DVD Bonuses Knock Up American Dad! Volume 3 On DVD!

The Good: Funny, Good character development, Good animation, Sense of originality, Great DVD bonus features
The Bad: Plots do not hold up as well over multiple viewings.
The Basics: Arguably the first “must own” volume of American Dad!, Volume 3 is funny and might just be the best the series has produced (thus far!).


American Dad is one of those shows that took a while to grow on me. When I picked up the second volume of American Dad! (reviewed here!) recently, I found that it was much better than I remembered the episodes being. That was enough to encourage me to pick up Volume 3 of American Dad! on DVD. And it’s pretty wonderful. The bonus features of American Dad! Volume 3 are enough to bring the generally good episodes up to well above-average territory.

The eighteen episode third volume of American Dad! finishes off the second season of American Dad! and features the first eight episodes from the third season. The boxed set illustrates the level of quality in animation American Dad! would achieve. It is a smooth-looking show that follows the Smith family. Led by the CIA agent Stan Smith, American Dad! is an animated comedy with eighteen episodes that follow a pretty standard a-plot, b-plot format and features Stan frequently in conflict with his daughter Hayley and Roger the Alien stepping out more frequently in elaborate disguises.

The humor in American Dad! is much safer than the humor in Family Guy, but it is zany in an unpredictable way that has not been seen on animated comedies since The Simpsons. In the third volume of American Dad!, the main characters have episodic adventures and this season has no real concept episodes (unlike some of the Volumes that follow). In this season, what the main characters in the show do include:

Stan Smith – He gets second place in the CIA essay contest for the President, but gets to spend a night with George W. Bush anyway. After becoming annoyed with Greg and Terry’s undocumented worker, he starts a sweatshop to build his Cele-bear-tions! He gets tired of Hayley not following a traditional path, so he activates her CIA spy training. After apparently killing his fourteenth guy, he reveals that he has never actually killed anyone! When a child molester moves in down the block, he mans up to kill the pedophile. He befriends a right-wing Conservative as extreme as himself . . . who is an atheist, which Stan cannot reconcile himself to. He is forced to become a meter maid as community service, which leads him to corruption to try to please Francine. He is not paying attention and mistakes a CIA apocalypse drill for the real thing, taking the family into the woods to survive! He goes to extreme lengths to keep Francine from saying “I told you so” when his boss kills one of her friends,

Francine – Gets a tour of the Mr. Pibb factory when Stan annoys her. She rejects finding her biological parents when Stan gets annoyed with her Asian adoptive parents. She uses Stan becoming a meter maid to get the house on the local home tour circuit. She is the one who is most upset when Stan is exposed for using CIA goo to get out of the annual vacations with the family! She realizes she has made a terrible mistake when she and Stan divorce so he can play the field and he falls in love with another woman!,

Hayley – Goes toe to toe against George W. Bush after Stan tries to bury her in the house’s bottomless pit. She dates Paco to annoy Stan before Stan hires him to make his bears. She reveals that she had been programmed by Stan as part of a CIA experiment when Stan gets annoyed with her disobedience. In her programmed state, she marries an obviously gay man. On the family vacation, she goes through the most horrible things to survive. She nearly marries a loner when Stan convinces the family that the apocalypse has come and the family runs off into the woods,

Steve – Starts a band with his friends called Steve And The Asstones. He rejects Roger which sends Roger into the hands of an abusive teenager. He starts working for a drug dealer when he is duped by Roger! He begins grifting with Roger, which is horrible for everyone. He becomes obsessed with exposing a peanut conspiracy when he learns that George Washington Carver did not invent peanut butter. He and his friends join Stan on a cattle drive which he is trying to use to man them up,

Klaus – sits in his bowl and makes wisecracks when the writers remember to use him,

and Roger – Becomes obsessed with finding Osama Bin Laden in Washington, D.C. He joins and ruins Steve’s band. He plays a prank on Steve where he gets Steve to believe he has been admitted to Hogwart’s! When Steve plays a minor prank, he exposes the boy to the life of crime through scamming people, which quickly escalates into a full-fledged life of crime for the two. While the family is hiding out in the woods, he manipulates a lonely Jewish woman into marriage so he can get a new blender!

