I binge watched Family Guy this weekend, and there were multiple episodes where a character (Usually Peter, but definitely Lois once) where they fall down hurt, grab themselves and do a panting sort of whine.
Is this a cultural reference to something else? I am just not understanding the gag.
It’s an internal callback. I think the first time they did it was the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory parody, and they bring it back from time to time, because that’s how they roll. They also have multiple uses of the giant chicken.
It’s enough of a trope that having Peter stub his knee is one of the tasks available to him on the “Quest for Stuff” game.
To me, it’s a running gag setup in the first time aired. When it first plays you’re thinking; any second now he will stop. Then it doesn’t. Another layer of it is that if you’ve been there (really stubbed a toe or god forbid slammed your shin) you know that the pain just goes ON and ON almost comically.
The following times it has you guessing if they will go on and on with it, or shut it down quickly. Funny, I thought.
On the DVD commentary for that initial episode, Seth MacFarlane explains it’s testing the premise that if something is funny but goes on too long, it’s not funny anymore. If it goes on from that point, however, it will become funny again. Purely subjective, I’m sure.
I’ve done some poor googling trying to find to whom he attributed that notion in the commentary, but I’ve had no luck. It’s been way too long since I’ve seen the DVD, I simply don’t even have a guess beyond ‘well-known comedian’.
That beginning “eeeesh” is a pretty common response to an annoying pain like an ankle sprain or toe-stub. And even the “ahhhh” at the end of it usually happens.
They just play off of the fact that they did it another 70 times
NM
The Vaudeville term for this is “comedy torture.” Just go on and on until it’s not funny, then it becomes funny again because it’s gone on so long.
The original toe-stub incident was, IIRC in one of the very early episodes and that’s all there was to it. The subsequent ones are callbacks as a running gag.
I remember on the commentary track for the first Austin Powers movie, Mike Myers referenced the same rule of comedy during the scene when Powers is un-frozen from his 30-year sleep and one of the first things is does is pee. And pee. And pee. Myers basically says “It the old rule where it’s funny at first, then goes on too long and is boring. Then you keep going and it gets funny again.”
On Family Guy, it was funny when Lois banged her knee because Peter did it first.
they say the same thing on the Simpsons DVD commentary when Sideshow Bob steps on rakes
She didn’t bang her knee, she banged her boob.
No, it’s not a reference or parody of anything specific. It’s just one of their ‘meta-humor’ jokes, like Peter fighting the chicken guy or cutting away to live-action footage of Conway Twitty singing, or the two vaudeville guys where the one plays the other off stage with some really fast ole’ timey piano music. I think they finally ‘retired’ that last bit by having Peter shoot both of them and say something to the camera like, “Ok, ya happy now?! You’ll never see them again!!”
Ow!!! :eek: 
Earlier thread where the Overly Long Gag meets with general (but not universal) disapproval.
It was Stewie who shot them, not Peter.
And they still made at least one more appearance from the afterlife as ghostly apparitions.
I think it was Letterman that has given the “overdone joke will eventually become funny again” premise.
Of course, Eddie Vaudeville, how did I forget that?! 
Maybe the commentary didn’t in fact reference a well-known funny man and instead referenced a well-known comedic device. I’m looking into a memory upgrade so this quits happening to me. 