griffin, Stewie Griffin
Alex Borstein	Lois Griffin, Woman in Bathroom Stall #1, Diana
Seth Green	Chris Griffin, Rocky
Mila Kunis	Meg Griffin, Woman in Bathroom Stall #3
John G. Brennan	Mort Goldman
LeVar Burton	Verne
Gary Cole	Agent Jessup
Barclay DeVeau	Patty
Ralph Garman	Jake
Mike Henry	Cleveland Brown

Principal voice credits as recorded by IMDb, which lists up to ten credits per episode, so recurring characters can be missing here. Guest voices below come from Wikipedia and TVmaze.

Guest voices

LeVar Burton as Vern
Gary Cole as Priest
Barclay DeVeau as Patty
Phil LaMarr as Announcer/Judge, Judge
Cloris Leachman as herself
Len Maxwell
Natasha Melnick as Ruth
Nicole Sullivan as Esther
John Viener as Agent Jessup
Lisa Wilhoit as Beth
Patrick Warburton as Joe Swanson
Seth Green as Rocky Dennis
Alec Sulkin as Dan Rather
Danny Smith as Japanese Man

Season 4: episode 6 of 30

Season hub with air dates and credits for all 30 episodes

SourceFacts from Wikipedia: Family Guy season 4 and the episode's article (CC BY-SA 4.0). Spotted an error? See corrections.

Provenance

Facts only

Sources: Wikipedia: Petarded
Wikidata Q4046708
IMDb
TVmaze
Data refreshed: 6 September 2026
Verification: Checked against Wikidata and IMDb: title, date, numbering and credits agree
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Licence: Facts are not copyrightable. Source text on Wikipedia is CC BY-SA 4.0; Wikidata is CC0; IMDb data is used for verification under its non-commercial terms.
Note: The story summary and notes were written for this site from the sources listed, by Claude in Claude Code on 2026-09-08, awaiting editorial review. Facts only; no dialogue is reproduced. Voice credits: Information courtesy of IMDb (https://www.imdb.com). Used with permission. Guest cast data from TVmaze (https://www.tvmaze.com), CC BY-SA.