Posts Tagged ‘season rarr’

Frannie 911

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

The new nice Roger

Frannie 911” is the ninth episode of season three of American Dad!.

Plot summary

After Roger ruins Stan’s study by turning it into a Turkish bath, Francine comes up with an elaborate plan to reunite Stan and Roger after the big fight. She fakes Roger’s kidnapping in the hopes of showing Roger that Stan still cares about him, but Stan never shows up to pay the ransom; he simply delays and makes up excuses. After Stan tells Francine that he knew she was faking it the whole time (she was calling him with her own cell phone and it showed up on his caller ID), she confronts Roger in the hotel he is staying in, telling him that either he needs to be nice or he’s out of the house. For at least a year, Roger had been nice. However, it turns out that being nice is slowly killing him. On his deathbed, Roger reveals that his species has to be jerks, otherwise he’ll die. He insults Steve’s dancing, something Stan says they both needed, restoring himself to health. Though Francine returns to being an enabler, she lets Stan be who he is: “the guy who beats the crap out of Roger when he deserves it.” She locks Roger in the attic with Stan, leaving Roger to be beaten off-screen.

In a sub story, Hayley and Klaus constantly challenge each other to a “dare-or-dare” game. Klaus takes a picture of Francine’s undergarments and later fills his bowl with Jell-O. Hayley has to go naked, say raccoons took her penis and dress herself as Captain Merrill Stubing from The Love Boat for fourteen months.

In another story, Steve tries out background dancing. He eventually stops after Roger tells him how terrible his dancing is.

Tearjerker (American Dad!)

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

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

Stanny Slickers II: The Legend of Ollie’s Gold

Monday, June 29th, 2009

Stan stages his discovery

Stanny Slickers II: The Legend of Ollie’s Gold is an episode of the television program American Dad!.

Synopsis

Officially declared dead after an accident with a pudding truck, Stan comes back to life to realize his dream of leaving a legacy on the world and begins to excavate his home in search of Ollie North’s “Contra”-band buried treasure (the Smiths’ house was previously owned by North himself). Through a Schoolhouse Rock!-esque song, Stan explains the story of Ollie North, a Marine Corp officer who sold weapons to Iran and gave the profits to anti-communist rebels in Nicaragua. He looked for it years ago but had to give it up to raise his family. While he continues to excavate his home, family problems increase as Hayley turns to body-piercing and Steve creates a robotic girlfriend out of a vacuum cleaner.

Greg and Terry decide to document Stan’s attempts as to whether he is descending into madness or not. He claims there are clues due to the “good, bad and ugly” electrical outlets in the living room (one works, one does not, and one is cracked) and the “ice creamsicle” (the initials I.C. standing for Iran-Contra) wrappers he found. When he creates a mine shaft and begins to eat dirt, Francine decides to put a stop to it just as he found a box of gold bars (and middle fingers his family while he’s at it). But because no one was there to film his discovery, he decides to stage it. When Terry refuses (as it is unethical for a journalist to stage events), Stan films the discovery himself.

While he tries to decide what would be the best quote, the mine collapses on him. While trying to rescue him, Stan refuses to let the gold go. He was then hit over the head while relaying his final words. In his unconscious state, he dreams of the future, where his discovery had become legendary; however, Hayley has become uglified from being peirced heavily and even has a lip plate, and people look strangely at Steve, having made a functional robot wife, and Francine has married the Langley Falls town geologist. Visitors to the Smithsonian comment how much is it worth that a statue was carved on Stan finding the gold if his children grew up to be a mess. This dream teaches Stan that true legacies are made by the families men raise, not by achievements or immortalization on monuments. Stan then wakes up and saves himself, leaving the gold. He declares that he has learned his lesson, ordering Steve and Hayley to get rid of the robot and the body piercing or he will kill them. At the end of the episode, the black fireman from “Joint Custody” tells his partner that he will wait until the Smiths are in bed and then dig up the gold themselves.

In a sub-story, Roger learns that a woman was sexually harassed at Big Buy. As a result, the company was sued and gave her a million dollars. Deciding to cheat Syntho Corp., Roger disguises himself as an attractive, fat lady to provoke someone but it doesn’t work and Klaus just laughs at him. So the only way he could get his money is to be a man and harass himself. He fakes a harassment and gets $90,000; Klaus tries to get at some of the money, but to no avail.

Widowmaker (American Dad!)

