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.

Franny's Life Is Her Own Business

American Dad, S08E07

Francine found out that the fireman who had saved her from a well 35 years ago wasn't dead as everyone had thought.  She attempted to adapt him back into society.  Stan and Roger also tried to start up a male stripper shoe business, but their investment money was dependent on killing someone.

I was sort of annoyed that Terry and Greg were such assholes about trying to get Francine on their show.  They were pissed that she avoided them, and yet they clearly wanted to embarass her on TV.  I mean, they have an idea of what Francine has been doing with her life, so I have little faith that they were trying to do good.  I really hated them in this episode.  Sure, you could blame Steve and the others, but they seriously thought they were trying to help Francine.

Then I was annoyed at the rest of the people with such high expectations for Francine.  Henry was a firefighter--it's pretty much a given that he's going to save lives.  Why should any person he save, even if he dies, be responsible for living an incredible life?   It was such bullshit.  I just kept hoping Francine would come to the conclusion that she didn't have to feel guilty and didn't have to impress anyone with her life's accomplishments except herself.

I was sort of glad to see that Henry wanted to go back into the well (even if he ironically died after diving back in) because seeing him bite off a woman's nose, punch and kill a bird in midair, and nearly rape Klaus made me think that Francine would have been infinitely better off never having found him in the first place.   I mean, maybe it would have been nice if she could have returned the favor by getting his life back on track, but when you think about it, Henry living in a well for thirty-plus years would have never realistically gotten back into society (not without some intense therapy or something).  I didn't want to see what other disgusting things he was going to do next.  He just needed to go (not die, though).

The side story with Stan and Roger was pretty uneventful.  They only tried once to kill Hideki's wife and then found out their idea had already been stolen.  It all happened pretty much in what seemed one breath.  I was expecting something much more different.  There were, however, two interesting things from that story.  The first was seeing Roger hosting that Japanese game show:

I kept wondering what Roger was saying, but after listening a few times, I figured that he was just saying gibberish (or super fast and badly pronounced Japanese or something).  When seeing this, I was sort of reminded of the ridiculous shows I would happen upon while flipping through TV in Japan. 

The second thing I thought was interesting was that Stan and Roger were having coffee later at a place called "Coughy's Coffee."  I don't know why but that made me chuckle.  I think that's a pretty good name for a coffee shop.

In general, I don't think I liked this episode that much.  I would have much rather Roger and Stan's story had been extended and the "Baby Franny" story had been the side story.  I feel like lots of times I would switch the main and side story.  However, I'm just glad they didn't do another Christmas story.  Almost every one they've shown has been really violent and crazy.  I'd much rather be angry about a story like this than see another insane holiday episode.

Steve's Wild Night

American Dad, S08E06

Stan and Francine's regular babysitter got injured and they decided to let Hayley watch Steve so that they could go to the horse show they were looking forward to.  Steve wanted to prove that he was wild, so he snuck out of the house to a party and Hayley spent the night trying to get him back before their parents figured out how irresponsible she was.  Stan and Francine hired Roger to drive them in a horse and carriage to the horse show, but his reckless driving on the highway made them miss the show when he wrecked the car.

There isn't much that I liked or disliked about this episode.  In general, I liked that Stan and Francine didn't trust Hayley to watch over Steve at all.  I sometimes forget that they don't find her to be really reliable.  It must be because she tends to be the one most concerned with what's morally right that it makes me overlook the fact that she is sort of a flake and a wildcard.  However, she would have had an easy time watching Steve if she hadn't pushed his buttons in the first place.

It was nice to see Steve have a pretty successful night.  He managed to run away from Hayley (which was easy because she wasn't prepared to chase after Steve in the first place), get alcohol to ensure his ticket to a party, get a cute girl's number, and spend a few seconds at a cool party.  For him, that was about as good as it gets, even with a methhead threatening him with a gun because he didn't give him a receipt and said addict getting his head shot off in the room of the girl he just met.

If I had to pick something I liked, it might be that Snot kept telling people "you're doing great," when they were being questioned by a police officer in Jeff's van.  Everyone was certainly not doing great, but Snot is so damn positive.  I'm still enjoying him from the previous episode and just thinking that he's such an upbeat guy that he has no clue that they were gonna get so arrested.

After seeing the grim end to the former babysitter, Lindsay, it was sort of nice that her ghost ended up helping Hayley and Steve move Francine's car back to the house in time.  I don't know why she chose to help them, but it was only slightly random, so I could go along with it.  Her good deed as a ghost sort of made her death seem a little less sad and unnecessary.

