American Dad!
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American Dad! is an American adult animated sitcom created by Seth MacFarlane, Mike Barker, and Matt Weitzman for the Fox Broadcasting Company. American Dad! is the first television series to have its inception on Animation Domination. The series premiered on February 6, 2005, following Super Bowl XXXIX, three months before the rest of the first season aired as part of the Animation Domination block, commencing on May 1, 2005.
Plot
The series focuses on the eccentric upper middle-class Smith family in the fictional community of Langley Falls, Virginia, and their three housemates: Father, husband, CIA agent, Republican, and breadwinner Stan; his wife and homemaker/housewife, Francine; their liberal, hippie, college-aged daughter, Hayley; and their dorky high-school-aged son, Steve. There are three additional main characters, including Hayley's boyfriend and later husband, Jeff Fischer; the family's unusual goldfish, Klaus, who has the brain of an East German athlete; and Roger, the alien, who is a deceitful, self-serving master of disguise. Stan's boss Avery Bullock, the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, is a recurring character.
Why It's an American Dad!
- Great hand-drawn animation in older seasons and Toon Boom Harmony animation in the newer seasons that fits much better than in Family Guy.
- Excellent voice acting, from Seth MacFarlane himself who voices both Stan and Roger, Andrè Sogliuzzo (Tony Montana from Scarface: The World Is Yours), Rachael MacFarlane (Numbhuh 362 from Codename: Kids Next Door and Mindy from The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy), Dee Bradley Baker (Perry the Platypus from Phineas and Ferb), Wendy Schaal, Scott Grimes, Phil LaMarr (The titular character of Samurai Jack, Judge Blackman from Family Guy, Bernard from Craig of the Creek and Hermes from Futurama) and Patrick Stewart (Captain Picard from Star Trek).
- Very catchy and memorable theme song that proves how faithful it is to the United States.
- Some episodes have amazing and well-choreographed action scenes.
- Clever writing and humor. It helps that, unlike Family Guy, the jokes have actual relevance to the plot.
- Roger the Alien is a great comic relief character and his disguises are some of the best things about the show, especially his "pure evil" alter-ego Ricky Spanish.
- Tons of memorable characters, such as:
- Stan Smith
- Roger the Alien
- Francine Smith
- Steve Smith
- Klaus Smith
- Avery Bullock
- Rogu (who first appeared in Season 12 and is a fan-favorite)
- Jeff
- Principal Lewis
- Jackson
- Greg
- Terry (who sadly got written off after the episode "Anchorfran")
- Good character designs. Stan and Roger's character designs are very recognizable and funny.
- It's the first Seth MacFarlane show to not make any cutaway gags just for a change. This helps the show to be unique from Family Guy.
- Amazing and memorable episodes such as:
- "Stan of Arabia"
- "Lincoln Lover"
- "Dungeons and Wagons"
- "Iced, Iced Babies"
- "Of Ice and Men"
- "Irregarding Steve"
- "The Best Christmas Story Ever Told"
- "Bush Comes to Dinner"
- "American Dream Factory"
- "A.T. The Abusive Terrestrial"
- "Black Mystery Month"
- "An Apocalypse to Remember"
- "Tearjerker" (Arguably the best episode of the show)
- "Rabbit Ears"
- "Dope and Faith"
- "Rapture's Delight (Also counts as the best)
- "Spring Break Up"
- "Haylias"
- "American Dad After School Special"
- "Don't You Be My Neighbor"
- "Into the Jingleverse" (A good and decent holiday episode from season 20 and was a nice way to end off 2023 in production order)
- It tackles dark subject topics such as Anorexia.
- There are some cameo characters from Family Guy in certain episodes.
- Unlike Family Guy, most of the plot stays consistent.
- There is always a moral at the end of every episode (most of the time).
- Roger saying “You can’t hit me, I’m a new mom.” while breastfeeding a human baby in Incident on Owl Creek is genuinely hilarious.
Bad Qualities
- There are some terrible/mediocre episodes like:
- "Pulling Double Booty"
- "Shallow Vows"
- "Stan's Best Friend"
- "Love, AD Style"
- "Da Flippity Flop"
- "Blagsnarst: A Love Story" (Which sourly ended the show run on Fox)
- "Now and Gwen"
- "Morning Mimosa"
- "American Fung" (The most infamous episode of the entire series)
- "Anchorfran" (A bad way to write off a character)
- "Bazooka Steve"
- "Kloger"
- "Santa, Schmanta"
- "The Mural of the Story" (The second most infamous episode)
- "No Weddings and a Funeral"
- ”Tapped Out”
- "Klaus and Rogu in Thank God for Loose Rocks: An American Dad! Adventure"
- Minor overuse of incest jokes, especially in the episodes "Pulling Double Booty" and "Kloger".
- Seasons 11-13 hit a minor quality drop in the series when it moved to TBS, luckily, it improved in Season 14, unlike its brother show.
- While not as bad as its brother show, some scenes are quite disturbing, even for an adult cartoon:
- Francine’s burned face from acid at the end of the episode, "Flirting with Disaster" is very disgusting to look at. Some fans even turned the episode off before the end and that this scene was cut in the UK and Southeast Asia.
- Hayley got her face mutilated (due to Stan attempting to do plastic surgery to make Hayley "unrecognizable") in the episode "The Mural Of The Story". The subplot also isn't any better because it contains creepy clowns, complete with Roger dressing up as Pennywise.
- The infamous lobotomy scene from "American Fung".
- The graphic sex scene between Roger and Klaus in "Kloger" looks more like an R34 video. The subplot is not any better either due to the ABDL undertones in "Klogger". (Which consists of Snot revealing he likes to wear diapers and Steve purposefully soiling himself to get out of the fitness test)
- Roger skinning Jeff and wearing his skin (thankfully, the process was not shown).
- Roger and Steve swapping faces, Roger midst face swap also appeared as a persona is one of the Roger gags during the intro.
- A rotted whale corpse was seen when the Smiths were at the beach.
- Roger becoming “pregnant with Rogu”.
- Roger becoming with/giving birth to Jeff.
- Francine and Steve getting repeatedly stung by bees in "Tapped Out".
- Roger getting Steve pregnant.
- Most of Ricky Spanish' (Roger Smith's most evil and widely hated alter ego). (Mainly, all the crimes Ricky committed and the butterfly dying at the end of the episode).
- Stan and Roger can be unlikable at times.
Reception
American Dad! has received positive reception from critics. It currently sits at 7.3/10 on IMDb. And an 8.4/10 on TV.com. It is considered to be one of the greatest adult cartoons of all time, right next to South Park.
Trivia
- Unlike the other Fox shows, American Dad! was the only Fox cartoon that wasn't shown a rerun on FXX, due to that this series is still airing new episodes and rerun on TBS, Trutv, and Adult Swim (all owned by Warner Bros. Discovery).
Videos
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