Talking Simpsons - Talking Simpsons - American Dad! "Pilot"

Episode Date: April 29, 2026

"Francine, you be very careful out there today—we're at terror alert orange! Which means something might go down somewhere in some way at some point in time... So look sharp!" - Stan Smith This week, we're switching gears and looking back at the first episode of American Dad, which only just returned to Fox after over a decade of basic cable existence. Though the series was at first seen as a cheap copy of Family Guy born out of the misery of the George W. Bush administration, American Dad didn't take long to carve out its own weird, wonderful identity and quietly thrive over the last two decades. So join us as we explore the roots of an entirely different prime-time cartoon that refuses to die. What a Cartoon! - American Dad! "The Best Christmas Story Never Told" | Patreon | Free Feed What a Cartoon! - American Dad! "Gold Top Nuts" | Patreon | Free Feed Support this podcast and get over 200 ad-free bonus episodes by visiting Patreon.com/TalkingSimpsons and becoming a patron! And please follow the official Bluesky and Instagram!

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Go to eat IQbar.com and enter code bar 20 to get 20% off all IQ bar products plus free shipping. Again, go to eat IQ bar.com and enter code bar 20. is brought to you by patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. Head there to check out exclusive podcasts like Talking Futurama, Talk King of the Hill, the What a Cartoon movie podcast, and tons more. I endorse this event or product. Ahoy, hoy, everybody, and welcome to Talking Simpsons, the podcast that erupts with goo every seven hours. I'm one of your host, the Anorexic James Cameron Alien, Bob Mackie, and this is our chronological exploration of the Simpsons and related shows, and who is here with me today, as always. Henry Gilbert, and I was around for the Reagan administration. I know how things are supposed to be. And this week we are looking at the American Dad pilot.

That's it. If Steve needs power, I'll rig the school election and make him student body president. Wow, can you do that? Ricking elections is my bread and butter, Roger. You know how many votes George Bush actually got in the first election? Seven. This episode originally aired on February 6, 2005, the same night as Homer and Ned's Hail Mary Pass. And as always, Henry will let us know what happened on the special.

mythical day in real world history. North Korea declares itself a nuclear power. Mulan 2 is released direct to video and also at the Super Bowl 39. We got our first look at the brand new Batmobile in a special Super Bowl trailer for Batman begins. Nice. So some people are watching the Super Bowl, others watching Mulan 2. Who won that night? They wanted to see, you know, how does the new guy replacing Eddie Murphy do?

is taking over the character. As far as I remember, that is a white guy who can do a really mean Eddie Murphy impression. I believe so, yes. I think they went with, you know what, they were colorblind in their recasting of Musu, the dragon. Did you watch that as part of the Moulin research? I won't blame you if you didn't,

but I forget it's been a few years. I watched about five minutes of it on Disney Plus just to confirm one thing. How heterosexual did they make her bros from the army, especially the Harvey Firestein character and yes, by the end of it, they basically all have their own girlfriends because they're the ones who can have a storyline

happen, I guess, in the movie since Mulan's story is pretty much settled by the end of the film. Yeah, it was a really dark age for direct-to-video movies, although now that they're just all on Disney Plus or free, they now seem kind of harmless. Yeah, they don't also feel like a priority at all anymore for Disney.

Like, it's about live-action remakes now. You can't be, so I can't even be upset at these things that are just like, hey, eight years later, we continue the story of Moulin. Like, who cares? Yes, by the way, I said they're free. They're free if you pay your Disney Plus bill, and you better. Because how else are you going to see all of American Dad? The ever-increasing Disney Plus Bill, who knows how much it's going to keep going up.

Even once they kill Hulu, they'll be like, you know, now that Hulu's dead, it's two bucks more a month now. This old place is falling apart. And, yes, the North Korea declares itself a new. clear power. That's a very American dad-style news headline. There weren't any fun George Bush headlines from this week that I could find. Or from like, you know, Iraq, what? More people, like, just a regular amount of people died in that war crime that week. Nothing special that made headline. We eventually had to curb all of the Iraq stories on Talking Simpsons for the day in history.

