In its early seasons, the show ran with a newspaper gag, often ridiculing the political discourse of the era. Stan runs to be his church’s deacon with the support from Karl Rove ( “Deacon Stan, Jesus Man” – season 1, episode 7) and – upset by the fact his wife refuses to do as he asks all the time – moves the family to Saudi Arabia in order to live out his patriarchal whims ( “Stan of Arabia” – season 2, episodes 5 & 6). Jokes and plotlines center on bioweapons, sending supporting characters to Guantanamo Bay ( “Threat Levels” – season 1, episode 2), and concerns that the Smith’s new Iranian neighbors are terrorists, which end up derailing Stan’s wife’s plans for a neighborhood party ( “Homeland Insecurity” – season 1, episode 6). Initially, the show focused largely on Stan Smith and the ambience of mid-2000s America. I hope to capture a few of the eccentricities and standout moments that make the show pop and, in doing so, highlight its brightest episodes. It is in that vein that I felt motivated to compose this tribute to the series. But the show has aged and maintained its overall quality remarkably well compared to long-running contemporaries like The Simpsons and Family Guy, despite – or perhaps because – it never quite reaching the same pop culture relevance. Of course, no show can go on for 350 episodes without some low points, and American Dad! is no exception. I’m just going with what Wikipedia uses for the sake of convenience, but I realize their numbering is Hulu’s, where the show is currently streaming if it gets confusing, just go by the episode title! with over 350 episodes to date. This is a difficult task, as the show is still airing and in its 20th season 1 Or 19, or maybe 18? It depends on who you ask. To that effect, I wanted to give it a fair shake, admit my appreciation, and attempt to catalog it once more. It’s a half-mindless, half-brilliant kind of show I’ve rewatched so many times because, much like Futurama’s relationship to The Simpsons, American Dad! maintained a higher, more sophisticated, and more sentimental quality than Family Guy, the show that put MacFarlane on the map. Instead, it is a true sitcom focused on the Smith family’s dynamics and their more relatable problems, which is inarguably why it has aged better and stayed watchable past my teens. Unlike Family Guy, which began airing in 1999 (and to a lesser extent, The Cleveland Show, MacFarlane’s Family Guy spinoff which premiered in 2009 and was eventually canceled), American Dad! does not lean on runaway bits or cutaway gags. It first aired in 2005 and is colored with the post-9/11 Bush era zeitgeist of its time, which allows for more politically sophisticated and interesting episodes, with more enjoyable conceits than MacFarlane’s other work. The show revolves around Stan and his family – wife Francine, nerdy son Steve, hippie daughter Hayley, German “pet” fish Klaus, and Roger the alien (the show’s breakout star) – who reside in the fictional town of Langley Falls, Virginia. That said, MacFarlane’s true work of art is American Dad!, the more mature cousin of Family Guy centered on CIA Agent Stan Smith (voiced by Seth MacFarlane, who I can only assume is contractually obligated to voice the protagonist(s) in everything he creates). But in general the limit to MacFarlane’s sense of humor is that it is well-tuned to the 12-year-old edgelord we all once thought we were when we learned how to curse. Yes, there are funny moments in Ted and Family Guy has some good jokes hidden beneath the “bits” so ingrained in American pop culture that I fear we may never shake them. At some point after age 14, I grew out of Seth MacFarlane’s typical shtick, as everyone should.
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