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

Stan "opens up" to Francine.

Widowmaker is an episode of the television program American Dad!.

Plot

The story opens with Francine comforting Julie, whose husband has been missing for 3 weeks. While Julie is talking to Francine, Francine hears that Craig and Julie share things. Francine pushes Stan to open up to her emotionally, but she gets more than she bargained for when he tells her that he killed Craig. While he was away, Francine accidentally told Julie, who was about to call the police, so Francine bound and gagged her in her house. She tries to tell Stan but he got distracted by a monkey, taking his plum so he hung up. She then asked for Roger’s assistance, who only convinced Julie to hang herself. When Stan comes home, Francine tells him everything just as Julie was about to commit suicide. Stan reveals that everything was a well concocted plan that he and Roger made so Francine would stop badgering him. Also, he did not did not kill Craig, but he was relocated to get away from Julie’s badgering. Roger at the end will give Julie therapy about what happened, but pretends to be a fireman thus not really helping Julie at all.

Meanwhile, Steve vows vengeance when Hayley kills the queen bee from his science project. He then raises an army of bees to sting her, but the bees attack Steve instead while Hayley and Klaus watch.

Spring Breakup

Sunday, June 21st, 2009

Stan parties with Jessica

Spring Breakup is an episode of the television program American Dad!. It is the third season finale.

Synopsis

Stan is upset at how Francine half-heartedly responds to his playful banter, who claims that it is just becoming too dull for her. She goes out to visit her parents for the week, leaving Stan depressed. Shortly after Francine leaves, Roger hastily tries to convince Stan to move into a motel for the week—soon it becomes clear that Roger, under the name “Scotch Bingeington,” is hosting a spring break party at their house and has already invited dozens of partygoers, as he wishes to become the next “King of Spring Break.” Stan tries to force them to leave until he meets a rather enthusiastic young woman named Jessica who keenly responds to Stan’s witty remarks. Stan takes an interest in this girl, but feels it would be wrong to be with her due to the fact he is married. However, he quickly changes his mind when he receives a phone call from Francine on her first day away, who does not acknowledge Stan’s statement of how he genuinely misses her after only one day.

Stan and Jessica party hard with everyone else, and they begin to develop a rather close bond. When the week is up and Francine returns home to the party, she is outraged to see Stan with Jessica, who is already prepared to leave for home. Stan, who is incredibly spiteful at how Francine finds his actions boring, leaves Francine and goes out to look for Jessica. In her own spite, Francine complains about the situation to her mother only to be berated by her instead. Her mother actually supports Stan’s position, claiming that in order for a marriage to work, both spouses must put all their efforts into making each other happy. Around this time, Stan manages to find Jessica, but she, having been sobered up, says that what she felt during spring break “wasn’t real” because she was drunk, leaving Stan feeling dejected. Stan and Francine meet up again in a coffee shop, and they both apologize for their own behavior and patch things up.

Meanwhile, Steve realizes that the presence of all the drunk girls at Roger’s spring break party is another chance to lose his virginity. His target: Carmen Selectra, a reporter for MTV who had come to broadcast the party. Carmen agrees to have sex with Steve, but he stalls so he can get her complete medical history, and is turned off after learning she has breast implants. Towards the end of the party, Carmen presents to Roger the crown that will make him King of Spring Break, though he turns down the offer as he says that there is something lacking in his party. Carmen then announces to Steve that she had her implants removed so they can have sex; unfortunately, the stage on which she is standing collapses and she is killed, thus costing Steve another chance at losing his virginity; she apparently would’ve survived if she still had breast implants to cushion her and absorb the shock of the falling debris. Realizing that this is the element he was missing—a party’s not a party until someone dies—Roger pulls a dented crown from the wreckage and proudly proclaims himself King of Spring Break.