I mean, it's just going to be a quagmire for the next like 16 years of Simpsons episode. So why even mentioned. But yeah, the North Korea though, yes, they officially said we have a nuclear bomb and we're a nuclear power and all that that it was figured out or suspected by the stand smiths of the world

for a long time. Yeah, I mean, we're having a great time knocking over countries lately. I mean, this episode goes live in over a month. Cuba seems to be next on the agenda. Will North Korea make it three, do a three, Pete? I feel the pain of the writers of American Dad at this time as we're

trying to. They had to do political comedy on an animated show where who knows what would change by the time it aired. Even us working, say, six-ish weeks ahead of time, things are crazy right now. And who knows how much crazier it is when when this comes out. But I tell you what's timeless, the Batmobile. This is my least favorite Batmobile. I mean, I guess it really is for the W-era. It's a Batmobile that's actually just a military tank that runs over people. This thing just fell out of Call of Duty. I'm looking it up now. It's hideous.

Of course, I am really biased because I love the very sexual Tim Burton Batmobile. Yeah, and instead, here's a Batmobile that just is factory-made munition stuff, like, because that is Bruce Wayne, you know, makes his money as a weapons contractor. It should be a surprise at three years later. Who becomes the new most popular Marvel character? The guy who builds bombs Tony Stark, but it becomes the nice guy who builds bombs and realizes. and realizes he should just make that bomb into one suit that kills people. Yeah, makes sense. But Batman Begins, I was certainly excited for it.

When I looked it up, I was like, oh, yeah, this Super Bowl trailer, it was the first time they showed a lot of the, like, the Batman costume, and they've been holding back so many things because, as we know, Christopher Nolan is a secretive director and doesn't like give it away too much at a time. So this was when we finally got to see things like the Bat Tank, pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I need to give this.

movie another chance because I only watched it on DVD because I was interested in The Dark Night and I did see that in theaters and enjoyed it. But I found Batman begins to be kind of boring. So I don't know if people were just like super over the moon for it because that awful Joel Schumacher wasn't making Batman gay anymore or if it is legitimately a good movie. I remember liking it all right. I watched it many times in the run up to the release of the Dark Night like me and a coworker at the video store I worked at in 08. We're so excited for the Dark Night that I feel like once a week we put out Batman Begins, just to really, just to get to the very end of the teaser of the Joker and just nudge each other. Like, oh, man, it's going to be the Joker soon. Yeah, actually, that's the one thing everyone talked about that I knew who saw the movie. Nothing about the movie itself, but they're going to do the Joker next. Well, the most unbelievable thing in the movie is that Dr. Thomas Wayne and a bunch of other rich guys in Gotham worked together to pay for a free public transit option in the town

as one of the, like they built a light rail in Gotham that's a major plot device in the movie. And the movie starts out with Thomas Wingo and like, me and the other rich guys got together. And we knew we could only bring back prosperity to the city by building a public transit option. I was like, that's the thing that would never happen now, ever. This is sheer comic book fantasy.

Well, I forgot Katie Holmes is in this movie. and to quote our friends from the We Hate Movies podcast, she is one of the worst to ever do it. Terrible. She is quite bad as Rachel in the movie. She, yeah, it's, like, Maggie Gyllenhaal is much better at it. And I wonder if she's stuck around,

would Rachel Dawes' ending have been what it ended up being in the dark night? I don't want to spoil a dark night if anyone's never watched it. And to let everyone know out there, if this podcast had been recorded 11 years ago, we would all be doing the Christian Bill Batman voice. but we've grown since then. I mean, do people even do that Ben Affleck Batman voice anymore? I don't know what voice that is.

Like the deviated septum voice? Yeah, he'd be like, I'm really tired. This is hard. I'm sick of it. Divorceded energy with that Batman. But that's everything else that happened on the night this aired after a Simpsons episode. And yes, we are not covering the Simpsons this week. this is not a flaw in your podcast player.

Do not throw your smart device in a bog. We are covering American Dad's first episode for some good reasons. Well, number one, it aired after the last season 15 Simpsons that we covered, Homer and Ned's Hill Mary Pass. But also, we love American Dad. And after 12 years of being on Basic Cable on TBS, it is now back on Fox and now Sunday night pals with the Simpsons again. So it's never been more relevant than ever. And it's 21st season just debuted as of this recording a few weeks ago. So America Dad, very fresh, very hot.

