ART AND ANIMATION

THE AMERICAN DAD WAY

murder, mayhem, and family time on television's best and greatest show ever (without exaggeration)

By Gabrielle Kedziora

What makes something impeccable? Shows like The Simpsons, Family Guy, and South Park each were wonderful in their own individual ways, but if you’re going to combine innocent childhood cartoon styles with crude toilet humor, questionable sex jokes, and racial insensitivity, you have to do it right! Finally, with American Dad, show runners Seth MacFarlane, Mike Barker and Matt Weitzman do it and truly capture the most enigmatic aspects of our lives. The show follows Stan Smith, a painfully patriotic CIA agent and his family in Langley Falls, Virginia. Standouts in the family are Francine Smith, a ditzy alcoholic housewife, Haley Smith and Jeff Fisher, a stoner hippie and her stoner hippie husband, both who still live at home (freeloaders). The younger son Steve Smith, a horny prepubescent nerd, who sings like a sweet angel. And of course, the lovable “creatures” of the house, Roger a crossdressing alien hiding from the CIA and Klaus a goldfish with the brain of an East German Olympic ski jumper.

The best way to showcase a dysfunctional family is through a holiday like Christmas, where the moons align to create havoc. Although only seven Christmases are featured over the show’s 21 seasons, they all revolve around one central problem, how to bring the family together. By using traditional tropes in highly unusual and complex ways American Dad offers a new perspective. Here, the holidays aren’t used as a traditional sitcom marker, but instead as a way to reject realism and embrace the extreme. And to reveal the core of, dare I say it, human experience on the level of Mr. William Shakespeare.

Family Values

The most notable Christmas episode is "For Whom the Sleigh Bell Tolls" – S6 EP2 (2010) in which Stan takes Steve out to play with a new shotgun and accidentally murders Santa. The family helps bury Santa’s body in the woods, but by magical elements best not summarized here he awakens from the dead, vowing to take revenge on the family. Revenge isn’t something that we normally see as fundamental to the family sitcom, but it works better than any community building activity or going to Hawaii as the Brady’s did. As a trope, revenge gives the narrative a wicked bite, as the conflict and the resolution both depend on it. Here, revenge creates a common enemy, a universal unifier, that challenges the Smiths to fight for their lives.

With a terrorizing murderous Santa coming after them, how can they still have a meaningful Christmas? The Smiths plus Jeff run away to the mountains where they engage in a bloody battle against Santa, an army of elves, and a giant snowman. One of the subplots in the episode is Jeff’s acceptance as a son-in-law. We know that acceptance is a key aspect of all sitcoms. Here it’s taken to absurd levels, but that absurdity doesn’t make the sentiment any different. Jeff is presented as a joke, he’s an idiot stoner toddler that can’t be a real man in Stan’s eyes — he isn’t even included in this protection plan of the family. Being an outlier, he’s faced with an ultimatum from Santa: either fight, keep his presents, and stay on the good list; or die with the Smiths.

I shot the Santa, but I did not shoot his reindeer

Jeff might cause many problems, but we learn that he is kind at his core, which is probably due to the heavy amounts of THC in his bloodstream. But nonetheless, he steps up to be a part of this family and risks his life to save Stan. The overused cliche of “you’re not so bad after all…” combined with several gory murders of elves push the Smiths towards familial harmony. Cliches are widely hated due to their lack of originality, but they offer understanding at a base level. At the core of this arc, is an unstable family. New members are being added, new traditions are beginning, and their entire world view is shifting, so, of course, they had to murder Santa. When they receive a threat from Santa who promises he will return and kill them next year, Francine says, “Looks like we found our new Christmas tradition!”

Right at that moment, the series embraces a new set of narrative possibilities for how to live— plus we look forward to the inevitable sequel. But have we learned? We’ve learned to look past the chaos, look past the candy cane sucking jokes, and look towards what’s actually happening: A family has both overcome their dysfunction and strengthened their emotional bonds. Jeff questions, like the viewers do, “Does your family always have such messed up Christmases?” You can practically hear the three creators saying, Yes, they do, Jeff, yes they do.

Jeff in all his splendor

The lens of the narrative often changes from the inspection of the multiple characters' multiple relationships or solely zeroing in on one character. The common denominator is the surrealist tone and imagery. By creating this baseline, MacFarlane, Barker and Weitzman, train the audience to ask questions of the world, but to focus on the characters. That one aesthetic move overcomes the strict logic of American sitcoms and opens them up to a wilder, different, and truer depiction of life. We understand the world and on a deeper level understand the character. In every fictional tale, there's a moment when it’s no longer made up — the attachment builds and everything becomes real.