Each episode of American Dad! on DVD in Volume 3 features commentary tracks and there are deleted scenes and featurettes as well. The voice actors in American Dad!, who include Seth and Rachael MacFarlane, Wendy Schaal (Francine), and Scott Grimes (Steve) all have excellent timing for their gags and the latter three, who appear on the commentary tracks alongside directors and writers for the show are very entertaining.

Ultimately, American Dad! is near its most consistently funny on the third volume, making it well worth picking up for the enduring entertainment value.

For other animated works by Seth MacFarlane, please check out my reviews of:
Family Guy Volume 1
Family Guy Volume 2
Family Guy Presents Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story
Family Guy: Live In Vegas
Family Guy Volume 3
Family Guy Volume 4
Family Guy Volume 5
Family Guy Presents Blue Harvest
Family Guy Volume 6
Family Guy Volume 7
Family Guy Presents Something, Something, Something Dark Side
Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade Of Cartoon Comedy
Family Guy Volume 8
Family Guy Presents Partial Terms Of Endearment
Family Guy Presents It's A Trap!
Family Guy Volume 9
Family Guy Volume 10
American Dad! - Volume 1

8/10

For other television reviews, please check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Steadily Improving, Volume 2 Of American Dad! Finally Has The Series Stepping Out On Its Own!

The Good: Funny, Has actual character development, Decent guest vocals, Serialized elements
The Bad: Still seems somewhat derivative at points of Family Guy.
The Basics: While Seth MacFarlane’s second FOX show finally steps out of the shadows of Family Guy, it does not get quite far enough to feel like it is truly standing on its own with the Volume 2 DVD set.


Not long ago, my wife and I did a huge marathon of American Dad!. We picked up the DVDs cheap and we started watching the series that we had (largely) given up on back in the day after the first few episodes. But, as Family Guy has stagnated and become repetitive, we decided to give the show another chance. After getting American Dad! Volume 1 (reviewed here!) and finding it to be better than we remembered, we decided to soldier on with American Dad! Volume 2.

Volume 2 of American Dad! finishes off the first season American Dad! and presents the first ten episodes of the second season for an eighteen episode DVD set. To enhance the value of the episodes, the DVD set includes commentary tracks on all of the episodes and in watching them, we found that the humor held up well over multiple viewings of these eighteen episodes. Though the second season episodes had marginally better animation, more consistent humor, and actual character development, American Dad! Volume 2 continues the irksome trend in Seth MacFarlane’s works of not providing a complete season of television, but rather a vague association of episodes that pick up where the last (incomplete) boxed set left off.

Opening with Stan having a meeting of the National Gun Association in the house, Hayley becomes obsessed with guns at the same time Roger and Steve get in a revenge war over Steve eating a cookie. Forced together by Francine, Hayley and Stan try to bond, while Steve searches for the biological parents Roger claims he was adopted. Steve writes an unflattering expose on Roger and Francine struggles because she can’t get her hair done. She joins up with the Ladybugs, the evil housewife snobs who all have affairs. Roger, upset over the destruction of his television and his state as a shut-in, swaps places with Stan and goes out and gets a job.

Klaus is briefly given a human body again while Francine follows her dream of opening a kiosk at the mall. Stan learns he is not married to a homecoming queen when he and Francine visit her high school reunion and he briefly leaves her for Betty Sue, the actual homecoming queen (who no longer looks like the stereotypical homecoming queen). Stan and Francine spend from her 39th to her 40th birthday in Europe trying to ruin George Clooney and Stan tries to give Steve the summer camp romance he never had in Africa. Stan develops an eating disorder after Steve begins dating a larger girl. This batch of episodes ends with a Christmas episode where Stan runs off on the Ghost of Christmas Past and rewrites history, with the intent of restoring Christmas, but ultimately leading to the United States surrendering itself to the Chinese!

