American Dad!
American Dad! (also known as American Dad) is an American animated comedy series on TBS (formerly on Fox) created by Seth "Remember the '80s" MacFarlane, Bob Mike Barker, and Matt Weitzman. It centers on the life and times of Stan Smith, a neocon CIA agent who lives with his family — doting housewife Francine, awkward teen son Steve, leftist teen daughter Haley, flamboyant alien Roger, and German talking goldfish Klaus — in the red-blooded American town of Langley Falls, Virginia. Together, the family gets involved in various political shindigs, adventures, and exploits.
American Dad! was what Fox dictated as normal American life after it took over America in the Hundred-Network War. It portrays normal American behavior, such as owning a pet alien and talking fish, using campy one-liners, toasting toast by rapid-firing your gun at your toaster, and wearing the same clothes everyday. Though it started off with a rough first season, American Dad! has since garnered widespread acclaim and popularity for its clever storytelling, original characters, and commitment to being an equal-opportunity offender. It has won numerous accolades, including two Freedom Awards, two Patriot Awards, one Grand Old Elephant Award, and one ASCAP (American Society of Conservatives, Authoritarians, and Pundits) Award.
Premise[edit]
Stan Smith is a lantern-jawed, patriotic Republican "family man" and agent of the CIA. His wife Francine and his son Steve support his politics, though his daughter Hayley is a liberal hippie who tends to clash with her father. Living with the family are Klaus, an often-neglected goldfish with the exchanged brain of a German man, and Roger, an ambiguously bisexual alien with a voice and mannerisms patterned after late comedian Paul Lynde. Secondary characters include Avery Bollock, Stan's boss who happens to be voiced by the ever-awesome Patrick Stewart, and Jeff Fischer, Haley's stoner hippie husband who is banished into space but then comes back but is an alien now through a convoluted storyarc.
Being a Seth "I Survived 9/11" MacFarlane show, American Dad! tended to take a liberal bent in its first season. In one episode, for example, Stan unwittingly becomes involved with Log Cabin Republicans, and over time comes to support the inclusion of homosexuals in the Republican Party, while in another he supports the claimed "right" for fruitcakes to adopt children, and in another supports the immigration of mooching Mexicans into the United States. Later seasons, made following MacFarlane's departure from the show, generally toned down these messages in favor of apolitical comedy.
American Dad! was taken from bits of the American classics of Family Guy, The Simpsons, and The O'Reilly Factor. Old, shredded scripts from these three shows were pasted together to supposedly make the perfect television program that would reach a 100% submissive demographic. This joint-programming was obvious to certain viewers with lines like this:
| “ | Stan: You know, Lois, I could've eaten that whole sandwich. Francine: I don't think that that's a good idea, Homer. Roger: You are now entering the No Spin Zone. |
” |
Characters[edit]
Main[edit]
- Stan Smith (Adidas Stan Smith) – The main protagonist of the show. Stan is the descendant of Family Guy's Joe Swanson, noticed by their large chins, muscularity, and love for America. He is a well-groomed paranoid maniac who was hired to work for the CIA, and now works tirelessly to eliminate terrorists, spies, werewolves, and other threats to American civilization.
- Francine Smith (Stevie Nicks) – Stan's wife who cooks, cleans, and goes on outlandish vacations to places like Pikachusetts or MegaTexas. She's pretty boring in the eyes of most fans, although other fans appreciate her attractiveness.
- Steve Smith (Steve Urkel) – Stan's son, a stereotypical geeky white boy who can fluently speak Klingon. He is kind of a Clark Kent/Superman-type character, being a stereotypical geeky high-voiced white boy in day-to-day life, but able to transform himself into a suave deep-voiced boyband singer.
- Hayley Smith (Hillary Duff) – Stan's stoned hippie daughter, who he doesn't trust because he hates hippies. Her long trips away from home are to cover up for her multiple pregnancies with unknown fathers. She has hypocritically given her illegitimate children to foster care, not aborting them despite her incredibly liberal views.
- Roger Smith (Johnny Depp) – An alien Stan found at Area 51, Roger is E.T.'s super-catty, pathological lying, fabulously flamboyantly bisexual cousin who likes piña coladas and getting caught in the rain. He was sent on a mission to Earth to collect tobacco and bring it back to his planet for consumption. He can be very cynical at times and is fluent in bullshit.
- Klaus Smith (Arnold Schwarzenegger) – A talking German goldfish who used to be a human before using the CIA's brain-swapping machine. He has an unrequited sexual desire for Francine, much like the dog in Family Guy has for Lois. Klaus is the most depressing thing on Earth, and makes even Hunter S. Thompson or Edgar Allan Poe seem gingerly.
Secondary[edit]
- Avery Bollock (Patrick Stewart) – Stan's boss. He became bald from a nuclear reaction caused by a terrorist attack on a hot dog stand. Since that fateful day after losing both his hair and his lunch, he decided to run the CIA in hopes of making America a better place, but is only making it worse. He always sends Stan on these phony wild goose chases, while the other agents get the real missions.
- Jeff Fischer (John Goodman) – Another stoned hippie who became Hayley's love interest. For the first few seasons, they did stuff. Then they ran away, did more stuff, and got married. Then when Jeff found out about Roger, he was banished into the outer reaches of space, and is currently on his way back to Earth to kick some alien ass.
