Minimum Wage Is No Joke. Except This Time

American Dad, S07E15

Stan was reasonably fed up with Jeff (and Hayley) living in his house and was determined to show them that they could easily afford to move out while Jeff was making minimum wage.  In a fashion very similar to the show 30 Days, Stan and Francine took the challenge to live on such wages for a month, but failed very quickly.  To offset Stan's insane spiral into poverty, Roger and Steve found a way to ride a real Ferrari, so they could live their dream and rub it in Klaus' face.

Jeff was pretty damn annoying with him crapping while Stan was in the shower and using up the last bit of syrup.  Usually, I think when Stan is going on about something, he is out of line, but I think most people would want to see Jeff leave their place.  I don't know if showing him and Hayley that he could live with as little money as they make was the best way to tell them to get out, but it did make for an interesting story.  I won't say that I laughed a lot while watching it, but I was waiting to see what else could happen to Stan before he gave up.  It took him quite a while (even though it was less than 2 days) before he swallowed his pride.

I think that them living in their car was a pretty miserable way to live, but it was better than an apartment where people steal your only lamp, and you can hear a woman being murdered down the hall.  I wouldn't want homeless people staring at me while I slept, but I still would chose it if I could get some clothes or cardboard to cover up my windows at night.

It's hard to say what I liked the best about this story, but it might have been when Stan went to a burger place and tried to apply for a job, not knowing that the manager could see him trying to clean himself up before he entered the store.  I thought maybe the guy would give him a break, but I guess he looked too much like a homeless person for him to let his grossness slide.

The worst thing of all in the episode was when Francine woke up the first morning in their apartment and a random, diseased-looking cat was giving birth near her.  God, that was super gross!  Ugh.  It was also pretty bad when Jeff came out when Stan and Alex were trying to rob the place and stabbed Alex over and over.  It was literally overkill.  Stan was lucky to only have gotten stabbed once.

I think it was good that Stan's attempt to live on minimum wage had nothing but low points that kept sinking further and further.  Since he was so confident that he would be able to do it, it was funnier that there was no moment that he was doing all right.  That was probably the best thing of the story of all.

I sort of liked how Roger and Steve were able to con the guys at the Ferrari dealership to let them take a car for several days it seemed.  However, I didn't think that they would have to go as far to parody an Al Pacino movie to do it.  Roger was kinda funny when he kept reciting lines from Scent of A Woman, I assume (I've never seen the movie, so I don't know), but his words were out of place with what the salesman was saying, so it was like Roger was just having a conversation by himself.  Somehow him doing that got them the car!  I was as amazed as Steve was.  I don't understand, though, why Steve was driving the car all the time.  Isn't Steve too young?  I forget his age.  I just know that he's in high school.  Either way, someone as young as him driving a car that they didn't even pay for was crazy.  He did hit Stan, though.

I liked this episode, even if it wasn't so funny that you would laugh out loud and despite that Roger and Steve were up to no good, but it was nothing more than an almost uneventful ride in a stolen Ferrari.  I wish there had been more jokes I liked and wish that part with the cat had been eliminated (didn't you guys have enough with the animals last week??).  Next time, I hope there's more Roger because he was too tame this time.  Also, let's have less Jeff.  I feel like he's been having too much screen time lately.