Yeah, in the past on Talking Simpsons, you might have noticed that, say, when the critic debuted in the timeline, we covered the critic that week instead of just going forward with the next Simpsons episode. When Family Guy debuted in 1999, we covered the first episode of Family Guy and how it debuted instead of just the next Simpsons. And so we're, and we've done it in other cases, too, and we're just continuing that with this episode. and it's not a secret to that on this podcast network,

me and Bob are both big fans of American Dad. Yeah, very, very funny. Henry and I just watched the newer episodes. There's two online right now, and they've still got it. I don't know how the show is so fast and funny in its 21st season with a lot of the same writers who have been there since the very beginning, but they're doing it.

And a lot of the same animation people up top too, and so many of the same actors, for over 20 years now, American Dad, has been around and it just like the less Seth MacFarland got involved in it the better it got and it just got into be its own weird little thing in its own corner and when you discover that like there's a dozen episodes as we just talked with Alex Navarro when we had him on for the the Simpsons episode that aired with this he had never checked it out I'm like oh man I feel jealous of you that there's like 300 episodes in front of you of American Dad that you just

missed out on that are all just so great and easy to just binge. Yeah, some people might just forget this is on the air or they see it and they think, what, what is this family guy? But it does, is a surprise to a lot of people? This show is still around and it's very good. And rewatching the pilot, I'm starting to think maybe it was always good. Yeah, I, uh, I, I remember my feelings on the night of the pilot and how I was unimpressed with it, I think. To be honest, I did not really give American Dad a shot, I think, until season three, I think, when I check back in with it.

And then I got to the DVDs and wanted to listen to all the commentary tracks and everything that there were. And I cracked down my old season, of, sorry, volume one DVD for this. Yeah, yeah, I watched the pilot with my arms cross and my brow furrowed because I blame American Dad for the cancellation of Futurama and how Fox was messing with

arrested development. It's not American Dad's fault. And because I was a loser in my early 20s, what do you do if the TV show is on and you hate it? You watch it. What are you going to do? Kiss a girlfriend. They're not there. You're just going to watch the cartoon you hate

and then argue with people about it online. That's what I was doing. And I dutifully watched it every Sunday night. And I was starting to slowly realize, wait a minute, I think I like this show. And then by the production season one finale, stand of Arabia, the two-parter, I had to admit, okay, Seth McCarland,

you have won. American Dad is a very funny show. And I will continue to watch it. So, yeah. And some people say this first season is kind of rough. Going back to it after watching season 21, it feels like this pilot does kind of nail everything, except this pilot does not understand, like, how much weirder the show will get and how apolitical it will get. Outside of the fact that it's constantly sending the message that American institutions like the CIA and the FBI are pure evil and only want what's worse for all of us.

Yes, yeah. I think when I watch this the first time, I remember just seeing it as the general opinion of, if you already were a family guy hater, and by the time this aired, you were aware, family guy had come back. There had been the direct-video movie and you knew more was coming, movie, in quotes. But with American Dad, if you're already thinking Seth MacFarlane is a hack, then you surface level C that this is made to look exactly like Family Guy with all of the same, like, character roles in place,

except slightly remixed, you're, like you say, arms crossed of like, see, I knew he was a hack, he just made the same show again. And I think before this episode premiered, he was on Letterman, and he was describing the show to Letterman and describing the characters. And then he eventually gave up and said,

listen, it's just family guy. We couldn't make family guys, so we're making this instead. So it was more of a, I can't believe he admitted it sort of thing to me, even though I know it's like, oh, it's very tongue-in-cheek. and yeah there are many things in common with Family Guy,

but the way they go a different, they zig where Family Guy's eggs, that is what makes a show interesting. I think the greatest thing that could happen for American Dad was that before it came out, Family Guy got surprise renewed for a fourth production season because then it got to not be Family Guy. Like just on the commentary of the first episode alone,

