"American Dad!" (2005) TV series 2005-????

Creators:

Mike Barker
Seth MacFarlane
Matt Weitzman

Seasons:

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | unknown

Release Date:

6 February 2005 (USA)

Genre:

Animation | Action | Adventure | Comedy

Tagline:

From the creator of "Family Guy" comes a man who will stop at nothing to protect his country.

Plot:

The random escapades of Stan Smith, an extreme right wing CIA agent dealing with family life and keeping America safe, all in the most absurdist way possible.

Plot Keywords:

CIA | Goldfish | German | Alien | CIA Agent

Awards:

Nominated for Primetime Emmy. Another 10 nominations

US TV Schedule:

Fri. Dec. 18	11:30 PM	TOON	Best Christmas Story Never Told	#2.9
Sat. Dec. 19	3:30 AM	TOON	Best Christmas Story Never Told	#2.9

Cast

Seth MacFarlane	...	Stan Smith / ... (88 episodes, 2005-2009)
Wendy Schaal	...	Francine Smith / ... (88 episodes, 2005-2009)
Dee Bradley Baker	...	Klaus / ... (88 episodes, 2005-2009)
Scott Grimes	...	Steve Smith / ... (87 episodes, 2005-2009)
Rachael MacFarlane	...	Hayley Smith / ... (87 episodes, 2005-2009)
Mike Barker	...	Terry / ... (51 episodes, 2005-2009)

Runtime:

30 min (including commercials)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

USA:TV-14 (some episodes) | Australia:PG (some episodes) | Australia:M (some episodes) | Ireland:12 (some episodes) | UK:12 | Ireland:15 (some episodes) | Argentina:13 | Finland:K-13 (DVD) | New Zealand:M (season 3) | Canada:G (Quebec) (DVD rating) | USA:TV-PG (some episodes)

Company:

20th Century Fox Television

Trivia:

The final frame of the introduction was changed for seasons beyond the first. At the end of the credits in the first season, all that could be seen was a big "American Dad!" logo in front of the American Flag. In all subsequent scenes, this logo was shrunk to fit the names to the series creators on the same screen.

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): In one episode Toshi marries the Russian mail order bride. Yet he claimed in an earlier episode he had an arranged marriage waiting for him in his homeland.

Quotes:

Newspaper headline: Optimist Drowns in Half-full Tub.

Movie Connections:

Spin off American Dad: The New CIA (2005)

Is to Family Guy what Futurama is to the Simpsons

On first glance, American Dad looks like a carbon copy of Seth MacFarlane's "other" show Family Guy. The animation is near identical, the lead character Stan Smith's knuckle headed optimism and in-your-face presentation doesn't so much recall Peter Griffin as grab you by the throat and scream in your face and Roger the alien and Klaus the goldfish work in much the same way Stewie and Brian do in the previous show. So far so very familiar, as though MacFarlane dressed up his fourth FG series with different characters when it was initially cancelled so as to stay on the air but stick with it, and American Dad will eventually reveal itself as a superior cartoon to it's predecessor.

Sure, the humour is once again a mixture of insightful witticisms, biting satire and odd bursts into toilet humour but rather than the chaos of Family Guy where the plot seems to revolve round the jokes, here the opposite is true. The flashbacks are almost totally absent and instead each episode features a structure and character development that is normally missing from the first show. Okay some of the episodes fall a bit flat but nevertheless, there are considerably more hits than there are misses and when it's good, it's brilliant. "A Smith In The Hand" for example is in this writer's humble opinion, the funniest thing MacFarlane and his team have ever produced.

What's more, American Dad is considerably more politically-orientated and everything you could conceive about the USA's current state of fear mongering and distrust is put beneath a microscope and parodied mercilessly. Stan Smith is a boorish depiction of all that paranoia rolled into one and some of his outbursts and overreactions are hilarious. Take the scene where he locks up his new Arab neighbours in his back garden for instance in a moment that scarily recalls the nightmarish conditions of Guantanamo bay yet still manages to be side splittingly funny or any of his numerous conceited one-liners ("only women have emotions son, they come from their ovaries").

Only time will tell if American Dad can outlive the shadow of it's far more successful big brother, but like the relationship between Futurama and the Simpsons beforehand, it's often a far funnier and considerably more focused show that deserves a wider audience. Highly recommended.