Cultural references

  • The episode’s title is a reference to spring break.
  • Carmen Selectra is a parody of Carmen Electra, who actually guest starred in the pilot of American Dad! as the voice of Lisa Silver. Electra didn’t voice Carmen Selectra in this episode. In fact, one of the partygoers wonders if people meant to say “Electra” instead of “Selectra.” But one person disagreed.
  • While talking to Stan and Jessica about the Tunnel of Booze, Roger says “In the time of chimpanzees I was a monkey…”, the opening lyrics to Beck’s song “Loser”.
  • The songs “Fly” by Sugar Ray and “Let’s Get It Started” by The Black Eyed Peas were used in the episode.
  • The college “Central Virginia State” is possibly a reference to “Virginia State University” and “Virginia Commonwealth University.” Many times during this episode they talk about Rutgers University and even show Stan going there to meet Jessica.
  • Before Francine comes home, we see a short few seconds of a Donkey Kong resembling ape on top of a pyramid of kegs throwing kegs down at laughing frat boys. This a reference to the original 1981 arcade game Donkey Kong.
  • At the table Carmen Selectra can be seen eating a burrito, most likely a reference to the years Carmen Electra was a spokesmodel for Taco Bell’s “Grilled Stuffed Burrito”

Trivia

  • When Roger, as Scotch, tells Francine that he feels sorry that she was awarded a four of ten at a wet T-shirt contest because “she had three kids” and Francine states that she had two, Francine actually has had three kids (Surro-Gate), but her third kid was for Greg and Terry, so it doesn’t count since she was a volunteered surrogate.
  • This is the last episode featuring the newspaper headline gags seen in the opening sequence of American Dad.
  • Leisha Hailey who plays Jessica also played Lily in the Episode Surro-Gate
  • Several of the strippers from Stan Knows Best, make background cameo appearances in the second and third acts.

Censorship

  • In the FOX version of this episode, Steve says “I will not waste an ounce of wiener on you” to the drunk girl after seeing Carmen Selectra. In the Adult Swim version, He says “I will not to waste an ounce of boner on you”
  • When Roger calls Francine to let her know someone is trying to have sex with one of her garden gnomes, the Adult Swim version shows a man’s legs as he’s thrusting up and down in the background. On FOX, the scene is cropped so that way the man’s legs are out of the frame.


Office Spaceman (American Dad! Episode)

Saturday, June 6th, 2009

Roger in the opening newspaper

Office Spaceman is an episode of the television program American Dad!. This episode was watched by 6.21 million viewers when it first aired.

Plot

Stan’s typical intro is interrupted when he finds that the daily newspaper features Roger, as a spotted alien. He tells Roger to be more careful and stay in the house. In a shocking revelation, Roger has been purposefully taking pictures of himself in various locations and submitting them to the press for quick cash. The CIA soon catches on and initiates an Alien Task Force. At first Bullock appoints Jackson and then, after Stan telling Bullock that Jackson hates him, Stan. The CIA gets a tip that a teenager going by the name of Parker Peters(Roger, making a paroody of Peter Parker who takes pictures of himself as Spiderman to sell to the Daily Bugle and other newspapers for money), has been photographing the alien, not knowing that Peters himself is the alien. The CIA captures him, and a peculiar twist of fate puts Rodger in charge of catching the alien. Roger tells a worried Stan that he’ll go to work for the CIA for a week then quit. However, upon learning he has a vast expense account, Roger decides to milk it for as long as he can by taking trips to the Caribbean and Antarctica. However, Rodger is only able to produce pictures of himself and no real evidence, so he is at risk of being shut down. To safeguard his job, Rodger he gets a sample of protoplasm from himself to use as physical evidence and claims that the alien is a body jumper who inhabits humans and then jumps to the next. Unfortunately Rodger left his goo all over a bathroom stall, which Stan tries to clean up. When Stans co-workers come in and catch him in the act of helping Rodger clean up the goo, Roger says that Stan is being inhabited by the alien. After talking in private with Stan, Roger comes up with a plan to save both him and Stan by claiming that the alien jumped into a lizard and then they could both leave. Unfortunately, the CIA has plans to dissect Stan to find the alien, so Roger decides to listen to Stan’s advice. He has Roger reveal himself as the alien, claiming he managed to excrete Rodger out the proceeds to knocks Rodger out to prevent him from ratting. Nearing the dissection of Rodger, Stan purposefully turns the morphine gas so it emits into the room, not into the mask, knocking him and his co-workers out and allowing Roger to escape. Bullock later deduced that Roger emitted a knockout gas. Roger then decides to become a stripper but then relents to Stan’s pleads that Rodger remain hidden.

