Original air date: May 16, 2021
* * *
♪ It seems today that all you see ♪
♪ Is violence in movies and sex on TV ♪
♪ But where are those good old-fashioned values ♪
♪ On which we used to rely? ♪
♪ Lucky there’s a family guy ♪
♪ Lucky there’s a man who positively can do ♪
♪ All the things that make us ♪
♪ Laugh and cry ♪
♪ He’s… a… Fam… ily… Guy! ♪
Coming up tonight: Quahog’s own poet laureate comes to the set and graces us with her… Oh, God, that’s tonight?
Hey, Jerome, turn on the game.
Sorry, guys, cable’s out.
We’re only getting local stations.
Oh, what, so now we got to talk sports to pass the time?
Or maybe watch Gilmore Girls.
Just as, like, a goof.
You know, if you want to talk sports, I’ve got quite a story to tell.
Oh! Oh! This is the one where Lorelai’s mom makes her martini with an onion instead of an olive.
Boy, that’s a passive-aggressive move.
If you knew her mom, you’d know that’s a passive-aggressive move.
It all started when I was a young boy…
Last chance on this Gilmore Girls thing.
I was a baseball prodigy.
It was back home in the Cuban league.
I grew up working in the tobacco fields outside of Havana.
That’s where I learned to play baseball.
Our mitts were made of cigars, some of them still going.
All right! Ha! All right, I caught it!
At night I drove a cab.
We all had to drive huge cars there.
I was just a regular young man wearing pants that went above my belly button.
Pull your pants up.
When I was nine, my father took me to my first baseball game.
Fidel Castro was there to throw out the first pitch.
He was wearing the same outfit as always.
Later we would find out he had a fashion disease known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
We would write more jokes about him, but our dumb-dumb writers only know what he looks like.
Strike!
(cheering and applause)
We all worshipped Che Guevara.
Although none of us really knew what side he was on.
Thank you?
But we knew he’d make a great poster in college dorm rooms someday.
ANNOUNCER: Please rise for the Cuban National Anthem.
( I Love Lucy theme song playing)
CLEVELAND: In Cuba, we hated America so much, we copied everything they did.
And died trying to get there.
(crowd cheering, clamoring)
(music ends)
Castro said there were CIA all over our island, but I never saw any.
(cheering, clamoring)
Yeah! Ha-ha! All right!
But from that day on, I fell in love with baseball.
I dreamed of one day playing in the big leagues, so I signed up for a montage to get better.
(glass breaks)
(Cuban music playing)
I was at the top of my game.
I didn’t even need the full montage.
I was even recruited to play on Cuba’s national team, the Gooding Juniors.
ANNOUNCER: Tonight, the Cuba Gooding Juniors take on the Haiti Joel Osments!
We tried to play, but it was difficult because hurricane season was February through January.
(all shouting)
Every time, a hurricane would sweep through, decimating the island, causing hundreds of dollars worth of damage.
Aah!
Under Castro, every male over the age of 18 was required to serve two years as a band leader.
♪ Babaloo-oo-oo ♪
♪ Babaloo-oo-oo ♪
♪ Jungo ♪
♪ Oo-oo-oo ♪
♪ Babaloo ♪
(vocalizing)
♪ Ta empezando lo velorio ♪
♪ Que le hacemo a babalu. ♪
I loved baseball, but yearned to play in America.
I would look across the water and dream about the great time they must be having there.
I bet it’s not so great.
♪ If you’re going my way ♪
♪ I want to drive it all night long ♪
♪ Oh, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, yeah… ♪
Dang it! I’m at the wrong country.
I knew what I had to do.
It was nothing against Cuba.
Cuba was nice.
We had a Bay of Hotties, but also another bay of less attractive women.
I forget what they called it.
However, tensions between the U.S. and Cuba were high.
Castro was not happy that they had named the most dangerously gay part of San Francisco after him.
Defecting to the U.S. was punishable by prison or death.
But I was determined.
Then came my chance.
The Cuba Gooding Juniors had an away game in Barbados.
Oy, herma we can escape to the Cayman Islands.
Cayman, my ass. I’m going to America.
Okay, when we land in America, we all have to stop saying “Cooba.”