The animated series that focuses on CIA Agent Stan Smith is in a state of growth with Volume 2. American Dad! actually includes more humor for the type of geeks who made Family Guy into a phenomenon. To wit, the second season premiere opens with a wonderful Terminator 2: Judgment Day gag that is delightful. The episode where Debbie is first introduced quickly becomes something more than just an assemblage of fat jokes. And even some of the off-colored humor (like Snot suggesting that now that he has a Russian mail-order bride, the gym teacher might let him shower himself off) plays better and replays better than similar jokes from the first season.

What actually impressed me most about the second volume of American Dad! was that the characters actually develop! In the second volume, the primary characters are:

Stan Smith – After he is forced to spend the day with Hayley, he actually becomes a gun industry spokesman, after he stages a prank on Hayley and she shoots him, paralyzing him! He becomes Steve’s manager in order to sell his son’s book, despite having 10,000 rejection slips for his children’s books! He adopts a dog that Francine brings home from a murder scene at the grocery store. He gets drunk and is put under house arrest when Roger crashes the car. He blows most of his bonus from the CIA on useless swag and briefly leaves Francine for her competition for homecoming queen. He and Roger have a strangely intimate experience when Roger tries to bond with him and become his best friend. After he gets Barry off his pills, Barry becomes a diabolical psychopath! He spends a year trying to help Francine ruin George Clooney for her 39th birthday and then spends summer with Steve in Africa battling it out with a neighboring rebel military camp. He becomes anorexic, despite Hayley and Francine trying to fatten him up. He loses his self confidence when a car dealer manages to break his willpower. After becoming obsessed with Abraham Lincoln, he explores the Lincoln Republicans and discovers the gay Republicans! After despising Steve’s new girlfriend, he begins to bond with her over their mutual love of guns. He finally “comes out” to Francine about his love of figure skating after years together. On a time travel adventure to save Christmas, he becomes the one who shoots President Reagan!

Francine Smith – She forces Stan and Hayley together when she tires of their bickering. She has a crisis when her hairdresser goes straight and her roots begin to show. She becomes obsessed with the snobbish, unfaithful housewives, the Ladybugs, to her detriment. She realizes her lifelong dream of opening a kiosk at the mall, in this case, a muffin stand. After Hayley makes a movie that makes her look bad and mundane, she gets a fake medical degree and becomes a doctor for the handicapped mafia. She works to ruin George Clooney and gets in a battle with Stan when Stan actually befriends him! She has an uncommon bonding experience with Roger playacting while Stan is out of the country. She and Hayley begin working as housecleaners after Stan goes rogue after losing his self confidence. She becomes tired of the rut she and Stan are in and starts fantasizing about the street racer the two see while out on a date! When Steve and Debbie break up, she becomes obsessed with having another child!

Hayley Smith – Begins to bond with Stan over the guns she abhors being in the house. Returning with Stan to Sugar Mountain, she discovers a gun-themed amusement park which horrifies her, until she stages a protest and eventually paralyzes him with a gun! She locks Steve in the closet when she catches him reading her journal. She takes in some monkeys who have been over-groomed, who then take over the basement. She falls in with an ecoterrorist who potted himself in a planter in order to protest the new mall expansion. She makes a movie that embarrasses Francine. She tries to fight the local fraternity when her Eskimo studies courses are cut from the budget to support the frat. She nearly dies of a rare disease while Stan and Francine are out ruining George Clooney. She dumps Jeff, but is surprised how much she wants him back when he starts playing an online video game with Steve!

Steve Smith – Is horrified to think he might be adopted when he cannot find any pictures of himself! He is failing English because he is unable to write creatively, so he writes all about Roger. He cultivates a bad boy image to sell his new book. He is bullied at school and meets a Jesus-like pizza delivery guy who shows him how bullies are usually bullied themselves. He is forced into trying to interact with the cool kids by his father, which has the effect of illustrating that he can’t swim or be popular. In taking Stan’s experimental steroids, he develops manboobs. He is deported to an oil rig when Barry frames him for destroying Stan’s collectible plate collection! He joins Stan in Africa and has a summer fling with one of the girls at the refugee camp. He begins dating Debbie, a larger geek.

