“Tearjerker” is a third season episode of the animated series American Dad!.
Plot summary
The show starts as a parody of The Spy Who Loved Me. A British agent with a mustache jumps out of a cable car, and the woman next to him tells the henchmen to follow him. The agent kills one of them and when he is about to shoot another, Stan comes to help him. Stan blows up the henchmen and unwittingly creates an avalanche. The two jump out and open their parachutes but unfortunately the unnamed agent dies when he is crushed by Stan’s falling snowmobile.
Stan imitates the gunbarrel sequence but the gun shoots him twice before he can fire, upon which the opening credits start to roll. Stan and other characters play roles in a Bond-style spoof. In it, Stan plays a 007-type agent assigned by his boss, B (Bullock) to infiltrate the set of arms dealer-suddenly-turned-movie producer Tchochkie Schmear (Klaus, in a human form) Schmear has recently been producing over twenty films with A-list celebrites, but all are absolutely atrocious. Stan then travels to Tunisia to investigate the set of one of Tchochkie’s movies, Bark of the Covenant (a remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark featuring all dogs, including a German shepherd as Indiana Jones and Matthew McConaughey as Karen Allen). Eventually, Stan discovers that Schmear has been hired by the diabolical Tearjerker (Roger), an emotionally fragile business tycoon who has been abducting celebrities from his spa and replacing them with celebrity robots that will star in the most horrible movies possible. The robots malfunction when they are exposed to milk. Later, B has Stan fly to Japan. Dressed as Geisha Girls, B informs Stan that Tearjerker is a notorious gambler who only invites people to his lair unless they are celebrites, or if they have beaten him at Baccarat. When he arrives at Monte Carlo, he is introduced to Sexpun T’Come (Francine)(whom he believes is a prostitute) and an apathetic Tearjerker. When Stan reveals that he does not know how to play Baccarat or Craps, an exasperated Tearjerker asks Stan to name his own game. Stan says he wants to play highest number, wherein the players name the highest number that they can think of. After Stan leaves with the invitation, Sexpun gives Tearjerker his wallet. He makes the obligatory quip about the hero’s fate, and then starts maniacally laughing, but cuts himself short when he belches. He states that he had eaten a pickle earlier with a Rueben sandwich, and then moans (self consciously) “I’m so fat.”
On the flight to Tearjerker’s lair, Stan meets Johnny Depp who is drinking a milkshake and reading a script that Steven Spielberg had given him. Stan makes Depp promise to tell him if he is turned into a robot. On their arrival, Tearjerker orders Sexpun to seduce Stan, only to begin randomly sobbing that she had forgotten his birthday. When she approaches Stan, he proposes to her, stating that he was saving himself for marriage, and if she accepted he stated “I’m gonna make love to you until you hate your pussy” Stan gives her a ring and tells her to think about it. After she leaves, Johnny Depp reappears, saying that he has given up the Spielberg script and had been attached to a Schmear project called Skateboarding Grandma. Suspicious, Stan offers Depp a milkshake. When he refuses, Stan physically forces open Depp’s jaws and regurgitates the milkshake down his throat. (”Drink it! Drink it like a bird!”) Depp, now revealed to be a robot, malfunctions. (but not before revealing that he had once seen a robin’s nest in Tim Burton’s hair)
After being helped by Sexpun, who has fallen for him, Stan realizes that Tearjerker (who is out for revenge ever since he was laughed out of the audition for Monster’s Ball) plans to use his masterpiece Oscar Gold, the best and saddest film of all time about a mentally retarded alcoholic Jewish boy and his cancer ridden puppy during the Holocaust, to cause millions of moviegoers to cry themselves to death.
After Gums’ boat tour of the plan leads Stan and Sexpun right into the villain’s office (an example of the poor construction), Tearjerker ties them up and forces them to watch “Oscar Gold” along with millions of people around the world. Everyone is on the verge of crying to death (with the exception of viewers in Tehran, who find it hysterically funny and will apparently laugh themselves to death), Sexpun states she accepts his proposal of marriage, and Stan remembers that the engagement ring was given to him by S (Steve, whose gadgets only make women’s breasts grow). He urges her to put it on, which causes Sexpun’s breasts to swell so large that they break the ropes, allowing her to set herself and Stan free. Discovering the real Adrien Brody and Halle Berry (along with Matt Damon and Lucy Liu) in Tearjerker’s dungeon, where he keeps the captive celebrities, Stan records a video of them with their baby and posts it on the Internet. All the movie goers then get phone calls about the celebrity baby and go home to see them online.
His plan in ruins, Tearjerker unleashes his soldiers to kill Stan. However, as they descend on ropes from his blimp, they plummet through the floor of Tearjerker’s office (another example of the poor construction); Stan then climbs up their ropes (which were supposed to retract, but instead are another example of poor construction) onto the airship. Tearjerker tries to flee in an escape pod, planning on creating a more successful and even sadder movie: six hours of a baby chimp trying to revive its dead mother. However, the shoddy construction causes the pod to fall into a volcano. In the end, Stan and Sexpun get married, though it is unknown how long their relationship will last since Sexpun realizes that Stan was, up until their honeymoon, a virgin. Meanwhile, Tearjerker’s charred arm rises from the volcanic crater…only to fall back in after a few seconds.
Cast
| American Dad! character | Role | Bond spoof |
|---|---|---|
| Stan Smith | Himself | James Bond |
| Francine Smith | Sexpun T’Come | Bond girl (specifically, Pussy Galore, Tracy Bond, and Plenty O’Toole) |
| Roger | Tearjerker | Auric Goldfinger, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Le Chiffre |
| Klaus | Tchochkie Schmear | Professor Dent, Milton Krest |
| Avery Bullock | B | M |
| Steve Smith | S | Q |
| Hayley Smith | Miss Peacenickel | Miss Moneypenny |
| Greg Corbin | Peddie | Mr. Wint |
| Terry Bates | Mannie | Mr. Kidd |
| Chuck White | Professor | |
| Capt. Monty | Gums | Jaws |
