At some point after age 14, I grew out of Seth MacFarlane’s typical shtick, as everyone should. Yes, there are funny moments in Ted and Family Guy has some good jokes hidden beneath the “bits” so ingrained in American pop culture that I fear we may never shake them. But in general the limit to MacFarlane’s sense of humor is that it is well-tuned to the 12-year-old edgelord we all once thought we were when we learned how to curse. 

That said, MacFarlane’s true work of art is American Dad!, the more mature cousin of Family Guy centered on CIA Agent Stan Smith (voiced by Seth MacFarlane, who I can only assume is contractually obligated to voice the protagonist(s) in everything he creates). The show revolves around Stan and his family – wife Francine, nerdy son Steve, hippie daughter Hayley, German “pet” fish Klaus, and Roger the alien (the show’s breakout star) – who reside in the fictional town of Langley Falls, Virginia. It first aired in 2005 and is colored with the post-9/11 Bush era zeitgeist of its time, which allows for more politically sophisticated and interesting episodes, with more enjoyable conceits than MacFarlane’s other work. Unlike Family Guy, which began airing in 1999 (and to a lesser extent, The Cleveland Show, MacFarlane’s Family Guy spinoff which premiered in 2009 and was eventually canceled), American Dad! does not lean on runaway bits or cutaway gags. Instead, it is a true sitcom focused on the Smith family’s dynamics and their more relatable problems, which is inarguably why it has aged better and stayed watchable past my teens.

It’s a half-mindless, half-brilliant kind of show I’ve rewatched so many times because, much like Futurama’s relationship to The Simpsons, American Dad! maintained a higher, more sophisticated, and more sentimental quality than Family Guy, the show that put MacFarlane on the map. To that effect, I wanted to give it a fair shake, admit my appreciation, and attempt to catalog it once more. This is a difficult task, as the show is still airing and in its 20th season1Or 19, or maybe 18? It depends on who you ask. I’m just going with what Wikipedia uses for the sake of convenience, but I realize their numbering is Hulu’s, where the show is currently streaming; if it gets confusing, just go by the episode title! with over 350 episodes to date. Of course, no show can go on for 350 episodes without some low points, and American Dad! is no exception. But the show has aged and maintained its overall quality remarkably well compared to long-running contemporaries like The Simpsons and Family Guy, despite – or perhaps because – it never quite reaching the same pop culture relevance.

It is in that vein that I felt motivated to compose this tribute to the series. I hope to capture a few of the eccentricities and standout moments that make the show pop and, in doing so, highlight its brightest episodes. 

Good Morning USA! (Seasons 1-3)

Initially, the show focused largely on Stan Smith and the ambience of mid-2000s America. Jokes and plotlines center on bioweapons, sending supporting characters to Guantanamo Bay (“Threat Levels” – season 1, episode 2), and concerns that the Smith’s new Iranian neighbors are terrorists, which end up derailing Stan’s wife’s plans for a neighborhood party (“Homeland Insecurity” – season 1, episode 6). Stan runs to be his church’s deacon with the support from Karl Rove (“Deacon Stan, Jesus Man” – season 1, episode 7) and – upset by the fact his wife refuses to do as he asks all the time – moves the family to Saudi Arabia in order to live out his patriarchal whims (“Stan of Arabia” – season 2, episodes 5 & 6). 

In its early seasons, the show ran with a newspaper gag, often ridiculing the political discourse of the era. America’s haphazard and arrogant foreign policy is lambasted in episodes like “Camp Refoogee” (season 3, episode 10), wherein Stan unintentionally sends his nerdy son, Steve, to an African refugee camp believing it to be a summer camp – then, instead of correcting his error, flies over to teach the refugees how to run a good summer camp for his son. There’s even an entire episode dedicated to President Bush visiting the Smith home after Stan wins the CIA essay contest (“Bush Comes to Dinner” – season 3, episode 10). The first few seasons are definitely of a particular era in American history but they are chock full of great lines that I catch myself using in regular comedy and political discourse to this day.