Diving into the subconscious reveals the most guarded part of oneself: Franciene’s psyche is richly layered; Stan has many more dimensions that a two-dimensional cartoon character should have. In "Enter Stanman" – S14 EP17 (2019), Francine has a sex dream about her son-in-law, Jeff, which makes Stan jealous, understandably so. But instead of conversing with his wife about his feelings, he uses Roger’s magical alien powers to enter Francine’s dreams. Stan’s inability to communicate in all of his relationships creates a tool called “third-party.” In multiple plot lines, he involves everyone in an elaborate ruse in order to fix his shortcomings. His need for control and the refusal to accept himself often ruins his plans — he just doesn’t know when to stop pushing, which despite the lack realism is a rather realistic depiction of a faulty human being.

Low Class Surrealism for the Masses

After much meddling, Francine’s dream world erupts letting out Stansferatu (picture Nosferatu with a giant jutted out butt chin) into the real world. As Steve-Octopus leads Stan to the rest of the clones, we learn all the ways Francine views Stan: Anger as an ogre; emotional availability as Stan with no face; a dorky side as a 80’s geek; the lesbian grandma side. It’s a complex portrait of an emotionally closed off middle aged man. For all the goofy humor, the creators are attempting to convey the elusive quality of a person.

Stansferatu

The creators make sure that Stan’s lesson in humility shapes his character and the show itself. Because he is emotionally closed off, images best explain the complexities he’s feeling. His outrage at the failure causes the dream state to break and Francine goes missing into the collective dream realm. Stansferatu and Stan set out together to find her. In one scene, they sit across from each other on twin beds. Hands on their knees, back straight, and they just stare at each other. Words can never express the feeling of confronting the worst part of you, and additionally, to see how your spouse views whatever flaws you have. Only in the dire moments can he express his emotions through dialogue. So in resolution, Stan makes out with Jeff — only in the dream world, but it’s a roundabout and wonderful way to approach jealousy and insecurity. In most television, novels, even in real life, getting men to express any emotion other than anger is like pulling teeth. The creators are allowing vulnerability in a world and in a character where this should not possible. That’s an aesthetic achievement that many “real serious book-of-the-month club, I got my MFA writers” could never do.

Which is more Alien? The Aliens or the "People"

American Dad takes unconventional approaches to explain common life experiences; acceptance, insecurity, revenge, etc. Through all the characters, the storylines, nothing truly encompass the human experience more than the character of Roger. It takes 21 seasons for him to get an episode, specifically one about the first time he landed on Earth. "Fellow Traveler" S18 EP1 (2023), which some subreddit fans have declared the worst ever American Dad. Possibly due to the lack of jokes, lack of main characters, and no opening theme song, the episode begins with Roger accidentally killing the young of a shapeshifting alien. The alien begins to hunt Roger, causing him to panic and crash land in New Mexico in the 1940’s. He’s introduced to a family of some sort (run-away murderers) and discovers humanity in a lovely dinner scene.

Seven people sit at a table all eating chipped beef and then the scene jumps to the end of the meal. Since there’s no linear dialogue scene, we see the dinner in the same way Roger does. He’s observing and learning. A soft clank of a spoon hits Roger’s empty bowl and all six turn to him. It’s a moment of pure silence as they assume he will be heading out. That’s until an OSS agent, Avery Bullock Sr (played by THE Patrick Stewart) shows up at the door. In what we would have to call wild narrative compression, we find out that a shapeshifting alien is chasing Roger, that the OSS or rather CIA is chasing Roger, and that these people are on the verge of sending him away, like little baby Jesus. But instead, they accept him and won’t even let him reveal his identity as an alien. Roger is being introduced to all aspects of human life. His new friends even take him to the green chili festival in town. While dressed as an old lady he experiences food, alcohol, peep shows, making out with multiple people at the same time — you know, the usual stuff.

American Dad doesn't jump the shark; it rides the shark!

Whether it's a human or alien or a fish with a human brain, American Dad captures us. Television as an art form is the human experience: we want to see real people reflected on our plasma screens; real people learning from real-life scenarios. The natural approach should be realism. But Seth MacFarlane, Mike Barker and Matt Weitzman present the most insane scenarios and these idiotically outrageous stories arguably teaches us more. How would your family actually react when your entire town and house has flooded? Oh, and then, the flooding causes a great escape from the zoo and some rather incongruous pairings of animals. So now your house is rapidly filling with water, and a bear and a shark are swimming in your living room. See "Hurricane!" – S7 EP2 (2011). What’s this scenario going to reveal about your family? About yourself? Nobody thinks they’re gonna commit cannibalism until they are abandoned in a mountain in Chile. The surrealist approach to their storytelling allows the show to flourish in a way many sitcoms and adult animation can’t. The narrative doesn't stay rooted in the ridiculousness, it’s more of a Macguffin. The richness in character, the beauty of relationships, the ugliness of human emotions, it’s all exposed through the absurd.

©Gabrielle Kedziora and the CCA Arts Review