From the creators of Family Guy comes American Dad!, a hilarious and delightful animated series featuring CIA agent Stan “The Man” Smith, a right-wing ultra patriotic nut, and his quirky family. Francine is a former wild-child turned devoted mother and wife; Hayley is a leftist liberal and counterpoint to her father’s way of life; Steve is a nerdy teenager who is constantly rejected by girls. To round out this family tree, we also have Klaus, a talking goldfish who is infatuated with Francine; and …inally Roger, a sassy alcoholic alien who the Smith’s keep hidden in their attic.

American Dad! offers 13 entertaining storylines peppered with sometimes-witty, usually crude humor. Stan makes up for his shortcomings as a father and a husband by resorting to black-ops tactics, including kidnapping girls to date his son, wiping Francine’s memory when he forgets their anniversary, and keeping his neighbor’s prisoner in his back yard/prison camp.

Overall, the series is effective in drawing attention to the absurdities of overly patriotic right-wing philosophies, while also making light of the lackadaisical attitude of liberal youth. It accomplishes this while remaining very funny and cutting edge.

Episode List

American Dad (Pilot) To help Steve gain popularity with girls, Stan rigs the school elections to get his son elected school president.

Threat Levels Stan feels emasculated by Francine’s higher earning power. To take back his manhood, he steals his son`s idea to make money by hosting bum fights.

Stan Knows Best Hayley moves into her boyfriend’s van and gets a job as a stripper. Stan decides to rescue her, even if it means engaging in hand-to-hand combat with an army of strippers.

Francine’s Flashback Francine becomes furious with Stan as a result of him forgetting their anniversary. To make things right, Stan plans to erase her memory of the last 20 hours, but accidentally erases the last 20 years.

Roger Codger When Stan and Roger get into bitter argument, Roger slips into a stress-induced coma. Roger awakens to find he’s been abandoned in a dumpster and the CIA are hot his trail.

Homeland Insecurity Stan suspects his Iranian neighbors of being terrorists and so invokes the Patriot Act and keeps them prisoner in his back yard. This is also the first installment of the Golden Turd storyline, to be continued in the Spring 2006 season.

Deacon Stan, Jesus Man In order to get elected Deacon of his parish, Stan offers parishioners a very tasty potato salad with a secret alien ingredient.

Bullocks to Stan Stan’s commitment to his work is compromised when he discovers that his boss (played wonderfully by Patrick Stewart) is sleeping with his daughter. The episode ends with a magnificent fight scene in a diner.

A Smith in the Hand To distract his son from self-gratification, Stan introduces Steve to the hobby of wood-burning. After an unfortunate lap-related accident, Stan becomes addicted to using burn ointment

All About Steve After disappointing his father for being too geeky, Steve redeems himself with Stan by using his nerd skills to track down a cyber-terrorist.

Con Heir After a 20-year disappearance, Stan’s super agent dad shows up to convince Stan to join him on a top secret mission to liberate some jewels.

Stan of Arabia (part one) When he ruins his boss’s party by killing host Jay Leno, Stan and his family are transferred to Saudi Arabia. While Hayley and Francine cannot stand the female oppression, Stan quickly gets accustomed to the male-dominated conservative way of life and he decides to make the move permanent.

Stan of Arabia (part two) Stan’s enchantment with Saudi Arabia comes to an abrupt end when the entire family is arrested for being unvirtuous and sentenced to death by stoning. Does Roger have what it takes to save the Smiths? Of course he does!

Video

This is basically the same level of video quality one expects from the more recent Fox TV releases on DVD. All episodes are presented in classic 4:3 aspect ratio. The video transfer is excellent, with no noticeable defects or grain in the image. The colors are rich and vivid with good saturation levels, and the blacks are good and deep. There is some edge-enhancement noticeable in highly contrasting areas.

Audio

The 5.1 Dolby Digital track has very clear and clean dialog, as is expected from recordings made in a studio. The surround track is lacking anything exciting, with no noticeable use of the rears or subwoofer. The opening score can fill the room, but that’s pretty much all you get. There are some action sequences with strong sound tracks, but you never get drawn in by the sound stage.

Special Features

As with most of Fox’s major animation releases, this set has plenty of worthwhile extras:

Commentary – All episodes except one has a full commentary provided by show writers, actors, creators, directors and animators. These are somewhat hit-and-miss; generally informative and sometimes funny. Not nearly as good as the Futurama commentaries, but for the most part, worth listening to.

All in the Family - This 20 minute featurette takes a look at the creation of American Dad! and it’s characters. Included are clips from the show and interviews with cast members and creative team.

How’s Your Aspen? - A 25 minute taping of the voice actors performing a table read at HBO’s 2005 Comedy Arts Festival.

Secrets of the Glass Booth - 5 minutes of behind-the-scenes footage of voice actors doing their thing.

American Animatics - 14 minutes of side-by-side comparisons of animatic to production footage, featuring short clips from several episodes.

Table Read – 20 minutes taping of the cast performing a table read of an entire episode of American Dad! Includes animatics and final result comparisons.

Deleted Scenes - 42 (!) fully animated deleted scenes with a Play All feature. Worth watching, since most of these were deleted not because they weren’t funny, but because the network didn’t want them to air them. Over 16 minutes in total.

The New CIA - A 3 minute promo spot which is staged as a recruiting spot for the CIA hosted by Stan Smith.

2005 Superbowl Pre-Game Promo - A 2 minute promo spot where Stan and family are frantically trying to get nachos before the kickoff.

Family Guy Bored - A 30 second promo spot for Seth MacFarlane’s other show.

Final Thoughts

American Dad! is a very funny series that I hope will be on the air for a while to come. This is our generations All in the Family, and Stan Smith is the new Archie Bunker. Good stories, lots of laughs, and lots of special features make watching these discs a great way to spend some time.

Special Features List

• Commentary on 12 episodes by Creators & Producers Mike Barker, Matt Weitzman, Seth MacFarlane and others
• “All in the Family: Creating American Dad” featurette
• “Secrets of the Glass Booth: Behind the Voices of American Dad” featurette
• Animatic-to-Episode comparison
• Table Read and Animatic
• 42 deleted scenes