Dethroning Moment of Suck (Darth Wiki)/Western Animation/American Dad

Since American Dad is more of a political-based animated series, it's considered to be more acceptable for political beliefs to be found in Seth MacFarlane's second Fox animated TV series. Still, this show's found to find some faults for viewers somewhere.

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Moments only, no "just everything he said," or "This entire show," or "This entire series" entries.
No contesting entries. This is subjective, the entry is their opinion.
No natter. As above, anything contesting an entry will be cut, and anything that's just contributing more can be made its own entry.
Explain why it's a Dethroning Moment of Suck.
No Real Life examples including Executive Meddling. That's just asking for trouble.
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While Steve not getting the girl is a very common running gag, it was done rather cruelly in the Halloween episode. Basically, Steve takes Toshi's sister, Akiko, out Trick-or-treating, but under a curfew. After spending some time, building up to a potential relationship, and even talking Toshi out of being so over protective, you'd think Steve would finally get this one, right? Wrong. Why, you may ask? Because Akiko went for a random nine year-old kid who didn't appear until the end with no foreshadowing what-so-ever. I mean, I know Steve not getting the girl happens all the time, but at least the reasons were explainable and foreshadowed. This time, the writers just wanted to see Steve miserable.
- Couldn't agree more. I mean some Foreshadowing would have at least been nice. The guy stands up for her and get her some more freedom from Toshi and she ignores that in favor of a kid, who can dance. I mean the kid's got moves don't get me wrong but a quick 3 second moment earlier in the story, Akiko mentioning him at least ONCE beforehand, something! The guy getting the rug pulled out from under him is a regular occurrence but this just seemed really uncalled for. - blitz2441
You thought they were trying to make Steve miserable in that episode? Try "Big Trouble in Little Langley." Let's see: Steve blew his thumb off and kept getting pecked by a crow that tried taking his severed thumb. But just when he finally got his thumb reattatched, the girl of the week decided to let Steve touch her breast. However, his hand was still numb from the drugs. When Steve pointed out that he couldn't feel anything, the girl took it as an insult. Finally, to add insult to injury, the crow starts pecking at him again. Jesus Crispity Crunching Christ! The writers must really hate him or something.
Pretty much the entirety of the episode "Bully for Steve." In order to teach him to stand up to bullies, Stan spends the entire episode beating the crap out of him in such a way that should have had him locked up for child abuse, assault, battery, and any number of other actual crimes, and absolutely deserve it. Physically abused Tropers agree - Dude, Not Funny
"Vacation Goo" The ep started out alright, with Francine's Tear Jerker moments of wanting a closer family but the suckiness came in when they fall overboard and land on an island full of hunters. Held up for days with the stewardess/girl of the week for Steve dies... and they eat her corpse. It goes on for so damn long the little humor that it had goes down the drain. Jesus, that was an ordeal. Oh and it turns out the hunters weren't after him, it was part of the theme park's attraction.
I usually find this show hilarious, but in the episode "Gorillas in the Mist" there is one moment that made me cringe. The police run over a dog, just to emphasize how little care they have for some foster children. Instead of just hitting the dog and sending if flying, or hitting it off screen would have been fine, but in bad taste, it has to be cut in half with blood stains all over the ground! It was so freaking disgusting and awful I had to take a minute before watching the rest of the episode.
- Let's not forget that this episode also marks the second appearance of Terry Bate's father, Tank, who, unfortunately, still couldn't accept the fact that he has a gay son, which is obviously a Call Back to the DMOS season 4 episode "Daddy Queerest".
"Daddy Queerest" was bad enough for somehow managing to make a strawman even more insulting than usual, but there exists another episode "Pulling Double Booty" in which we learn that Hayley can't take it if somebody dumps her (even though she does it herself all the time with her friend) and thinks she is therefore allowed to commit violent acts against everyone in sight. Later, it turns out that she only did so because Stan never told her he loved her - and here it gets funny. Close to the end, Stan tells Hayley that while acting as his body double who she has a relationship with (long, irrelevant story) and then dumps her. She's cool with it then. However, when she figures out that it was her dad all the time, she proceeds to burn down a forest. Even though Stan tells her that he loves her - twice, once while being himself - and the body double couldn't have possibly broken up with her. So, did she now have a reason to do it or did the writers just want to showcase what would be a better way to get rid of trees than turning them into paper and giving that to them so they could write this dreck?