I’ve Got a Feeling That It’s Gonna Be a Wonderful Day (Seasons 4-5)

Many early season plots revolve around the fact the Smiths are harboring an extraterrestrial in the home as the CIA attempts to find him (“Roger Codger” – season 1, episode 5) but it isn’t really until season 4 or 5 that Roger really comes into his own. The show’s initial focus on Stan, his job at the CIA, and the milieu of the War on Terror ultimately give way to Roger and his exploits. Initially confined to the house, over the first few seasons Roger becomes restless and begins experimenting with disguises and personas as a mechanism to dress up as a human (if an oddly shaped one). Somewhere in here, probably around “The One That Got Away” (season 5, episode 2) – a memorable and classic episode devoted to one of Roger’s personas gone rogue – Roger becomes the real driving star of the show (something initially unexpected by the show’s creators). His sociopathic, vengeful, sadistic, imbibing, and omnisexual exploits overshadow Stan, who becomes the show’s stock straight man.

It’s fitting that in this era, as season 4 gives way to season 5, the newspaper gag gives way to a revamped opening sequence which prominently features Roger. The new weekly gag has Roger interrupting Stan’s passionate rendition of the show’s theme, “Good Morning USA” (the lyrics of which make up the headings within this piece), each time in a different persona’s costume. I must lament that I feel like the show lost something here –  there was something uniquely compact, stable, and graspable about the show’s early focus that fell into the background. The show could suddenly become about anything, and the implausible was now possible, providing the opportunity for both episodic moonshots and missed marks. However, as jokes at the expense of George W. Bush and the national security state became less relevant, American Dad!’s shift in focus ultimately allowed the show to survive. By and large, the show stuck the landing.

As Roger and his personas become the series’ preeminent antagonists, the show found a new footing. “Phantom of the Telethon” (season 5, episode 7) finds Stan balancing an error-prone CIA telethon (necessary in order to raise funds for torture equipment because Congress has revoked funding) against Roger’s vindictive quest to sabotage the telethon because Stan took credit for his idea is a delightful reminder of how far the show had come. “Roy Rogers McFreely” (season 5, episode 12) sees one of Roger’s personas elected to the homeowner’s association, which he uses as a tool to harass Stan, turning the tables on the conservative Stan’s respect for “the system” as he becomes a freedom fighter against the overbearing HOA.

Even here, as we settle into the Roger-led dynamics that dominate the plotlines, the show manages to give the family space to breathe and grow. “Live and Let Fry” (season 5, episode 11) is another episode that prods Stan to become the odd man out, forced to comply (and then break, because he cannot resist) with a new town law barring trans fats after defiantly declaring to his pothead daughter, Hayley, that laws have to be followed whether they are stupid or not. The show’s recurring “detective” character, Turlington, gets one of his several chances to shine in this episode, and its subplot also gives a hint at the comedic dynamic between Roger and Klaus the goldfish that would become a staple of later seasons. Seasons 4 and 5 are an era of the series building towards something great, where every member of the not-quite-nuclear Smith family gets their own opportunity to shine.

The Sun in the Sky Has a Smile on His Face (Season 6)

Season 6, which began airing in September of 2009, is the show’s clear high point. It contains the show’s best run of episodes and its most impactful pieces of television. “In Country…Club,” “Moon Over Isla Island,” and “My Morning Straitjacket” (season 6, episodes 1, 2, and 7, respectively) are all deeply nostalgic and formative episodes of television from my youth, but the ninth episode of this season is the show’s true apex. 

“Rapture’s Delight” (season 6, episode 9) is widely considered the show’s best episode. In this Christmas episode, Stan and Francine find themselves left behind when the Christian rapture occurs and the end of the world begins. Andy Samberg’s guest vocals provide memorable levity early on as he narrates a child-oriented educational video about the rapture that gets progressively more morbid and gruesome before ending in one of the funniest deadpans in animated television (“stay coooool…”) and at the episode’s conclusion when he voices the Anti-Christ. Stan’s supposedly unholy kids, Steve and Hayley, are raptured and Francine becomes Jesus Christ’s girlfriend after the second coming, while a seven-year time skip sends us into a world ravaged by the war between the angels and the demons. Jesus seeks out the grizzled Stan’s help in rescuing Francine while Roger, still trapped on Earth and attempting to reconstruct his spaceship, acts as a comedic voyeur of Christianity. With Mad Max-inspired visuals, it is by far one of the show’s most ambitious and outlandish episodes, but it lands flawlessly.

