Not All Dogs Go to Heaven (Family Guy)

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"Not All Dogs Go to Heaven"
Yes, folks. They actually went that far in shaming Brian...
Series: Family Guy Part of Season: 7 (Volume Eight) Episode Number: 11 Air Date: March 29, 2009 Writer: Danny Smith Director: Greg Colton Previous episode: FOX-y Lady Next episode: 420

Not All Dogs Go to Heaven is the 11th episode of the 7th season of the American animated television series Family Guy. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 29, 2009. The episode was directed by Greg Colton and written by Danny Smith.

Plot

Meg becomes a born-again Christian and attempts to convert Brian to Christianity as well. At the same time, Stewie finds a way to teleport the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation to Quahog to hang out with them.

Why It's Forbidden from Crossing the Golden Gates

1. It is nothing but a 22-minute torture episode for Brian.
2. This episode represents the exact moment where Family Guy jumped the shark due to the scene in which Brian confesses that he's an atheist.
   • It also caused the writing of the show to decline as well. But not in a forgivable decline in quality, rather was it in a negative one to the point it's become far noticeable over time.
   • It doesn't help that the show would go downhill since Season 8, thanks to the writing and flanderization becoming worse over time.
3. The revelation about Brian's character is problematic for various reasons:
   • There's absolutely no foreshadowing nor hints in the first half of this episode, or any of the previous episodes, that Brian was an atheist. As this comes out of nowhere.
   • And overall, this new trait about his persona is what essentially ruined his character; as through the rest of the series, he became a much pretentious and arrogant jerk.
4. Huge plot hole: How come Brian be an atheist if God exists in the Family Guy universe and met the Griffin family just a few episodes earlier?
   • Not to mention, he had previously thanked God for his nose and told Peter that God was angry after Peter had manipulated people. But through, you can say these were from the pre-cancellation seasons, but before the episode "Brian & Stewie", this episode doesn’t explain how Brian became or converted into an atheist.
   • What's worse is that in some episodes later like "3 Acts of God" or "The 2000-Year-Old Virgin", Peter meets God and Jesus again and when Stewie tries to make Brian acknowledge it, Brian still refuses to accept that God is real. In fact, in the episode "Jesus, Mary and Joesph", Stewie literally asks Brian “Jesus lived with us for, like, a week, what else do you need?”.
5. It is very stereotypical, as Christians are depicted as bigots who malevolently regard atheists to the point where a car was flat-out thrown at the Griffins' house.
   • The book-burning scene makes it look like the writers believe all Christians are melodramatic and dumb.
6. Meg is at her absolute worst in this episode as she forcefully tries to convert Brian. When he repeatedly refuses, she spreads word of Brian's atheism around Quahog, which generally hates atheists, making him a pariah, all to help/force him to believe in God, not caring about Brian’s feelings and causing disaster for him during the rest of the episode.
7. This episode blatantly uses Godwin's Law since on the Channel 5 news, Brian is labeled as "WORSE THAN HITLER!". This is often mocked and parodied by fans even to this day.
8. This episode violates Brian’s constitutional rights as the First Amendment involving the freedom of religion is completely steamrolled by all of Quahog since the town persecuted Brian for being an atheist. This episode is supposed to take place in America yet the town of Quahog has blatantly made itself look un-American by religiously persecuting Brian.
9. Many of the characters don't receive their comeuppance despite their heinous actions throughout the episode:
   • Meg and the townsfolk of Quahog are never punished for the way in which they horribly turned Brian into a pariah that includes destroying the Griffin's property.
   • Peter is never punished for the way he treated Meg when she had the mumps.
   • The irresponsible Star Trek fan who showed up to the convention despite being highly contagious doesn't get his comeuppance for giving Meg the mumps.
10. Bad moral: The episode states that if you are unattractive or have a miserable life as Meg does, then God does not exist.

Redeeming Qualities That Crossed the Golden Gates

1. Stewie's subplot where he hangs out with the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation is pretty funny, especially the scene where they are at the McDonald's drive-thru, and is far more interesting than the Brian and Meg plot.
2. Some scenes in this episode were funny:
   • The scene where Stewie farts in Peter's makeshift hazmat suit, causing him to throw up like in Jackass Number Two, is quite hilarious.
   • The cutaway gag with Calvin and Hobbes is also pretty hilarious.
   • The ending, which involves a live-action segment with Adam West and Rob Lowe, was also pretty funny.
3. Meg does apologize to Brian after she realizes that her behavior had gotten out of hand.
4. In spite of what was already stated before, Brian is mostly tolerable in this episode.

Reception

• Despite receiving a 7.6 rating on IMDb, the episode garnered mixed-to-negative reviews from critics and fans. Seth MacFarlane later admitted that it was bad and he regretted it being made.

Trivia

• Calvin and Hobbes make a cameo appearance in the episode.
• The "WORSE THAN HITLER!" scene became an internet meme.
• This episode plot was been rehashed later in The Cleveland Show episode "The Hurricane", where it revealed that Cleveland Brown Jr. is a heavily implied to either non-theist or atheist, and this time all the family members, including his biological father, to tirelessly force converting him, before giving up and treating him as the family's parish or their new Meg Griffin, for the episode's latter part.
• The name of this episode is a pun on All Dogs Go to Heaven, which was created by Don Bluth, a Disney veteran who is also known for producing The Secret of NIMH, An American Tail, The Land Before Time, Anastasia and Titan A.E., in which the last two are now part of Disney's catalog due to their acquisition of 20th Century Fox, the owner of the Family Guy franchise.

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References

1. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1329662/
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJqZE7ZKcQA&t=34s

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