American Dad/YMMV: Difference between revisions

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* [[Acceptable Targets]]: Used with varying degrees of intensity: the more the writers hate it, the meaner they'll be. So far, everything has been ripe for parody.

* [[Anvilicious]]: Surprisingly averted. It doesn't go nearly as far as the recent episodes of ''[[Family Guy]]'' do and is all the better for it.

** Parodied in an episode where, after Francine is worried that her and Stan's new friends might get an abortion, he says...

* [[Alternative Character Interpretation]]: Is Francine a sensible mom/wife or is she an insane dumb blonde? Or sometimes both?

** [[Depending on the Writer|It often depends on]] [[Idiot Ball|the episode, really]].

** Roger's bad tortillas cause him to evacuate 'a turd of solid gold' which becomes the [[MacGuffin]] in a very bad B-movie - causing two overly long scenes in unconnected episodes where characters we've never seen before kill each other for said golden turd. Fans generally have found them confusing rather than funny.

*** This later turns out to be a [[Brick Joke]], which took about four years to finish.

** Not to mention the beginning to ''Irregarding Steve''. Without warning, terrorists kill everyone as Klaus and Francine escape through an underground tunnel. They're suddenly in a car driving off as Klaus is in a mech, explaining that "[he's] Max Hammer. And [he's] here to save the world!" After escaping Mexican vampires, they discover the lost city of Atlantis after driving the car off the cliff into the ocean. They begin to kiss as it's revealed to be a [[All Just a Dream|daydream]] by Klaus.

** The fake commercial for crack on ''A Jones for a Smith''. Yeah, it was funny because Stan was imagining the whole thing and it does serve as a bit of satire about America's tight laws for illegal drugs vs. their lax laws on prescription drugs (which can be abused just like the illegals), but the main question is: Did it have ''anything'' to do with the plot ([[Rule of Funny|other than to be funny]])?

** MIND QUAD.

** The end of "The Unbrave One". Francine steps into Steve's room drunk, and Roger walks in and sings a song. Then a random guy on the street and his lady friend come in and they all start singing along, with the last line being sung by the woman. [[Vocal Dissonance|And she's got the voice of a man.]]

** It was Witches.

** [[Word of God]] says {{spoiler|the episode was written because the writers thought that ''[[American Dad]]'' was going to get canceled, so they made this episode as a series finale. When news hit that the show wasn't going to be cancelled, they made this the season premiere}}.

** ''Tearjerker'', a [[James Bond]] spoof with all the family members playing different characters.

* [[Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch]]: People will occasionally accuse ''[[American Dad]]'' of being a ''[[Family Guy]]'' rip-off due to the fact that both shows are animated [[Dom Coms]] created by [[Seth MacFarlane]] (with MacFarlane providing voicework for the father characters), but anyone who has seen even a single episode of both shows can tell you that ''American Dad'' does ''NOT'' have the same humor style as ''Family Guy''.

* [[Crazy Awesome]]: Roger can be this at times, thanks to his vast array of personas. One example is when his persona "Jeanie Golde" tells Steve and Haley to go buy a good present for their parents renewing of vows. When they come back with a $30 thimble, Jeanie "leaves" and his other persona Valik, some sort of Spanish/Mexican thug for hire arrives and slashes Steve across the chest with his knife. Once Francine arrives, Jeanie comes back and tells Steve to bite down on a stick as she begins to sew shut the wound, disinfect it, bandage it, then kiss it. All before telling Steve not to go into shock because "today is not about [him]."

** Principal Lewis. ''He gets into fistfights with dogs''.

* [[Funny Aneurysm Moment]] - [[Lampshaded]] in the commentary for "Irregarding Steve", where Stan says "Death has better things to do, like remembering Tony Curtis already." The writers said that they prayed that Tony Curtis wouldn't die any time near that episode's airing.

** But now Tony Curtis is dead as of 2010, officially making that line this trope.

* [[Genius Bonus]]: The documentary style voice at the end of "Ricky Spanish" was done by an actual documentary VO actor.

* [[Gorn]]: Has indulged in this as of late, though thankfully not as much as ''[[Family Guy]]''.

* [[Hilarious in Hindsight]]: In "Daddy Queerest," a drunken Stan mistakes Nelson Mandela for [[Morgan Freeman]]. It ''is'' somewhat funny due to Mandela's and Freeman's similarities in appearance, but it really becomes [[Hilarious in Hindsight]] when you realize that the episode came on seven months before the release of the movie ''[[Invictus]]''. Take a wild guess as to who's plays Nelson Mandela in that movie.

