Road To Rhode Island - Production

Production

"Road to Rhode Island" was directed by Dan Povenmire and was written by Gary Janetti. It featured guest appearances from Victoria Principal as Dr. Amanda Rebecca, Danny Smith and Wally Wingert as various characters. This was the first episode directed by Povenmire. Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane granted Povenmire substantial creative freedom for directing episodes. Povenmire said that MacFarlane would tell him, "We've got two minutes to fill. Give me some visual gags. Do whatever you want. I trust you." Povenmire praised MacFarlane's management style for letting him have fun. Several years after the episode was written, in DVD commentary for the eighth and ninth season of the show, Gary Janetti, the writer of the episode, recalled that the original title of the episode was intended to be simply "Brian & Stewie", but was changed by series creator and executive producer Seth MacFarlane, who wanted there to be a "Road to" episode each season. The name of the episode was then changed to "Road to Rhode Island", with the original name later being used for the landmark 150th episode of the show, also entitled "Brian & Stewie", and written by Janetti.

This is the first episode of the "Road to" episodes of the series which air through various seasons of the show. The episodes are a parody of the seven "Road to" comedy films starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Dorothy Lamour. MacFarlane, a fan of the film series, came up with the idea. The musical number in the episode is sung to the tune of "(We're Off on the) Road to Morocco" from the film Road to Morocco.

During the airport section of the episode, there is a scene that has subsequently cut from some editions/airings of the show, involving Osama bin Laden. In the scene, Stewie, when approaching airport security, realizes that his bag is full of weapons. He then breaks into song, singing "On the Good Ship Lollipop" to distract the X-ray scanners. He then says, "Let's hope Osama bin Laden doesn't know show tunes." At that time, Osama is pictured in another line, distracting the scanners by singing "I hope I get it" from A Chorus Line. Even though the episode was made a year and a half before 9/11, it was still controversial, and was left out of the original DVD release in the US. However, the scene was still intact from the "Freakin' Sweet Collection" DVD.