Episodes[edit]
In the first season, most episodes chronicled Stan having to deal with those pesky liberals, including liberal activists, the liberal media, his liberal daughter, liberal homosexuals, and liberal affirmative action African-Americans. He usually "deals" with said liberals either through the use of a firearm, or by completely misrepresenting the position of the liberals and annoying them to the point at which they give up and leave him alone. From the second season onward, the show dropped the political dogma in favor of creative, surprisingly clever, even sometimes mind-blowing mindfuck storylines.
In the fourteenth season, the narrative revolved entirely around Steve Smith and his lack of popularity at Langley Falls High School. To counteract his crippling depression, Steve began trying out (and failing) all sorts of team sports such as water polo and roller derby. Despite the show being called American Dad!, Steve finally achieved success by becoming the captain of the Australian national cricket team. Through his uncanny ability to dance on the middle of the cricket pitch in order to avoid hitting the ball, Steve somehow managed to become the second greatest batsman in the history of the game.
The season concluded some three years later — in 2019, when sportsman Steve was found guilty for tampering with George Papadopoulos's balls in order to gather classified information regarding the Russian interference in the 2016 United States election. As punishment, the International Cricket Council banned Steve from ever playing the game again in any form. Since then, Steve has been forced by law to live out the rest of his life in Langley Falls as his usual geeky, socially-awkward 14-year-old self, never being allowed to pursue or find happiness ever again.
Production[edit]
The concept for American Dad! came about in 2003, during the interim where Incessant Hit-or-Miss Cutaway Gag Clipshow was canceled. [adult swim] had gained rights to reruns of the show, and were scoring surprisingly huge ratings with college fratboy audiences (despite them being too young to understand most of the '70s and '80s pop culture references). [as] felt Fox had made a huge blunder in canning the show, and took the opportunity to rub it in their bean-counting glasses-wearing faces. They called creator Seth "Jungle Cubs" MacFarlane up, and offered him a handsome sum of money in exchange for new seasons of Family Guy without Fox's involvement. Seth nearly agreed until Fox, realizing their mistake at the last minute, offered to not just revive Family Guy but also give him backrubs and a higher sum of money than [as], which was ultimately enough to push him back in their direction.
However, feeling that his genius could scarcely be contained in only one primetime television slot, Seth "Johnny Bravo" MacFarlane amended his contract by demanding that Fox give him two shows instead of one, to which they agreed. Assembling a crack team of Ivy League graduates ("The only people capable of writing smart fart jokes," MacFarlane believed), he managed to produce the 2005 pilot of American Dad! in only four days, channeling his anger at the Bush administration into digital pen and paper. The result received piss-poor reactions from audiences; MacFarlane, however, was pleased with the pilot, and responded to the wave of criticism by laughing to himself whilst rubbing his face with dollar bills, Frank Sinatra records, and Transformers action figures.
After the revival episodes of Family Guy scored much more popularity than was anticipated, however, Seth "Young Sinatra III" MacFarlane thought there was no point left in staying with American Dad!, so he departed from the show midway through the first season. Mike Barker and Matt Weitzman, two writers from the pre-cancellation seasons of Family Guy (aka "Back when Family Guy was good", according to precancel purists with their frosted tips and Dane Cook DVDs in tow), took over production of American Dad! and steered it in a bold new direction, one which placed emphasis on story and characters over Seth's neoliberal smuggery.
The first eleven seasons were broadcast on the good, wholesome, fair, and balanced Fox network. From season twelve onward, the show moved to the filthier TBS: Very Funny.
Reception[edit]
American Dad!'s pilot, and its first season in general, was poorly received by audiences and critics alike. During the first season, critics and fans felt the show was basically the same as Seth MacFarlane's first show, Family Guy. There's a stupid man, his hot wife who does all the housework, two kids of opposite genders, a talking pet, and many background characters based off retrograde stereotypes. The difference is that the main character is not a fat lazy drunk guy, but rather a neocon working for the CIA. Also, instead of a gay evil genius baby and a talking dog, there's a gay alien who constantly disguises himself to hide from the troops who are out to get him and a German talking goldfish who nobody likes.
As season one continued, it was becoming more and more apparent that the show was trapped in the gutter. Producers grasped desperately for ratings with the invitation of numerous guest stars such as Seth Rogen, Gary Coleman, J.J. Walker, and NBC-appointed U.S. President Martin Sheen. The show changed timeslots numerous times, from Sunday at 9:30pm, to Sunday at 8:30pm, to Tuesday at 5:30pm, to Wednesday at 2:30am, and finally just as a three-minute sketch on Fox News.
However, Seth "Normal Words, But a Horse Guy" MacFarlane's departure from the show strangely (or not) lead to an increase in the quality of ADExclamationPoint's writing in the eyes of numerous fans and critics. It managed to escape the faux-Family Guy characterizations and overtly-political themes in favor of tightly-written storylines and subtle wittier humor, perhaps even making it better than post–season 8 Simpsons. In 2009, the show reached a peak viewership of 600,000 people, which eventually was discovered to be the entire city of Plano, Texas who coincidentally all tuned into Fox at the same time. However, some people believe the show turned into a parody of itself after moving to TBS, despite the occasional decent episode, and now it's plunging back downhill to the depths of season 1.