Meanwhile, Steve and his lab partner Katie (Raven-Symoné) are busy harvesting electricity from a potato. Francine gets upset and kicks Katie out, and Hayley and Steve think she is a racist since Katie is African American. Hayley then brings a number of African-Americans into the house hoping to upset Francine, but Francine doesn’t get angry. Instead, she reveals that she kicked Katie out of the house because she was left-handed, who Francine believes to be devils-children. Hayley and Steve call their grandmother, who tells them that when Francine, who was born left-handed, was five and still in the orphanage the nuns told her that being left-handed is evil. Since then, she had become fearful of lefties. They confront her and she slaps Hayley, but she soon decides to become left-handed again. Francine has difficulty adjusting to a new life as a lefty, her penmanship suffers, she spills orange juice all over Stan and she accidentally cuts Steve while trying to spread his butter.

Trivia

  • Raven-Symoné guest-voices as Katie.
  • This is the first American Dad! episode to abruptly end the opening credits. The opening title is started, but is interrupted with a record scratch when Stan picks up the newspaper and sees “ALIEN SPOTTED!” with Roger’s picture on the front page, with which Stan confronts Roger, abandoning the rest of the opening.
  • Roger buys a cockatoo. Coincidentially, the Family Guy episode–Long John Peter–that aired that night also featured Peter Griffin getting a pet bird–a parrot. Both birds died later in the episode and were fairly quickly forgotten by their owners.
  • The Playgirl cover in the closing credits includes references to Deputy CIA Director Bullock, Father Donovan, George Clooney, Captain Monty (seen in the episode Star Trek), and Matty Moyer (the “Kids Beat” reporter from Stanny Slickers II: The Legend of Ollie’s Gold). However, Matty Moyer’s episode first aired a week after this one.

Cultural References

  • The title is a reference to Office Space.
  • Roger’s photographer identity, Parker Peters, is a reference to Peter Parker, another photographer who took pictures of himself in another identity: Spider-Man.
  • Roger in disguise, according to Klaus, steals the backstory of Fox Mulder from The X-Files. He also places the “I Want to Believe” poster in his office. This reference could be promoting the movie, The X-Files: I Want to Believe.
  • The names of places (Aruba, Jamaica, Key Largo, Montego and “a place called Kokomo”) that Roger (as Parker Peters) mentioned that he has leads where the alien is are from the lyrics of the song Kokomo. Bullock finishes the joke by saying “Book a flight, get there fast and then take it slow”.
  • While Stan attempts to clean up Roger’s protoplasm in the bathroom, Roger chants “Bloody Mary” several times in the mirror, a reference to the urban legend.
  • When Roger is undressing at Stan’s demand he quotes the character Sean’s dialogue to Coco (who undresses) in the movie Fame.
  • Stan’s offhanded comment about excreting the alien (”I pooped it out”) may be a reference to Stephen King’s Dreamcatcher, in which people who swallow alien spores incubate wormlike aliens that exit the body rather gruesomely through the rectum.
  • After Stan knocks out Deputy Director Bullock, the CIA agents and himself with the gas, Roger states that Stan “pulled a Superman II on me.” In Superman II, the villains were tricked into losing their powers in much the same way.
  • When Roger is about to be cut open, he yells that he doesn’t want to die before William Shatner.
  • When Roger tells Stan’s coworkers in the bathroom that Stan is the alien, Roger tells Deputy Bullock that he has to use the bathroom, then hints that he should sit in the stall next to him. This is a reference to the Larry Craig airport bathroom controversy.
  • The Langley Falls Post insignia on top of the building was similar if not identical to the classic Daily Planet emblem seen in Superman lore.


Oedipal Panties

Friday, May 29th, 2009

Stan supports his mother

Oedipal Panties is an episode of the television program American Dad!. It originally aired on January 27, 2008 as the eleventh episode in the third season of the show.

Plot

Francine is excited to spend some time with Stan after he comes home from a mission, but is dismayed to learn that his mother, Betty, is coming over as well after being apparently stood up by her boyfriend; this is not the first time that this has happened, for her boyfriends disappear on average three times a years at the third date, and she always turns to Stan for support in these situations. Francine feels threatened by Betty’s presence, as Stan gives her all the attention. She complains to Roger, who doesn’t understand what the big deal is until he sees Stan wash Betty, in the bathtub. There is no sense in talking to Stan about this since he never admits it (and also because Roger feels too coward to stand up to him), so Francine and Roger decide to get Betty hooked up once and for all. Roger decides to research what went wrong with Betty’s other relationships so that no mistakes will be made this time, while Francine finds a suitor: a Greek deli owner named Hercules, who is moving on from a personal tragedy of his own, and a good friend of Francine’s.