"Failure Is Not A Factory-Installed Option" was the absolute low point of the series for me, it started out decent enough, but things went downhill as soon as Stan started going crazy over getting screwed over by a car salesman. As a result of Stan going crazy, he's unable to work, so the family ends up in dire financial straits and Hayley goes into prostitution in order to help pay the bills. Then It Got Worse after Stan beats the salesman at his own game by making him feel sorry for him and his family, he then reveals that the whole "going crazy" thing was all an elaborate plot so he could get a better deal on a car. Let that sink in for a moment, Stan deliberately put the whole family through hell all so he could save money on a fucking car! I know Stan is selfish, but come on! That's the type of Jerkass stunt I'd expect Peter to pull on Family Guy, it didn't feel in character for Stan to be that neglectful and uncaring to his own family. If Stan at least got the shit beaten out of him, it would've lessened the blow somewhat. Instead, he completely gets away with it at the end and shows no remorse for putting the family through hell for something incredibly insignificant. He doesn't even acknowledge them or their feelings, he just feels good about himself for beating the salesman! Also, this episode continues the incredibly lame and pointless storyline of Roger's golden turd.
For me, it was the episode where Stan finds out Roger was on the US Hockey Team in the 1980s (the one that won the Olympics) only to find out that Roger used steroids to win, and Stan decides to return the medal to the Olympics committee. It started out decent enough with Stan deciding the right thing to do is to return the medal and reveal the US team had technically cheated and Stan dealing with the realization his heroes aren't what he expected. But, then, for no reason, it suddenly turns into a Lord of the Rings parody with Roger as Gollum. Seriously, it's one of the most jarring shifts I've ever seen in any cartoon series. Just...why? Why do you need to do a parody that has nothing to do with the episode's subject matter? It's as if Seth Mcfarlane just couldnt' resist shoving in more of his nerd fanboyism wherever possible regardless of whether or not it's relevant to the plot. Hey, Seth, if I wanted to watch LOTR, I'll go watch LOTR.
For me, it was the end of "Escape from Pearl Bailey". After a case of Misplaced Retribution for Debbie's failed bid for the presidency ends up with the student body of Jerk Jocks and Alpha Bitches on Steve's trail, even after he explained it was a misunderstanding, he and his friends, who were responsible for the act in the first place, ultimately get beat up at the end of the episode, itself a case of Disproportionate Retribution and a case of them being Karma Houdinis for not being any better in the first place. One hopes Stan had them tortured CIA-style in return.
For me, it was "Shallow Vows". Basically, the episode is about Francine getting ugly, and Stan not liking the way she looks now (which contradicts why they loved each other in previous episodes). He revealed that the only reason he married her was because of her looks. So Fran goes away for about two weeks and lets herself go, much to the disappointment of Stan. Stan tries everything to love her, including getting his retinas removed so he won't have to see her. At first, Francine is (understandably) displeased, but then she finds that Stan is a better lover when he's blind. Here comes the real DMOS: Stan tells Francine that she will have to take care of him, which upsets her, since she doesn't want to be a caretaker (after all, she has kids). Then she "realizes" that she is just as shallow as Stan is. So the moral was, it doesn't matter if two people love each other for the wrong reasons, as long as it works. Huh?
The end of "A Ward Show" was god awful. Mad at the waterpark for not refunding their tickets, they plan to have sex in the super fast water slide. When Stan can't slow down, he collides into Francine and leads to a burst of blood. I do not under any circumstances want to know who found that funny when they wrote that in, that is just disgusting. Last American Dad I ever see.
For me, it was the episode where Stan bets fifty grand on a horse to keep his car. While that's not a good reason, at least it was an actual reason. Francine is allowed to be totally angry about it. But in an earlier episode, she did the exact same thing. She bet fifty grand (and lost it) at a casino. Yet she is treated with complete sympathy, while when Stan does it, he's an awful person. In addition, she was betting it for the thrill. That's some pretty awful Double Standard, American Dad writers!
A "gag" from the Christmas episode, "Season's Beatings", has Roger making some eggnog. Roger tests the eggnog by pulling out a cage with two rats. He gives some of the eggnog to one of the rats, which then bites the head off the second rat, makes out with it, wears the dead rat head like a hat, runs around the cage a few times, vomits several times its body weight in blood, and then it explodes. That is the most grotesque image I've ever seen on television, and a sign that the writers are being disgusting just for either shock value or an unfunny gag.