Klaus – He is locked in a closet with Steve when Steve reads Hayley’s diary! When is obsession for Francine reaches a new high, Stan puts him into the body of a man the CIA has had on ice (who happens to be black) and he tries yet again to seduce Francine. He and Hayley bond briefly over weed. Otherwise, he pops up and delivers wisecracks.

and Roger The Alien – He begins an elaborate plan to make Steve insecure by claiming he is adopted after Steve eats his cookie. He burns all of the pictures of baby Steve and sends him to the home of a family whose kid disappeared years prior as revenge! He starts leaving the house in wigs and disguises when he drunkenly destroys his television and goes out to be Stan’s designated driver. He discovers life as a used car salesman is harder than he would have guessed. He creates a bond with Stan and is disappointed when Stan still doesn’t like him! While Francine becomes a mob doctor, he starts taking care of the housecleaning. He discovers the unlimited drinking that comes from fraternities and joins one! He uses foster children as slave labor to try to make his own wine. He and Francine pose as a couple while Stan and Steve are in Africa . . . with destructive results.

Guest vocals in the second volume are less obvious in many cases, though Patrick Steward recurs as Stan’s CIA boss. Lisa Kudrow closes the set well as the Ghost Of Christmas Past, though there are few other vocal performances of those caliber in this boxed set (whatwith George Clooney being voiced by Andre Sogliuzzo in “Tears Of A Clooney” – though Bruce Boxleitner and Kate Jackson voiced themselves in the same episode!).

For other animated works by Seth MacFarlane, please check out my reviews of:
Family Guy Volume 1
Family Guy Volume 2
Family Guy Presents Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story
Family Guy: Live In Vegas
Family Guy Volume 3
Family Guy Volume 4
Family Guy Volume 5
Family Guy Presents Blue Harvest
Family Guy Volume 6
Family Guy Volume 7
Family Guy Presents Something, Something, Something Dark Side
Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade Of Cartoon Comedy
Family Guy Volume 8
Family Guy Presents Partial Terms Of Endearment
Family Guy Presents It's A Trap!
Family Guy Volume 9
Family Guy Volume 10

7/10

For other television reviews, please check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing.

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Opening Derivative, American Dad! Volume 1 Is An Unimpressive Start!

The Good: Moments of humor, Moments of character
The Bad: Only 13 episodes, Many of the jokes fall flat, No spark
The Basics: In the first thirteen episode volume of American Dad!, Seth MacFarlane tries to replicate his popular format from Family Guy unsuccessfully.


As my wife and I have been spending more time together, we have been watching quite a bit of new (to us) material. After going through the newest Family Guy DVDs, we decided to continue on in the Seth MacFarlane universe . . . with American Dad!. American Dad! is a television series that both my wife and I made a conscious decision not to watch. Though we did not know one another at the time, both of us saw the first few episodes of American Dad! and found that it was not very funny and seemed like a cheap recasting of Family Guy (which we both love). So, picking up American Dad! Volume 1 on DVD, was a bit of a risk for both of us.

With the first two or three episodes, American Dad! continued to disappoint us. After all, American Dad! is (in many ways) a cheap recasting of Family Guy, at least at the beginning. Stan Smith is almost as idiotic as Peter Griffin, Roger the alien takes the place of Brian the dog and Klaus is almost as immobile as Stewie Griffin is dependent upon his parents. Moreover, Francine Smith and Lois Griffin are virtually interchangeable. However, by the end of the first volume of American Dad!, the characters are established enough to give the show a distinct voice of its own. While Seth MacFarlane uses largely new talents (separate from those on Family Guy), he voiced Roger and Stan, so fans of his works are likely to find it familiar.