As far as Stan and Francine's story, I didn't care for the way they were so horny about horses.  It was almost too gross, but not quite there.  I'm just surprised that with Roger taking the carriage on the highway that no one got hurt.  I never expected them to get to their show with Roger handling their transportation, but they did get to see some kind of horse show.  However, I feel like their story didn't really add much of anything.  And Roger's role was minimum so it was lacking comedy for me.

This was an okay episode.  I certainly didn't have much to complain about.  It was nice to see things go pretty well for Steve and see Hayley and Steve sort of get along.  I don't know how I feel about Lindsay dying for the sake to help Steve and Hayley (it seemed), but at least it was something different to see.  However, I didn't see the point in Stan and Francine's story at all.  It could have been filled with more of Steve enjoying the night being "wild" for once.

Just Keep Your Eyes Down And Keep Walking

American Dad, S08E03

Francine wanted to have fun with Stan, but he only wanted to hang with his CIA boys.   So with Roger's help Francine posed as a man, hoping that she could later reveal herself when she became best friends with him.  Steve and his friends also joined a conglomerate of other boy bands like themselves under the management of Snot's uncle.

I think I liked Steve's side story a little better just because Francine sneaking into the CIA retreat as a man wasn't that interesting as a whole.  I thought that their music video was pretty funny and the idea of this huge boy band reminded me of the large girl band AKB48.  I doubt there was any connection to this group, but I couldn't help but think about it when the boys were named by B1, B2 and etc.  I actually thought they might be pretty successful as a group if they hadn't been outdone by a slightly bigger boy band (and Snot's uncle hadn't given up by committing suicide).  Steve has always had a good singing voice, anyway, and the other members were so random I felt like it could have had its appeal.

As for the main story, I didn't like anything in particular until the very end when that hiking guy from Mt. Kilimanjaro showed up and wondered if Stan had beaten his wife in some kind of domestic dispute.  He pulled out a gun on him and soon afterward I was delighted to see a mock public service announcement come up staring Jon Hamm (cannot go wrong with him whether real or cartoon):

Hi, I’m Jon Hamm.  Over a hundred percent of all domestic disputes are just two people trying to work stuff out.  You getting involved isn’t going to help.  You don’t know what’s going on. I don’t care what you think you see.  Just keep your eyes down and keep walking.

He was like so perfect for someone telling you that you have no idea what you're looking at and mind your business!  I laughed so hard, especially because I never expected him to pop up.   This sort of makes up for the rest of the episode not being so intensely funny.  I'm definitely adding this to one of my favorite scenes in this show ever.  Thanks, Jon!

I did like the boy band thing, but I have to say that I would repeatedly watch this episode just for the last few minutes.  I never expected that I could like Jon Hamm so much outside of  Mad Men, but he continuously shows me that he can be just as wonderful as a cartoon character.  It's too bad I didn't feel the love so much for the regular characters of this show.  As usual, when the story's not really about Roger messing up someone's life, it tends to not be a story that captures my interest much.

Too Many Stories, Not Enough Funny

American Dad, S08E02

Stan tried to assassinate a war criminal during a family vacation while keeping Francine in the dark about it.  Hayley and Jeff tried to rekindle their sex life.  Steve followed a boy to a nude beach and kept meeting dangers along the way.   Roger was dumped by an elderly man he met while he was acting out one of his widowed characters.

Stan trying to go behind Francine's back to do CIA work was just irritating until Francine was more than a little into helping him kill the man.  With her part of it, it was much better to watch, especially when Francine was hitting Joe with the racket for ruining her vacation.  And it was nice that they found a way to make the hip hop necklaces scene seem less random by it being the cause of why Francine wasn't killed by a direct shot to the chest.  I don't mind random, but sometimes things are so incredibly random (like that particular scene at first) that they are a little distracting.  But I suppose the funniest thing about this story was Stan's rivalry with the gardener who kept besting him all the way to the end when he killed their target.  I liked that because the gardener was just a nice guy who happened to be better than Stan was.  And I like seeing Stan knocked down a peg sometimes.

I feel like the Steve story was better or just simply a necessary side story because it was just bad decision after bad decision that distracted you what was going on with Stan and Francine.  I don't know why Steve was so enchanted by everything his new friend Liam suggested and went along with it like a moron, but he paid dearly for every mistake he made while Liam was left unscathed.  I guess that it was a good thing that Liam wasn't just leading him to his destruction and they did make it to where he claimed they were going, but it sucks that Steve was the only one who had suffer in the process.  My favorite line of that story was when Steve realized that Liam wasn't as smart as his accent made him sound:

You sound smart, like Hugh Grant the movie star, but you’re stupid, like Hugh Grant the person!

