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.

Flush This Story Down The Toilet

The Cleveland Show, S03E20

Junior wanted to write his report about a great American and he chose Cleveland.  After following his father around for a day, Junior realized his mistake and ended up writing a depressing report that suggested that Americans were lazy and unmotivated.  Cleveland wanted desperately to get Junior's respect back after that and decided that he would demand for more toilet safety due to a recent injury from falling off a toilet he had.  The rest of the family ignored his efforts to make a toilet bar and went to Krazy Kingdom where Rallo was excited to ride a roller coaster for the first time, but was denied because he was still too short.  They later saw Cleveland on TV, flying around on the toilet he had been stuck on for the longest time to the capital building.  His "bold" stunt to stand up to the "dangers" of falling off the toilet inspired Junior to write the report about Cleveland again in a much more heroic light.

I have to say that I didn't like much about this episode.  I mean, Cleveland is the last person that Junior should have picked for a topic in the first place, so that was disaster from the start.  Then Cleveland's idea to get his son's respect back is to go around on a toilet hung from a helicopter?  Only Cleveland's real son would be impressed by that stupid stunt.  What makes it gross is that he was flying around with a nearly full bowl and he didn't have any clothes on below his shirt.  Eww!  But I guess Cleveland will do anything for his son.

I have to call Junior a hypocrite when he told Cleveland that he was a "sad weirdo."  Then what does that make Junior??  Maybe he's just a happy weirdo.  But still.  That whole family has little room to judge anyone because they've all acted less than sane.

My favorite line (and I'm reaching a bit) is when Cleveland tried to get himself out of the toilet bar and tried to use a popular commercial jingle:

Like a good neighbor State Farm is there.  [Pause]  Dang.  I'm gonna die.

That was pretty good.  I like those commercials and the ridiculous way State Farm acts as if they can magically make bad situations better by saying that.  I think that if Cleveland had been saved by them, it would have been just as funny.

I think the best moment, though, was when Rallo had made himself a makeshift roller coaster out of clothes and laundry baskets and was sliding it down the bed.  That was so cute!   I don't know what it is about Rallo that is so adorable for a cartoon character.  But he always manages to make me smile with his childish antics.  If I saw a real kid doing that, it would be crazy amazing.

Not one of the worst episodes, but not one that I'll try to remember (or purposely try to watch again).  You would think that a story centered around someone falling off the toilet would be funnier, but instead it was just sad and boring.  Of course, this is much expected when they make a story around Cleveland's problems, which usually tend to be the least funny when he's handling it on his own.  As always, we need to install more Rallo into the mix to make it a better episode.