I was reminded again of just hearing the other creators of the show say out loud, well, we want to be. wanted to do this less because family guy came back or we changed our idea on this because family guy came back or we didn't want to bother the family guy writers by writing jokes in their style. It gave them permission to be weird in that cliche and get weirder. And we're going to have a little bit of American debt history for you up front. But if you want to hear more about American Dad on our other podcast about a cartoon now in its ninth year, we have covered two other episodes. We have covered the best Christmas story never told and gold top

nuts. So check out those episodes of what a cartoon they are linked in the show notes. So just click on those links and you can hear us talk more about American Dad. Yeah, those are both great ones to listen to together because they were recorded years apart. But the first one we did is really like the history

of the Fox era. And then Gold Top Nuts, which is one of the greatest like weirdies they did. We talk about that. Then Bob gives a great history on the TBS era of American Dad. And what changed behind the scenes and the, you know, compromises, at least, you know, budget-wise, they had to make it

going to cable, among many other things, to still make it work. And I think what kept it around for so long, if I remember correctly, is that TBS had to have at least one scripted show to legally be a cable network or something crazy like that. Something changed with that, but yes, they had to, I know at least one, I think the last season got premiered pretty much just because of a legal loophole that they needed a scripted show and they canceled, they had canceled everything else, so they had to. And yeah, American Dad just got renewed for four more seasons. So this new season that just started, it's just the beginning of what is essentially going to be 60 more episodes of American Dad, because I believe it's four 15 episode seasons, I think.

And then it's getting to, what, 25, yawn. And yeah, the new season that just came out basically was like kind of a repilot even in that the first episode is written by Matt Whiteman. like the guy who's been who wrote the first episode wrote the first new Fox episode as well. And, you know, another thing that gave me fun perspective on this one was I have not really watched the TED TV show that's on Peacock, but I did watch the two-hour premiere. And it did give me another vision into how Seth MacFarlane comes up with a pilot of a show because the TED TV show is a prequel. takes place in the early 90s, and he turns it into a family guy again. Like, they add, there's a teen boy,

the Ted, who is the Roger, basically, or the Brian. And then he adds a cousin moves in, who's like a 19-year-old girl going to community college. So it's the Haley Meg. Like, it's always, he always goes there. I'm sensing some similarities. And you know who else, the dad in it, who's like the racist dad character,

is played by Scott Grimes, the voice of Steve. Okay, I didn't know Scott Grimes was factoring to the new Ted show. Yeah, it's the new Ted show that I think is the second season debut soon. And I learned recently that it is transitioning to being an animated series

because it is an extremely expensive show. It's 8 million an episode that Ted TV show like that. I imagine Ted himself is a special effect. Ted is a very expensive character. If you consider what his special effects are, he's paid as much per episode as probably a friend's actor was. Also, doing this one and looking back into how Seth McFarland was talking about the creation

of American Dad. It reminded me of the research I did looking into the Simpsons guy. And I don't think he's lying. Seth McFarland, when he's told like, oh, you ripped off the Simpsons. He always said, like, well, really, all in the family is my favorite sitcom. And I wanted this to be all in the family. And everything about this, he was like, I wanted to make all in the family for 2004 election era. Yeah, yeah.

Even, like, Family Guy is not a one for one all in the family, but they borrow from the intro. The intro of Family Guy is a parody of the intro for All in the Family. And Peter and Lois sound a lot like the Archie Bunker and Edith. I believe the character's name is on All in the Family. Totally. And the word family. Yes, yeah.

It's, I believe Seth McFarlow when he says that he looks more to All in the Family than The Simpsons as his starting place for things. Also, there were a ton of spinoffs to All in the Family as well, just like on Family Guy. And he's become kind of a Norman Lear type as well, who also just basically, he works on the first episode of a thing, and then hires writers he has worked with for a long time

to oversee the show, and the money comes in either way. But Norman Lear didn't do all of the voice acting on all of his shows, though, too. Yeah, yeah. And I imagine that Seth still has, say, in day-to-day operations of shows, he's not running,

and can veto things, question things or punch things up. I just read a new Seth MacFarlane story, actually, at the time of this recording yesterday, it was it was an update on the Orville, which is not officially over. But the Orville, it's live action and he stars in it. So basically, they have completed the scripts for 10 more episodes for a new season. And they haven't had a new season since 2022. But it's just Seth MacFarlane is too busy to set aside the months it takes to film that show and do it. I can see that. Yeah.