Francine introduces Betty to Hercules, and they are so charmed with each other that they start dating. After two dates, Roger informs Francine that he has concluded that Betty is in fact a black widow who kills her boyfriends on their third dates. Francine tries to tell Stan, but he won’t believe her. Seeing as how they are about to go on their third date, Francine and Roger go undercover to protect Hercules. At a restaurant, Hercules goes to the bathroom and Betty follows, after which Hercules is assaulted and drugged by a dark assailant. Francine manages to save Hercules and track down the assailant who, as it turns out, is actually Stan.

Stan reveals that he abducted every man that Betty has ever gone out with (he says it is the “only rational thing to do”) so that they do not break her heart like his father did when he left her, and so that he can be close to her. He does not kill them, however; rather, he leaves them stranded on an uncharted island. At this time, Hercules has come to and invites Betty on a plane trip to Greece. Francine and Stan give chase, though Stan is slowed down by traffic, giving Francine the lead and allowing her to board the plane in time.

Stan manages to stow aboard the plane through the toilet (traumatizing a boy who was using an airplane bathroom for the first time) and learns that Hercules has just proposed to Betty. Stan tries to kill Hercules, but is stopped by Betty, who explains that Hercules makes her happy. She also explains that she does not need all of his loving attention, and that he should focus it more on his wife. As Stan would put it, he “reconciles emotionally” with Francine, though he is briefly hindered and beaten by an air marshal. The two couples later enjoy a pleasant cruise in Greece, where Stan steers them clear of the island where all of Betty’s previous boyfriends still reside.

Meanwhile, Klaus becomes depressed and complains about how lonely he is, and that he has not come into contact with another human in six years. Steve, out of pity, takes Klaus out of his bowl and pets him. Later, Klaus reveals to Steve that he has Ich, and that Steve is infected. As a result, his friends keep away from him in fear that they will be infected as well, so Steve starts spending time with Klaus instead. Eventually Steve discovers that there is a cure for Ich at the pet store, though he also discovers that Klaus knew there was a cure all along; it turns out that Klaus faked his depression and had Steve infected in an insane attempt to spend more time with him alone. As Steve leaves, Klaus tries the same thing on Hayley. Hayley pets him, though she openly wonders if fish can get herpes.

Cultural references

  • When Stan’s mother comes home, she says her boyfriend Jerry went to get pop corn and never came back. She then says she had to watch the whole movie by herself citing “Adam Sandler had a remote control, I didn’t know what was happening.” She was referring to the Sandler movie Click. During Stan’s flashback, he pops out of a Click poster to snatch Jerry away; however, when this scene is shown, Betty is seen next to him.
  • Roger’s disguise while Betty visits is Cousin Oliver from the Brady Bunch, although he calls himself “Phil” instead of “Oliver”.
  • Stan’s actions of abducting his mother’s dates may be a reference to Psycho, where Norman Bates killed his mother and her new boyfriend out of jealousy after she started dating.
  • After Roger sees Stan bathing with his mother, Francine tells him “I told you it was complicated”, referring to Stan and Betty’s relationship. Roger then replies “No, no, changing planes at O’Hare is complicated.”
  • If you look closely, you can see that a Predator suit in Roger’s closet. He previously wore it in “Joint Custody”.
  • The whole mother-and-son relationship between Stan and his mother bears similarities to the relationship between Danny Muldoon and Rose O’Hara in the 1991 movie Only the Lonely, as Herkules can be easily identified as a tongue-in-cheek reference to Nick Acropolis (interpretated by Anthony Quinn in the afore mentioned movie)

Red October Sky

Thursday, May 28th, 2009

Stan's New Neighbor

Red October Sky is American Dad! ’s 13th episode of its third season, airing during the first Sunday night of the May 2008 sweeps month. According to the TV By The Numbers website, the episode had 6.73 million viewers in its time slot with a 3 percent rating and 8% share among viewers 18-49 years old, adding to the “good performance from [FOX's] animation block.”

Plot

Stan is assigned to search for a former KGB agent, Sergei Kruglov. He and Sergei had a history twenty years ago, when he was part of a prisoner exchange. While arguing about the wonders of capitalism and communism along the Berlin Wall, Sergei tricked Stan and brought him back to the communist side, resulting in Stan spending six more months in a communist prison.

Meanwhile Steve is building a rocket for an altitude contest, but Stan is too busy to help. Steve’s first attempt accidentally goes into their neighbor’s house. When the Smiths investigate, they discover their neighbor has been dead for weeks, although Hayley seems to be the only one concerned.