And the sixth season just keeps chugging along. “A Jones for Smith” (season 6, episode 11) sees Stan go down an increasingly defiant path, suggesting it is unacceptable to ask for help even as he catches an illness and unintentionally becomes addicted to crack. “Cops and Roger” (season 6, episode 14) contains what I’d consider the most unexpected and most hilarious visual gag I’ve ever seen in animated television (it follows up with “is Chad going to be ok?” “…no”). The plot of “Bully for Steve” (season 6, episode 16) sees Steve unable to stand up for himself, prompting his dad Stan to become his new school bully. It resolves when Steve tracks down his dad’s old bully, Stelio Kontos, who rolls up to the school – complete with his own diegetic catchy theme music – and beats up Stan for Steve, forcing Stan to acknowledge goals can be accomplished in ways other than his hyper-masculine “attack it head on” default. The season caps off with “The Great Space Roaster” (season 6, episode 18), the best season finale in the series. Here, Roger wants the family to roast him for his birthday, but gets wildly offended and devastated after realizing the barbs are at his expense and goes on an Ace of Base-fueled Alien parody to enact his revenge.

And He’s Shining a Salute to the American Race (Season 7)

If American Dad!’s sixth season marked its most satisfying finale, the show’s seventh season delivers its most memorable return. “100 A.D.” and “Son of Stan” (season 7, episodes 1 & 2) bring some long-awaited character advancement as Hayley decides to marry her recurring stoner boyfriend, Jeff. The first episode brings the stakes, promising to kill off 100 of the characters we’d come to know and love, which is teased throughout and ultimately achieved in a hilariously anticlimactic way. “100 A.D.” delivers in terms of service to the show’s past, its protagonists’ character development, and has everything you’d want to see as a longtime lover of the show coming back for a nostalgic rewatch. It requires Stan, after seasons of griping, to ultimately accept his daughter’s choice to be different than what he wants, that she loves who she loves, and that he can be happy about the fact she found someone who loves her too – allowing Hayley and Jeff to walk away with the reward money he offered to stop their marriage as a gift to the new couple. This episode is followed up by “Son of Stan,” which focuses on Stan and Francine’s competing overreactions to their daughter’s life choices as they drill in on reforming their son Steve’s life, each attempting to prove their individual parenting styles are superior to the other’s. the superior parenting style. The Steve plot gets a little out of hand but the secondary plot of Hayley and Jeff attempting to escape Roger on their honeymoon because he wants the reward money features one of Roger’s most catchy (if not quite quotable or particularly nuanced) shenanigans. “Son of Stan” shines because it paints a messier, if more accurate, picture of 21st century parenting, capturing the reality that children’s needs vary as they age, and that acceptance of your child’s choices is one thing while supporting them and providing healthy boundaries is something else.

“Rapture’s Delight” from season 6, mentioned earlier, dominates the discourse about the show’s Christmas episodes, but season 7 continues on and truly sets the stage for the show’s consistent holiday success. “For Whom the Sleigh Bell Tolls” (season 7, episode 8) tells the story of the Smith family accidentally murdering a mall Santa who, of course, turns out to actually be the real Santa. This provokes a resurrected Santa to declare war on the Smiths, culminating in an Appalachian gunfight during which Hayley’s loser husband Jeff (told by Santa he is a “good boy” and need not die with the family) resolves that he is a Smith and will fight with them. The Smiths survive the battle as daybreak approaches and Santa retreats, but this sets the Smiths up for a seasons-long Christmas tradition of fighting against and/or hiding from Santa and his North Pole stooges. In “Rapture’s Delight” and “For Whom the Sleigh Bell Tolls” and many of the Christmas episodes to come, American Dad! managed to do what only The Simpsons (with Halloween) managed to consistently succeed in: provide a routine and satisfactory set of holiday episodes. There’s a rare miss among them, and they’re generally entertaining and watchable in both the holiday season and the dead of summer.