I'm not sure why people are so affected by particular accents, but they are.  It's interesting how the same thing said by two different accents could give off two completely different reactions just because of the sound and delivery.  I like how people are so influenced by sounds.

Roger's story was okay, but I felt like it could have been cut.  I mean, why the hell does he need to be a character while on vacation?  I shared Steve's annoyance that he was choosing to do that, especially one who was a senior citizen woman.  At least he was still true to his Roger self (who is pretty damn vindictive) and changed characters just to screw over the man who screwed over his character.  It's just weird to me what Roger chooses to do during a vacation when he could have just spent it as normal guy character just chilling at the bar.  But I suppose if he hadn't been Abigail, he would have been hanging with Steve and Steve wouldn't have needed to follow Liam around.

Jeff and Hayley's story was even more unnecessary.  It was a big ol' heap of "who gives a crap?"  There's something really gross about hearing them getting it on and I'm not really sure why that is.  I feel like I'd much rather hear Roger talking about his sex life than them.  Even grosser than their sex life itself was Steve sort of checking them out at the nude beach (or Hayley, I guess), not quite convinced he was seeing his sister.  Eww.  I know he got trampled and dragged along by a horse, dropped to the ground, and had bees stab him from the inside, but dang.  No need for the slight incest there.

Well, it wasn't a terrible episode, but it wasn't great either.  I can put this into the so-so pile without much thought.  I wouldn't bother to watch this episode again on purpose, but I wouldn't mind if it was on TV.  They would do better to have a few less stories in an episode and work on just maybe two that were actually funny.

Forget A Sexual Partner? Just Go Back In Time

American Dad, S07E17

It was revealed that Stan may not be Hayley's father when Hayley needed a kidney transplant to replace the one that was busted from an intense night of drinking.  Francine didn't know who the other possible father was, so she and Stan had to go back to the past to find out his identity.  That went well until Stan's jealousy made him stop Francine from screwing the other man, and it jeopardized Hayley's existence.  They then had to ensure that Francine did screw the right guy, which was harder to do once Stan and Francine showed themselves to their younger selves.  However, with a little ecstasy in Francine and a little push in the right direction, they were able to ensure Hayley didn't disappear from the present and obtained another kidney she could possibly use.  We didn't get to know whether Stan is the true father or not, but we did see that he valued Hayley enough as his daughter to not care about something as superficial as blood ties.

I rather like when Francine's past is brought up because she was such a party girl in the day.  So I was interested to see her old friend Kelly (voiced by Kathy Griffin) come into town, and I hoped she would slip back a little into her old ways.  I never imagined that Hayley wouldn't be able to keep up with her mother and her kidney would fail.  And that was a pretty scary display of how alcohol can damage your internal organs.  There was something about making them people-like and seeing one of them shrivel up and die that made me a little more cautious the next time I think about putting an excessive about of alcohol inside of me.  I think they should use that clip to frighten people from underage drinking.

I'm not that surprised that Francine cheated on Stan.  I would be frightened about marrying someone as white bread as him (at least on the surface, anyway--he's insane).  I didn't think they would ever figure out who the father was without Francine remembering.  Using a time machine to go back and see who it was, was a strange turn of events.  At least it was something I can't say that I've seen before in a show.

It was funny how Stan kept saying all these horrible things to Francine when he found out that she had cheated on him, but his body language kept suggesting he was going to say something sweet or forgiving.  That joke worked well for me because I didn't want to listen to him bitch about how Francine was a slut.  The humor offset me taking his complaints so seriously.

The only other joke I really liked was when Stan was explaining to their past selves about time travel and they forgot to use Back to the Future as a reference point.  I was thinking about it the whole time, so I'm glad that they were aware of what I (and probably most viewers) had in my mind.  I guess, though, they didn't bother much with that usual rule that you shouldn't reveal yourself to your past selves.

I didn't care too much for Roger's character who was the inventor of ecstasy.  I wondered what the point was of Stan taking his formula and putting it into his jacket pocket until they needed it later in the past.  Also, without that happening, Stan wouldn't have been able to call in a favor with Roger to steal the possible baby daddy's kidney. Although, Roger is pretty twisted (I mean, he was dancing around while stealing the kidney), so he might have just done it for Stan anyway.  I wish that he had a bigger role, though.  There wasn't any good Roger lines this time.