** In the pilot episode, Roger insists that "we can't all be like those anorexic aliens in [[The Abyss|the]] [[James Cameron]] [[Aliens|movies]]!" Nearly half a decade later, the then-secretive "[[Avatar (film)|Avatar]]" was released, featuring a race of creatures who were both extremely thin and, unlike his previous aliens, were [[Word of God|specifically designed to inspire]] [[Perverse Sexual Lust]] [[Word of God|in humans]].

** In Francine's Flashback, an amnesiac Francine runs off with Hayley's boyfriend Jeff to watch the Burning Man event. Stan then absent-mindedly suggests to Hayley that they get back by dating each other. In Pulling Double Booty, Hayley dates Stan's double Bill (whom Francine initially mistakes for Stan, causing her to freak out over the supposed incestuous relationship). At the end, Stan must fill in for Bill to prevent Hayley from being crushed.

** In "Stan Knows Best", Stan shows off wigs based on the hairs of Republican first ladies, including Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush, and Maria Shriver, to which Stan comments "Stay tuned." Something tells me what Stan's implying ''won't'' be happening anytime soon.

* [[Narm]]: When the illegal immigrants that include Haley's ex-boyfriend at the end of one episode are about to be deported, ''right'' when ICE intends to do it, they sing America the Beautiful in ''Spanish'' to save their own skin, everyone's touched and ICE changes their mind about deporting them. It's probably the corniest ending of an episode the series had.

* [[Nightmare Fuel]]: Roger still alive with his face sliced off and most of his organs removed after being dissected by alien hunter Scarlett Reynolds.

** Stan's [[Body Horror]] when he has anorexia is listed below, but it's so frightening it could be listed here.

** What happens when a rat drinks Roger's eggnog?

** Here's two; Francines tearful regret of her lack of a tighter family in "Vacation Goo" and Roger's song in "AT the Abusive Terrestrial". For the first, the fact that many families drift apart from one another very much is really a downer and very relatable. The second, much like the first, is also relatable. Also McFarlane's singing really sells this.

*** Roger's song is downright ''heartbreaking'' if you've lost a friend, or have grown apart from one. And it's coming from ''Roger'', of all people.

*** Being Roger, he ruins it. "Well, that didn't solve anything. Guess I'll go get hammered."

** In the episode in which Steve and Roger go to New York, there is a very strange subplot featuring anthropomorphic squirrels. However, this subplot takes two turns towards [[Tear Jerker]]: first, the mother squirrel yelling at one of her sons ("Don't you yell at him, Gilbert! He's your brother! Ya have to take care of your brother!") and said squirrel's subsequent expression when his "special" brother is described as his mother's "knight in shimmering armour". Secondly, the squirrels' mother {{spoiler|dying}}. ''Ouch.''

** That whole subplot was actually "[[What's Eating Gilbert Grape]]" [[Recycled in Space|with squirrels]].

** The DeLorean episode in which Steve leans out of the car while sleeping and accidentally hits a hare. Turns into a dark subversion of [[The Tortoise and the Hare]], in that the tortoise sees his friend's body and cries over him, saying that he always respected him. The episode ends with the tortoise dragging the hare's (eventually mangled) body over the finish line before crying.

** "Stan's Best Friend" the whole freaking episode! Stan's story of how he lost his dog Freddie(especially sad because he dosen't underscore it with a joke) Stan agonizing over the decision to take Kisses off life support, it especially hits home if you've ever lost a pet you were close to.

** Barry having to kill the calf he bonded with.

* [[True Art Is Incomprehensible]]: The episode "Lincoln Lover" briefly features a play with an obese man wearing underpants and a stovepipe hat tossing joints of meat around the stage while reciting advertising slogans. He then accuses us all of being slaves, and a mirror is lowered with the word "slave" written on it, as sheep noises play. Stan is suitably unimpressed.

* [[The Untwist]]: "The Vacation Goo" reveals that everytime the Smith family thinks they've gone on a vacation, Stan's actually put them inside virtual reality machines that create the illusion of being on vacation. After Francine finds out and insists Stan take them all on a real vacation, Steve and Haley take their own turns putting the rest of the family in the virtual reality goo so they can get some time alone. Eventually they go on what appears to be a real vacation, which goes horribly for everyone, and it turns out that . . . it's just a real sucky vacation. Francine didn't put the rest of the family in the goo machine to teach them a lesson or anything like that; their vacation just sucked. It's considered one of the weakest episodes in the series.