Another highlight of season 7 is “Fart-Break Hotel” (season 7, episode 9). Episode title aside (it’s because Roger’s gas is lethal and requires the house to be decontaminated, forcing the family to stay in a hotel over the course of the episode), as a long time connoisseur of the series this is probably my personal favorite episode. Memorable guest appearances from Héctor Elizondo (as the concierge, as himself, “Yes, I am Héctor Elizondo. I have played a concierge in more than 400 movies and TV pilots. Acting pays the bills so that I can pursue my true passion: concierging.”), Will Forte, Richard Grant, and J.K. Simmons provide a rich world of characters, while Roger’s incredibly minor subplot provides dialogue I use every single time I look out of a large window overlooking the city streets. While in the series as a whole, Roger the alien may be the overwhelming star and most amusing character, this episode provides a rare arc for the character who has always had my heart: Francine. Relegated (intentionally, from the premise of the show, often so Stan – the ignorant breadwinner – can learn a lesson about the unquantifiable value of his wife) to the role of ditsy housewife for most of the show, occasional glimpses of Francine’s wild side flesh out a much more amusing character than she is in much of the early seasons. But in this episode, Francine embarks on a Roger-esque journey, taking up the name and persona of a conspicuously absent concrete conference attendee at a hotel, exploring what it’d be like to be an independent and successful woman in her own right. At the end, she must confront whether this made her life more meaningful or fulfilling, and she decides she’d prefer her role in caring for her family. This plot craftily overlaps tensions between family, third-wave feminism, and ambition but is most deft in that it finally provides Francine a choice and gives the audience a satisfying answer to how to feel about her character’s role in the show. It is a long overdue catharsis for the show’s most underrated character, as far as I’m concerned.

Oh Boy It’s Swell to Say, Good Morning USA (Seasons 8 and On)

From season 8 and on, the show bends and twists – there are more bad episodes, but plenty of good episodes, and a fair remaining share of great episodes. If anything, having returned to the show to watch the last few seasons after losing track of it years ago somewhere in season 10, I was stunned by how much many of the newer seasons held up. Sure, the lows are lower than they are in earlier seasons, but compared to other animated sitcoms still on the air that I ultimately gave up on (The Simpsons), got a little too tedious and stale (Bob’s Burgers), or now can’t even bring myself to enjoy the old content from (Family Guy), the consistent above-average performance is laudable. It’s rare that an episode merits a true skip-over, and this is a testament to the relatively tight storytelling and focus on the not-quite-nuclear family, even in a fictional universe that – as many later season episodes attest – gets increasingly more otherworldly.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention a few remaining episodes that are a must-watch in any quality cataloging of the show. “Familyland” (season 10, episode 10) has the family devolve into a Community paintball episode-type war in a Disneyland-like amusement park (and brings us the Dippin’ Dots parody that is Trippin’ Balls, with a jingle to boot). “The Two Hundred” (season 13, episode 10), the aptly named 200th episode of the show, is something of a Fallout homage. Centered on a post-apocalyptic Langley Falls, it follows Stan and Roger as they attempt to locate the rest of the family in a safe zone, climaxing in a battle between all of Roger’s personas, the survivors of Langley Falls, and the Smith family. It’s a who’s who of personas from seasons past that’s sure to make any longtime fan of the show smile. Finally, I’ll add a relative newcomer that I’ve rewatched a couple times this year – “Rabbit Ears” (season 16, episode 4). In this episode, Stan finds one of those old, large televisions and becomes obsessed with a program that airs late and night that no one has ever heard of. This bizarre episode is mysterious, eerie, and anxiety-inducing, reminiscent of something out of The Twilight Zone, demonstrating once more that even after so many years, and far removed from the patriotic satire of its early years, the show can still hit its mark by trying something new.

---

American Dad!’s relative obscurity, especially compared to Family Guy, The Simpsons, or even more consistently critically-acclaimed shows like Futurama, Bob’s Burgers, and Rick and Morty, has allowed for a creative freedom that rewards its audience and doesn’t promise more than it can give. Animated sitcoms are adaptable and versatile in a way live action ones never can be, but rare is the show that can seize on that without overstaying its welcome. By doing so over 20 years and succeeding where so few comparable shows have, American Dad! stands out as the pinnacle of a successful, long-running, animated series, and I’d dare say it lacks any serious competition to that claim.

It’s on that note that I’ll leave you to it. Maybe you dropped off the show a while back, maybe you’re anxious to pick it up, maybe you’re a lifelong fan curious to see if your favorite episode made my highlights. Whichever way you come to the show, or have yet to see it, it’s worthy of your time.