The sea was choppy, and the sharks were relentless.
(snores)
(knock on door)
Who is it?
MALE: Uh, not a shark?
Don’t open it!
MALE: No, it’s just people.
MALE 2: Yeah, people.
MALE 3: And sharks.
MALE: Shh! No sharks. Just people.
CLEVELAND: After a week at sea, we saw the glittering lights of Miami.
(cheering)
It was beautiful.
Then we decided to go to Quahog instead, which took eight more months.
Eventually, I signed a large deal with the Toronto Blue Jays.
But because I was from a warm-weather climate, it didn’t work out.
I still remember my first major-league game.
(cheering)
It was four hours and 25 minutes long.
I was like, “What the (bleep)?”
Wow, Cleveland. I had no idea you played baseball.
Too bad you couldn’t hit a home run with The Cleveland Show.
Well, it certainly wasn’t a whiff.
More of a foul out.
It was a double.
You know, you’re not the only one who got a taste of sports glory.
I had a pretty good run, myself.
Scrawny little guy like you, Quagmire?
What did you play?
I was a competitive tennis player.
Some might say too competitive.
But I was the breath of fresh air that the stuffy tennis world needed.
I was born into a real tennis family.
On my first birthday, my mother gave me a little Head.
I wanted to be the first male cheerleader for tennis.
I cheer on two occasions: day and night!
Ooh, tennis!
(crowd booing)
And when that was weird, I decided to just play tennis.
But it was understood I’d grow up to be a tennis player like my father and his father before him and his father before him.
We came from a long line of tennis dicks.
I had six brothers, but they’d all sliced off their hands opening a tennis ball can, possibly the most dangerous object known to mankind.
Hey, guys. Anyone want to play tennis?
Llewellyn, no!
(screaming)
QUAGMIRE: But I would do everything I could to make my now-female father happy.
Practices were intense.
PETER: I feel like you skipped over a very big story point right there.
QUAGMIRE: My father was a World War II vet, so he used to make me reenact the D-Day landing with tennis ball machines.
(gasps)
(grunting)
But the work paid off.
I got invited to the first U.S. Open, which, at the time, was called the U.S. Now Open.
There, I met the player who would become my archrival: Sweden’s Hedd Banssen.
He’d bring his personal chef to every match, which was very distracting.
Aah! What the hell?
Hergy bergy meatball throwy!
(grunts)
Come on, this can’t be legal. What are you, blind?
Serve ball!
QUAGMIRE: I was the bad boy of tennis, and my unconventional style of play changed the game.
Before I came along, tennis was so safe, it was customary to hit a six-handed backhand.
I pioneered the one-handed backhand and, eventually, the no-handed backhand.
(cheering)
Quagmire, I love your backhand.
That sounds like a backhanded compliment.
(audience gasps)
I also flouted tennis etiquette by wearing the longest, baggiest shorts the game had ever seen.
People criticized my style of play because I argued with umpires and was taught to bounce the ball 40 times before my serve.
(grunts)
JUDGE: Let, first service.
I’d won the U.S. Open, but I wouldn’t settle for just that.
My goal was the coveted Grand Slam: pancakes, eggs, sausage and bacon at Denny’s.
One day, Glenn. One day.
Maybe your birthday.
♪
I made it to Wimbledon and got to play in front of the queen… Freddie Mercury.
I altered my 40-bounce routine just for him.
(bouncing and clapping to rhythm of “We Will Rock You”)
It was an honor playing for Freddie on grass that day.
He later died. The doctor said it was asphalt.
♪
(grunts)
(grunting)
(cheering)
It was the era before AIDS, but a lot of tennis players had to deal with the scourge of Penis Gerulaitis.
Despite my on-court temper tantrums, I was on top of the world.
And that’s when I saw her: Tatum O’Seventies.
The hottest actress of the era.
She was fresh off her success playing an 11-year-old in a Little League movie, which, for some reason, made her the biggest sex symbol in Hollywood.
Thought you might need this.
Thanks. I’m Glenn.
I know. I watched you smash your racket and scream at a baby.
You know, if you’re free after this, we could go back to my place and try to fit some balls in your can.