In The Unbrave One, while a valid point, the Character Tract (or Author Tract) against the praise for the guy who landed the plane on the Hudson River was poorly done. I mean, it's not hard at all to think that this is just what Seth MacFarlane (or whoever wrote the script) wishes he wants to say to that guy if they met. It's forced, too much of a tract, and doesn't really add anything to the episode. A lot of jokes don't add either, but at least they were jokes, not thinly veiled rants.
In the latest episode Dr Klaustus", there's a scene where Stan and Francine find out Steve is pretending that Greg and Terry are his actual parents to avoid embarrassment, and Francine's reaction is to resort to calling Steve, her own son: "A four eyed bastard", and to add insult to injury, says she knew she should've aborted him! Okay, time out, one of the reasons why I like American Dad, is because it's closer to the first three seasons of Family Guy, the characters despite being dysfunctional are lovable, and they have feelings, but I see the show suffering from minor flanderization, Roger has already turned into an extreme jerk(to an extent, I don't mind), but the family are picking on Klaus for no reason(especially in this episode), and Francine said something as bad as what Lois(of the new FG episodes) would've said, this is the same character who went to the lengths of breaking up her "four eyed bastard" son from his girlfriend, because she herself missed spending time with him and cared about him. Come on, please don't do this to American Dad, one of the reasons why FG has suffered was due to flanderization, please don't do this to the one good Seth MacFarlane show left! To add insult to injury, Francine in the same episode calls Stan out because he called her out on stealing, and calls him a "pre-eating douchebag"....
This Troper would have to say "Stan's Best Friend". The episode starts out rather okay, but what comes is rather disturbing... After Steve is denied to own a dog from Stan, (as he had a traumatic experience as a child with his own dog) Francine goes and gets him one anyway. Stan warms up to the dog, whom is named Kisses by Steve, and Stan is happy about dogs again. Then Kisses gets into an accident by a hot air balloon with cats dressed as pirates. Desperate to save Kisses who at this point is on life-support with the vet saying he's not going to make it, Stan does a lot of research and discovers a doctor who saves animals others have given up on. Stan steals Kisses from the vet, and makes it to the doctor. The doctor operates on Kisses, and says he made it through the operation. The results were... less then pleasant. As a dog lover, I honestly felt sick at seeing the results and turned off the episode. I usually love American Dad, but this episode crossed the line for me.
- This troper is sooooo glad that someone agrees with her. I usually don't mind American Dad but I had a hard time sleeping after this episode. What's more, they made the dog out to be the cutest dog ever before it got into that accident, as if the writers were simply giving the viewers the middle finger by the end.
  - I'm totally with you guys on this one. This episode wasn't just unfunny, it was just...morbid. I normally love AD but this episode just rubbed me the wrong day because it's just NOT ever funny or entertaining to watch an animal suffer like poor Kisses did. It would have been a little better if Kisses had been really nasty to the Smiths or something and therefore had it coming, but he was so loveable and sweet that watching him die slowly and suffer just crossed the line for me.
For me, one of the biggest dethroning moments of any episode was the ending of the episode where one of Rogers' personas takes on a life of its own, in the form of Sydney Hoffman. He ends the episode by saving Sydney's girlfriend from the hitman, and then trying to ditch her. However, he then has a change of heart, and asks her to dinner. This was so delightful, and I thought it was perfectly charming, a real insight into Roger's heart. However, Roger then tells her "I have no genitals" which wouldn't have been too bad if it wasn't for the fact his girlfriend then replies "That's okay. I have both." For me, this just ruined the whole episode. The fact they suddenly reveal "Oh by the way, she's transgender!" as the final line of the show. I'm not saying anything bad about transgender people, I just think the fact they threw this in as a joke ruins the whole thing about seeing into Roger's heart for once.
- That the girlfriend may have been transgender could be the joke, there could be an alternative: that she's an intersex/hermaphroditic person (having male & female genitalia naturally). Whether or not that makes it better is up to the viewer.
For me, it was the episode were Stan wants to spend more time with Steve, so he gets robotic android girl to befriend him (long story) and decides the only way to spend more time with him is to have sex with him. it just creeped me out, made worse by the fact that everyone was ok with Stan trying to molest his son, but the ending, Steve doesn't get the girl (there was a 2nd girl, who was not Stan, and liked Steve for Steve). What the hell! You give use a new likable character, and you make so we'll never see her again. Why?!

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