On December 31, 1999, Quahog prepares for New Year's Day and the new millennium, and the Griffins have been invited to Joe's millennium party. At a store, a man wearing a chicken suit asks Peter if he wants a coupon, but Peter refuses, recalling the time he got a bad coupon from Ernie the Giant Chicken and started a massive fistfight. The man then warns Peter that the world will end because of the Y2K problem, so Peter locks himself and the family in their basement in hazmat suits, despite Lois' objections. Just after midnight, the Y2K bug hits. This causes a worldwide nuclear attack, with vehicles crashing and missiles self-launching, destroying much of the world, and mutating, injuring, and killing many people. The Griffins remain safe, though their house has been severely damaged. The next week, Meg whines about Kevin getting vaporized, and the Griffins discover that Quagmire and Cleveland have been stitched together and are now called "Clevemire", and Tom Tucker and Diane Simmonshave cooked and eaten Tricia Takanawa. Starving, Peter immediately eats all the dehydrated meals, without adding water. Peter recalls that the snack food Twinkies are the only food that can survive a nuclear holocaust, so the family prepares to travel to Natick, Massachusetts, in hopes that the Twinkie factory has survived. While loading the car, Chris attempts to bring a tree but Peter refuses and says no, Lois attempts to reason with him but he walks behind the house and shoots the plant. After Meg puts mousetraps for a mutated rat down to protect Joe, the family get underway in their heavily damaged car. Soon they are stopped by survivors, who were looking for food, but the Griffins do not have any food so they have to distract them. They continue their journey only to find that the car has run out of gas. The Griffins now have to walk to Natick just as they found a new home, where Randy Newman just sings about everyone he sees. Lois initially insists they stay there, but they leave because Newman starts annoying her with his literal song while trying to eat an apple. So they once again continue their journey after Lois knocks out Newman with her apple. They make it to Natick, but there is no factory. Stewie berates Peter for costing them their lives before tripping and getting covered in nuclear waste. Upon sunrise the factory is revealed to still be standing and in perfect condition. Expecting to be able to live off the snack food while Stewie mutates his arms into tentacles, they establish the town of New Quahog around the factory. Peter proclaims himself mayor, and Joe and Clevemire join him to form a ruling council. In time, New Quahog has become a fresh new community, complete with houses and wells. Peter has successfully reigned as mayor despite many mistakes, such as giving people jobs just picked out of a hat rather than based on the person's skills. However, when Brian points out how New Quahog is a peaceful place with no violence, Peter says that they are completely defenseless and finds metal to make guns. Meanwhile, Stewie's body has completely transformed into an octopus, and when Lois tries put on Stewie's pajamas with a trap door on the back, he sprays ink but misses. Then he tries to get on the ceiling and soon falls off, and Lois catches him then says that he is getting heavy. Stewie suddenly lays hundreds of eggs. Peter shows up and makes guns and other weapons using the pipes from the city's irrigation system, outraging the citizens. Despite Peter's insistence that he is fit to continue to be the leader of the new community, the townspeople throw him out of New Quahog, and his family follows him. The citizens proceed to burn the guns Peter had made with the pipes in the middle of the town square, but as the final gun is thrown onto the pile, hundreds of newly spawned Octopus-Stewies eggs hatch and they begin to destroy the city, with the townspeople unable to protect themselves from the mutants. As the family walks away, oblivious to the town's destruction, they decide to continue to a Carvel factory in Framingham. The episode ends with a live-action parody of Dallas, in which Pam Ewing, clad in a blue silk nightgown wakes up and tells her husband Bobby about a dream she had of a strange episode of Family Guy. Bobby comforts her, but pauses and then asks what it is and the two turn and look with confusion into the camera.
Production
"Da Boom" was the third episode of the second season of Family Guy, and the first for director Bob Jaques. It first aired on December 26, 1999. The episode was written by writing team Neil Goldman and Garrett Donovan, who had written episodes for the show in the first season including "Mind Over Murder". This was the first episode to have Mila Kunis providing the voice of Meg. Lacey Chabert, the original voice of Meg, left the series due to time constraints with her acting role in Party of Five, as well as schoolwork. Kunis won the role after auditions and a slight rewrite of the character, in part due to her performance on That '70s Show. Seth MacFarlane, the show's creator, called Kunis back after her first audition, instructing her to speak more slowly, and then told her to come back another time and enunciate more. Once she claimed that she had it under control, MacFarlane hired her. Ernie the Giant Chicken was introduced in this episode. He is an anthropomorphic chicken who serves as a rival to Peter. He has a long, unexpected fight with Peter, which interrupts the main storyline. This has become a running gag, having reappeared in episodes such as "Blind Ambition", "Internal Affairs", "No Chris Left Behind" and "Meet the Quagmires". He is voiced by regular show writer Danny Smith. In addition to the regular cast, actress Victoria Principal, comedian and actor Will Sasso, reporter, commentator, war correspondent, anchorman Jack Perkins, voice actor Joey Slotnick, and character actor Patrick Duffy guest starred in the episode. Recurring guest voice actressLori Alan, writer Danny Smith, and actor Patrick Warburton also made minor appearances.
Cultural references
The live-action sequence in the episode is a reference to the episode of the CBS soap opera Dallas that erased the death of Bobby Ewing, which turns out to be a dream of Pamela Ewing. Randy Newman appears singing everything he sees in a musical moment. The plot includes references to the Y2K bug. Peter takes away Trix from the Rabbit, which is a reference to commercials for Trix cereal. Chris tells E.T. to run when he thinks Peter is the government coming for him. When travelling to find food they are stopped and there's a reference to Family Feud. Stewie's line, "Game over man! Game over!" is a nod to the science fiction filmAliens. Arriving at the Twinkie factory, Peter uses the same words to describe what he sees that Dr. Ellie Arroway used in Contact when witnessing a celestial event in a foreign galaxy.
Reception
The episode received positive reviews. Ahsan Haque of IGN rated the episode a 10/10, saying "Overall, this episode easily ranks as one of the best episodes in the series. Almost every joke succeeds, and the far-fetched alternate reality storyline thoroughly entertains. Despite the fact that all of the events in the episode are revealed to be a dream, it doesn't take away from the high degree of amusement provided." Tom Eames of entertainment website Digital Spy placed the episode at number sixteen on his listing of the best Family Guy episodes in order of "yukyukyuks" and described it as "classic bonkers Family Guy". He added that the episode was "potentially the first time fans realised this wasn't just a Simpsons ripoff."