I practiced tantrum sex, something I’d learned from Sting but probably misheard.
QUAGMIRE: What?! Are you crazy? That was in!
We became New York’s “It” couple of the ’70s.
We hung out at Studio 55.
There was no one there.
We could hear a lot of noise coming from next door.
I got to meet the greatest athletes of my generation.
Glenn, how would you like to meet Bobby Orr?
Or who?
Bobby Orr.
Yeah, Bobby or who? What’s the other choice?
It’s Bobby Orr!
You told me Bobby’s the first choice!
What’s the alternative?
All right, forget that.
Do you want to meet Rick Monday?
Well, sure, I could do Monday, but who is it?
By the 1980s, things were starting to unravel.
(yells)
Aw, damn it!
My temper on the court was increasingly an issue.
Out.
Are you serious?! You cannot be serious!
I had a hard time telling if people were serious.
I spilled spot remover on my dog, and now he’s gone.
QUAGMIRE: Are you serious?!
I became famous for smashing rackets when things didn’t go my way.
Of course, back then, we didn’t have multiple rackets, so I was forced to play with it.
♪
Ultimately, my career ended when I developed the yips.
And in 2001, at the U.S. Open, my first serve hit a plane, causing it to go tragically off course and hit a building.
(explosion)
Everyone blamed the Muslims.
My second serve was no better.
You guys talking sports stories?
You know, I won a bronze medal in the ’84 Olympics.
Are you serious?!
Track and field. It’s a pretty good story.
It’s a series of coincidences that if someone wrote, no one would believe.
(soft ding)
Oh, my God, why is there only half a medal?
Hoo! How much time you got?
We got about seven minutes, and I haven’t gone yet.
Rocky.
♪
Like most, my day began with block letters of my name floating past the screen.
I grew up on the mean streets of Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love.
Or, as I called it, America’s Northernmost Hillbillies.
I was an Italian guy from the South Side who never had a chance in life.
But I had a dream: to one day be the heavyweight champ.
Yo, Petey!
Yo, fella!
Yo, Petey!
Yo, Delayheehoo!
(lively harmonizing)
It was a tough time in Philadelphia.
We were losing dozens of men every day to singing over open trash can fires.
Yo, Petey!
Yo, Flaming Guy!
Aah! Aah!
I was a two-bit knuckle breaker for the mob.
But it was a flash mob.
♪
You owe us two grand.
Don’t make me come back.
♪
You better pay or we’ll funk you up.
I said we will funk you up.
Like most fighters, I fell in love with the local autistic girl who worked at the pet shop.
I was one of her pet shop boys.
Yo, hey, turtles. How you doin’?
How come they’re not moving?
You sat on them yesterday. They’re dead.
What happened to your eye?
I got beat up again in a fight.
Yo, Lois, the San Gennaro festival was last weekend.
You know, I was wondering if, uh, maybe you might want to go to it with me.
When is it?
Last weekend.
Well, then I don’t think that’s possible, Peter. No.
I could see she was gonna play hard to get.
All right, okay, well, uh, want to maybe go to the park and feed the pigeons yesterday?
Peter, I already did yesterday stuff. Sorry.
Well, then how about we just get coffee this morning before you got to be at work?
It’s 4:00 in the afternoon.
I’m afraid that’s not gonna work, either.
Okay, well, I’ll circle back last week and see what your schedule looks like.
I was not the smartest guy, but I wasn’t gonna give up.
♪
I lived in the Little Italy section of Philly.
My apartment was tiny.
(grunting)
I didn’t have much stuff, but, still, it felt cramped.
(clattering)
I really needed a bigger place.
I wanted to work the speed bag, but my gym was so cheap it didn’t have one.
So I had to do the noises.
Dug-a-duh, dug-a-duh, dug-a-duh, dug-a-duh, dug-a-duh.
Harder hit!
I fought my way up through the amateur ranks.
Most fights, my greatest challenge was entering the ring without getting completely tangled in the ropes.
Little help? Is my butt out?
My butt’s out, isn’t it?
Sorry you got to see that back there, ma’am.
Yeah, I couldn’t wipe. I had my gloves on already.
Stop taking pictures, please.