After digitally searching all over the world, Stan concludes that Sergei is dead and shortly afterward is shocked to find that the man is his new next-door neighbor. Sergei claims that he had turned to capitalism (offering a Costco card as proof) and decides to end the feud. For locating Sergei, Stan is promoted to Deputy-Under Director of Missing Foreign Agents, moving him up an eighth of an inch on the CIA organizational chart. He is then assigned to find ten more for “another eighth of an inch”.

Stan arranges for Sergei to help Steve with his rocket, but then becomes concerned when he hears Steve say “proletariat”, a word common among communists. Stan confronts Sergei, who says that after communism’s fall, his wife left him for a German tennis equipment salesman and his son turned to sports and selling Halloween costumes for dogs. Because capitalism stole Sergei’s son, Sergei plans to steal Stan’s son and turn him into a communist. Stan refuses to believe that Steve would do so, only to find that Steve has decorated his room with various Soviet and communist memorabilia that he got from Sergei.

Stan reacts by destroying everything Soviet and communist in Steve’s room. He also smashes Steve’s rocket, causing Steve to run away to Sergei’s house. Determined to convert his son back to capitalism, Stan kidnaps him and takes him on a shopping spree where they buy a huge rocket and a tech crew. At the contest, Stan and Steve learn that Sergei has teamed up with Barry to build a rocket. When the contest starts, only Steve’s, Toshi’s and Barry’s rockets launch successfully. Steve’s rocket rises above the others but then malfunctions, destroying itself and Toshi’s rocket. Barry’s rocket, now the only one left, parachutes back to earth, automatically making Sergei and Barry the winners.

Stan is disappointed, but Steve isn’t concerned since he just wanted to spend time with his dad, which was the decisive battle Sergei was waging. Sergei was going to plan long-term revenge, which he describes as growing a garden, but Stan and Steve just chant “U.S.A.!” in his face and leave. Later, when Francine tells Stan she wishes he hadn’t spent all their savings, he says he needed to spend money to make money. Francine then says that Stan didn’t make any money, which Stan says implies that he didn’t spend any money either.

In a subplot, Klaus tries to kill himself (by suffocating without water) because nobody remembered his birthday. Roger is able to save him and they decide to head to Europe for a little R&R, where they experience the continent’s greatest wonders, especially the women.

During the end credits Sergei continues to threaten revenge on Stan, but Stan is neither concerned nor impressed.

Cultural References

  • The episode’s title is in reference to The Hunt for Red October, October Sky, and “Red October”, a nickname for the October Revolution.
  • The episode is a parody of the novel and film Apt Pupil.
  • The National Anthem of the Soviet Union (which is also similar to the current anthem of the Russian Federation) is featured prominently in this episode.
  • Sergei bears a strong resemblance to Felix Dzerzhinski, founder of the KGB.
  • Among the communist effects Sergei gave Steve are images of Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong, along with the flags of the People’s Republic of China and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. However, due to the Tito–Stalin split, De-Stalinization, and the Sino-Soviet split, it is very unlikely a Soviet Communist Party member would have approved or owned any of them.
  • Stan confuses the poster of Che Guevara for a poster for Planet of the Apes.
  • During the scene where Stan and Steve buy the rocket supplies and demonstrate American excess, the price of all the merchandise comes to $847.63, the same price that comes up on the scanner when Maggie is scanned in the opening sequence of The Simpsons.
  • Sergei slams his shoe against a crate similar to Nikita Khrushchev during a rough session in the United Nations. Additionally, Barry later says “we will bury you”, which Khrushchev said in a speech. (This could also be a reference to Barry’s habit of randomly saying “My name’s Barry,” as in, “We will Barry you.”)
  • Roger and Klaus are seen walking into a Taco Bell while visiting Rome, in which they say they will make up for it by eating a “nice Italian meal.” This satirizes Americans who eat at American fast-food chains while visiting foreign countries.
  • The scene with Roger and Klaus at the airport is similar to a scene from The Simpsons episode, “The Italian Bob” in which Lisa also pretends to be Canadian. Coincidentally, Family Guy and American Dad! were referenced in “The Italian Bob” in an Italian language book that identified a picture of Peter Griffin from Family Guy as “plagiarismo” and a picture of Stan Smith from American Dad! as “plagiarismo di plagiarismo.”