For this show, I could sort this story into one that was "heartwarming."  Stan was upset, for good reason, about Francine's betrayal and seemed ready to cut Hayley out of his life, but in the end, his love for his daughter outweighed his outrage.  It was nice that they could do that sort of thing without underplaying it too much with comedy.  Call me a sap if you will, but I appreciate these sort of moments every now and then.  It can't always be about how much you can shock and entertain us--if the show is centered around a family, at least throw in a few stories about the value of those bonds at some point.

Kill The Kids, Steal The Corpse's Hair

American Dad, S07E11

I liked this episode better than the other FOX shows last Sunday.  It was about Stan getting older in a fashion that reminder me of the movie Thinner.  There was also a side story about Francine and Roger, involving lies and a funeral.

Stan lays on some ageist remarks on one of his coworkers, Ray, whom he has stolen a job from.  Although he was being a jerk, I liked that he chastised Ray for cooking a sponge in the microwave because he thought it was a hot pocket.  He even turned it over in between.  I love a good hot pocket joke.

Stan gets cursed at the hiking goods store after he makes horrible remarks to the older man holding up the line.  I enjoyed the gradual aging of Stan.  He was particularly funny when he went to the doctor and thought he had aids because he couldn't understand the doctor saying "aged."  He looked so bad as an old man, especially when he went to work in some sagging jeans in order to look younger.  Those whitey tighties were not flattering on him one bit.

Halley figures out that the curse said upon Stan was in Latin, but it was Claus who knew what it meant.  That would have seemed odd to me except he explained it.  Still, that fish is pretty useless on a regular basis.  Sometimes I think Roger is enough of an oddity (they have to have one in the Seth MacFarlane shows) to add the weird element to their family.  Claus also gives Stan the idea that to break the curse he has to complete his dream of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro as an old man.  I thought from the beginning that it wouldn't work.  And it doesn't.

Although it seems ridiculous to have a man who has aged to about 80 or 90 by then travel overseas and climb a mountain, this part is the best segment of the episode.  Stan mistakenly thinks that Halley and Steve are going to kill him, so he decides to get to them first.  The gag was that each time he tried to get them, he would fall asleep mid-attack.  I loved it.  I also liked how Halley and Steve kept talking to him in a condescending tone and referred to him as "Papa."  So cute it made me laugh.

Stan finally succeeds in staying awake to attack them and chases them with a knife all the way up the mountain.  That's pretty ridiculous even for a cartoon.  Wouldn't he get tired, despite his murderous desire to off his children, climbing up there with no break??  Halley "luckily" falls off before Stan can get her again, but Steve gets a knife right in his back!  I was wondering how in the world they would survive all that.  Some random guys just collected them and carried them down.  The other thing that made me go "really?" was when Stan fell off the mountain for the longest time.  He was fine after that fall!  There's no way that the ox he rode down until it was just a bloody head saved him from breaking some bones.  An old man fell from a mountain that a young man would have surely died from.  Geez...  That bothered me.

Anyway, Stan broke the curse after a younger man treated him like Stan had treated the man from the store and learned his lesson.  However, he turned into a black Stan.  Uh...what?  He apparently was cursed by someone else at a different time.  So why did the curses bundle together and happen in this weird sequence?  After he cures this one, will he turn into someone else that he treated badly?  Maybe into Claus?  Well, I guess that it's funny on a non-laughable level to end the episode like that.

In the side story, Francine is tricked by Roger over and over again.  It was really dumb, but since it was Roger, you can't be shocked.  However, I didn't know what Roger's angle was from the first time he told Francine he hadn't been "entirely truthful" with her.  I did think from the moment I saw him in that horrible red wig, couldn't he get a better one?  He commented on it soon after my thoughts that it looked like "Garfield had miscarried" on his head.  Ugh.

After many lies that put Francine in an awkward situation with a dead body, Roger reveals his plan all along was to steal his ex-wife's red hair to make a wig.  So he married her and divorced her, in order to steal her hair some day?  I guess for him that would mean nothing since he doesn't appear to age at all.  Also, he doesn't give a damn about manipulating people, as was clear with Francine.  I was happy to see that Francine threw him off a cliff after all the shit he had put her through.  6 months of practicing for a dance competition that didn't exist and defiling a dead woman's body??  Roger's fall was too kind for him.

Very nice episode this week.  I wish the other shows would have had a little more intrigue, though.  One show doesn't make up for a disappointing Sunday.