Award Whoring

American Dad, S08E09

Francine finally decided to cut off supporting Roger in all of his fake achievement, and Roger tried to win back her friendship by pretending to discover a lost mountain tribe.  Steve struggled to get Stan to answer some simple personal questions about himself so he could do his history report.

It's almost cute how much Francine will give Roger encouragement when she knows that all he does is pretend all day long.  So it's not a shock that he would have this huge collection of awards that he didn't deserve, including a fake degree.  I doubt that it's his first time pretending to graduate from a college.  Despite all of this it took quite a lot before Francine threw in the towel.  I would have already been like Stan and the others and not paying Roger any attention.

It was interesting to me that Roger seemed to cherish the self-made award that Francine awarded him more than the other awards that he had stolen.  There are times where Roger seems not to give a damn what people think about him at all, and then there are times he is so sensitive and wants to be beloved when he treats people any way that is convenient to himself.  At first, I was annoyed that he would again try to fool Francine with his little production with the tribe until Roger admitted how much he valued Francine's opinion.  It's more than her husband probably does, so I could see how Francine would be touched that Roger went to all of that trouble just to win back her favor.  Roger always seems to be going to great lengths to create his personas and fantasies that I think it does show how hard-working he can be.  It also shows how much of a psychopath he is, but if he's really determined to do something, he will take extraordinary and seemingly impossible steps to make it happen.  I agree that's worth a Frannie.

The main story wasn't really funny, but I sort of loved the side story about Steve and Stan.  First of all, Stan seemed so angry at Steve just for asking him a few questions.  I mean, he had this look of pure inconvenience before he even really knew what Steve was trying to do.  It just makes me laugh at the ease at which he can become perturbed.  The best part, however, was every time that Steve called Stan while he was at this Chinese restaurant (he must love that place), Stan kept saying these depressing and/or inappropriate things to him.  Stan was opening up finally, but not about anything that his son needed to hear from him.  It was especially bad when he was talking about his sex life with Francine.  I loved when Snot refused to let Steve end the call and steered the conversation to Francine's boobs:

[Snot] Dad, what do Mom's boobs look like?[Stan] I'll tell ya, Snot, they're perfect.

I like that Stan both wasn't fooled into thinking Snot was Steve and didn't care if Snot knew exactly how he felt about his wife's breasts.  He probably went on a very long discussion about that and other things with all those kids in the room.  So freaking funny.

In the end, I liked how Steve had lost all hope of getting his report done and showed his teacher exactly what happens when he tries to ask his father a simple question about his past.  I loved how disheartened the whole class looked after hearing Stan talk about how pointless life was and how he thought of ending it all.  And even when the teacher jumped out of the window, I thought it was funny.  Especially when he said:

Life dismissed.

There was also a good line at the beginning of the story after Stan told Steve to not even bother to do his history report:

[Klaus] It's high school, Steve.  It doesn't matter.[Steve] You said that about middle school.  When does it start to matter?[Klaus and Stan] Never.

Wise words from a bitter man and man stuck in a fish's body.

The last thing I sort of liked was Stan's admiration of Cuba Gooding, Jr.  He even sensed when he died and went to his funeral.  I bet if Steve had asked about CBJ's life, he might have been able to get a report.  That probably would have been better than sharing his father's dismal outlook on life with the class.

I liked this episode.  It's good to see that even though Roger will always be pretending, he doesn't really pretend to need Francine in his life.  Any episode where Roger isn't a complete ass is usually one I like a little better.  However, as far as the laughs went, I had to hand to Stan this week.  He was killing me with the TMI.  This story was a good indication of why the things Stan isn't saying freely are probably something better left unheard.