Opening with conservative CIA Agent Stan Smith being worried that his son will be an unpopular wuss his entire life, Stan meddles in the school elections for class President. Roger’s backstory is fleshed out when Roger escapes and appears back on the CIA’s radar, which puts Stan’s job and Roger’s life in danger. Furious with a neighbor who seems to have everything he wants, Stan runs for deacon at the family’s church. Stan goes into a rage when his adult daughter Haley begins dating his boss, Bullock. After telling Steve of the evils of masturbation, Stan is burned and has to apply ointment that starts him masturbating after a lifetime of not tuggin’ it! Stan’s father dies and after that, his real father turns back up. Only Stan is oblivious to the fact that he is a thief! The season ends with a two-part episode which has Stan and his family ending up in Saudi Arabia. That edgy episode explores several of the conflicts between American and U.S. culture, including how women are treated (not allowed to go out unescorted).

American Dad! is not immediately funny and Seth MacFarlane and his team take a little time to actually get the “voices” of the characters right. Haley is characterized in the first season as a peacenik who is originally just a contrarian force to her father, Stan. However, as the season progresses, Haley becomes her own person and her relationship with the apparent loser, Jeff.

The basic premise of American Dad! is that CIA Agent Stan Smith represents a Bush-Era sensibility of the conservative American. He is sexist, resistant to change, and is the keeper of government secrets, which works well for his profession, but not his personal life. American Dad! has a somewhat limited cast in the first season, which is focused on the Smith family. Complete with talking animals and aliens, American Dad! feels very much like a Seth MacFarlane production, without cutaway gags.

In the first volume of American Dad!, the essential characters are:

Stan Smith – The patriarch of the Smith family, he is employed by the CIA. He is Christian, homophobic, married to Francine, and wants what he thinks is best for his daughter (who he does not really understand) and his son (who he does not respect at all). The only rule he has really broken for the CIA came when he rescued Roger from being hunted by fellow agents,

Francine Smith – Stan’s wife and a homemaker, she puts up with Klaus’s constant advances and works to raise Haley and Steve well. When Haley’s boyfriend, Jeff, gets a crush on her, she is surprisingly flattered,

Haley Smith – The liberal daughter of Stan and Francine. She butts heads with Stan constantly. She gets high with her boyfriend Jeff and attends the community college near Langley Falls, where the family lives. She briefly dates Stan’s boss when she and Jeff break-up,

Steve Smith – The pimply 14 year-old son of Stan and Francine, he runs for school president against the popular girl. He develops hobbies in order to avoid masturbation, which puts him and Stan at odds temporarily,

Klaus – A fish who can talk because his brain is that of a German athlete. The CIA transferred his brain into the fish and now he spends his time making wisecracks and trying to get Francine to flash him,

and Roger – An alien who escaped the CIA with Stan’s help. Now, he is ungrateful and spends a lot of time dressing up and assuming different personas in order to have some freedom outside the house. Unfortunately, he is frequently seen and the CIA begins hunting him again, requiring him to depend upon Stan once again.

A recurring guest character on American Dad! is Stan’s boss, Bullock, who is voiced by Patrick Stewart! Fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation will thrill to hear Stewart in such a quirky role. The delight of Stewart appearing in American Dad! does not last the entire first volume. The show is still struggling to find its legs and it becomes a less memorable DVD set. Fortunately, it does get better from here out . . . at least for a while.

For other animated works by Seth MacFarlane, please check out my reviews of:
Family Guy Volume 1
Family Guy Volume 2
Family Guy Presents Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story
Family Guy: Live In Vegas
Family Guy Volume 3
Family Guy Volume 4
Family Guy Volume 5
Family Guy Presents Blue Harvest
Family Guy Volume 6
Family Guy Volume 7
Family Guy Presents Something, Something, Something Dark Side
Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade Of Cartoon Comedy
Family Guy Volume 8
Family Guy Presents Partial Terms Of Endearment
Family Guy Presents It's A Trap!
Family Guy Volume 9
Family Guy Volume 10

5/10

For other television reviews, please check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing.

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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