My least favorite part of boxing was the weigh-ins.
(snickering)
Hey, Keenan, Damon, Marlon.
Good luck, Peter.
(snickering)
Moo!
Oh, ha, ha.
And I was the only guy who wouldn’t get naked in the locker room.
I don’t got a problem getting naked, I-I just don’t have to change right now.
♪
I became known as an up-and-comer with a mean left hook, who farted every time he got punched in the stomach.
(farting)
By the second round, the entire front row had pink eye.
(punches landing, farting)
I ran with a towel around my neck tucked into my sweat suit, ’cause I always wanted to look like a rich guy in a bathrobe.
Then I promised Lois I’d see the Mark Rothko exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
But when I got there, it was closed.
♪
Meanwhile, Lois and I were getting serious, so I popped the question.
Hey, listen, Lois, I was wondering, if you’re not too busy, what would you think about spending the previous part of your life with me?
I’m afraid that’s not possible, Peter.
But I was rising through the ranks and fighting bigger and better opponents.
I fought Butterbean, then I fought Can’t Believe It’s Not Butterbean.
I could barely tell the difference.
I fought Sugar Ray Leonard Nimoy, who put a Vulcan nerve pinch on me.
The fight was deemed highly illogical.
I defeated Lennox Lewis and the News, Evander Sallyfield and Roberto Duran Duran.
I was supposed to fight George Foreman, but I only got George ThreeMenAndaBaby.
There’s a lot more puns, but this episode’s only got a few minutes left.
So finally, I got my shot at the title, against a world champion…
Marvelous Marvin Mrs. Maisel.
♪
Lois, no one’s ever gone the distance with Marvelous Marvin Mrs. Maisel before.
But if I can just get in that ring yesterday…
Tomorrow.
…and hear that bell ring, still standing,
I’ll know I’m not just a bum from the streets.
I believe in you, Peter. Now go drink your eggs.
MAN: Aah! Our dinnerware hutch!
Sorry.
(dish shatters)
Sorry!
Oh, they’re mad.
♪
I was outmatched. A no-name punk fighting the world champion.
I fought my heart out. I dug deep and had a kick-ass song on my side, but we couldn’t afford the song from the movie, so we used the sound effects from Nintendo Punch-Out!!
(video game music playing)
ANNOUNCER: Body blow.
Body blow. Body blow. Uppercut.
Uppercut. Body blow. Uppercut.
(cheering)
(bell clanging)
(grunting)
(clang)
♪
(clanging)
(clang)
The swollen eyes weren’t from the fight.
There was a cat in the arena and I was highly allergic.
(meows)
(bell dings)
But I’d done it.
The only fighter ever to go the distance with the champ.
But in that moment, there was only one thing I could think about.
Peter, the Rothko exhibit at the museum is reopened!
Are you busy last week?
She had nailed me.
I was, in fact, free last week.
I was the pride of Philadelphia.
Eventually, I became the champ.
I also changed my inspirational music to keep me motivated.
♪ Baby shark, doo, doo, doo-doo, doo-doo ♪
♪ Baby shark, doo, doo, doo-doo, doo-doo ♪
♪ Baby shark, doo, doo, doo-doo, doo-doo ♪
♪ Baby shark… ♪
Yeah!
Tragically, I died in training.
I fell into a vat of Philadelphia Cream Cheese and suffocated.
I guess it was a little taste of heaven.
Let’s just say, at my funeral, there was quite a spread.
CLEVELAND: Some of this story ain’t holding up for me.
PETER: I was cremated.
JOE: I don’t think any of this is true.
PETER: My ashes were spread over an everything bagel.
Hey, Joe, what about you? You’re a pretty athletic guy.
You got any sports stories?
Funny you should ask.
Actually, back in 1988, I took part in the Crystal Light Aerobics Competition.
ANNOUNCER: Representing Valley Health and Racket in Orlando, Mona Hartnett, Debbie Harvey and Maressa MacEachin.
♪
Representing Shofer’s Athletic Club in San Jose, Diane Terese, Deborah McGee and Debbie Pardue.
♪
JOE: There I am!
That guy on the left’s dead.
Asphalt.