which apparently sucks for all of the actors in it who are like they'd like to act and get paid. Yes. But yes, the brief history of it to re-explore is that family guy gets canceled and back when people figure didn't think you'd have a show ever come back thanks to popularity,

then he just starts working on a new show for Fox and other places and starts pitching away. As Seth tells it, he was just so pissed off by George, Bush, who wasn't, we all were, that he wanted to do what a, all in the family

would be if there was George W. Bush, and he, the first two characters he said he came up with were Stan and Haley. And for him the show really was, Stan and Haley arguing like Archie Bunker and Meetead, Rob Reiner's character did. And perhaps drawing a bit from his own relationship with his sister

who voices Haley. And I think his dad too. There's, I, uh, listeners Let me tell you, the commentaries for American Dad are really good. 12 of the 13 episodes of Volume 1 have commentary. And Rachel McFarlane is on like the second one. They say like, hey, tell us funny, an embarrassing story about Seth. And she's like, hmm, okay. Well, when I was like 10, he wanted to DJ a party for my friends and I.

And he, in between songs, he had sketches of himself pretending to be either Ronald Reagan or Jimmy Carter and doing political sketches. Really bringing the party down. Yeah, I don't recall that particular anecdote, but I do remember those commentaries being very funny. And more proof for me like, hey, these writers are funny. Give the show a chance. So he wanted to do an all-in-the-family for now or for then.

And this was written before the 2004 election. He turned to two of his favorite writers from family guy, Mike Barker and Matt Whiteman, a writing duo who got their start on Daddy Deer, the Don Rickles and Richard Lewis sitcom. And he also was a writer for Hardball, which we talked about not that long ago on the show, was the Jeff Martin's show.

The Jeff Martin's baseball sitcom did not last very long. That just happened to have Joe Rogan on it. And here's a thing. You might be getting this, Henry, but one of the guys left. It's Barker, right? Barker, yeah. Basically, when it went to TBS, Barker left and has not worked on anything since.

I think he's just enjoying being like a rich guy in his 50s and not having to work every day. Yeah, I mistakenly thought he might have returned, but all of his credits are just created by. So technically he is still credited on the show legally. Yeah, he's getting that Sam Simon deal, it sounds like, just like the big money for every renewal, but not. And it doesn't seem like he wants to work on stuff anymore.

I don't know. And meanwhile, Whiteman seems happy to do it. They're self-insert characters in the show. Weitzman plays the character who works at the CIA Science, called Whitesman. He's the bald one with the goatee, I believe, which is basically what, well, what he looked like at one point. I think he still looks like that. And they also worked on Homeboys in Outer Space and the PJs, and they were early family guy guys. And so they were picked to help write it on September 14th, 2003. The show got announced a variety and

with a hope for a release in fall in fall 2004. But the funny thing is that even in that article, they're saying like, also, maybe family guys coming back, but they're not sure what, how. This shows how naive I was, and I assume a lot of other people. I was like, why are you pitching this premise, creating this show? George W. Bush is not going to get reelected. This is going to be completely irrelevant. Yeah, you're going to have to write about John Kerry instead soon, and what are you going to do then? Yeah, that did. That did. That's my Bush. They thought was going to be making fun of Al Gore. They were then trapped doing a Bush episode series instead. Probably a better show with Bush, but who knows what could have happened.

And so they're writing it together. They say on the commentary, they started writing it in October 2003 without the knowledge that Family Guy was going to be coming back or not sure of it. And then they even did it, Family Guy style of they did a pilot that is a six-minute short that is essentially the first act of the episode, which is exactly what they did with Family Guy. 98 ahead of its 99 premiere. Except

McFarland didn't have to write it and animate it all by himself. He had help this time. Oh, yeah. I did look, I did peek at that. I noticed some colors are different. Some colors are different. The big change is Steve. Like, Steve is more gallum-like, I would say, and grosser. You can see why the

Fox, I think, made them change that. He's actually voiced by a different guy to Ricky Blit, who was a writer in the first run of family guy. who's created a lot of other TV shows and would write the script for the Johnny Knoxville film The Ringer. Remember that, The Ringer?

Hmm. Fegley. Also, his character model, Steve's, he's wearing that Shazam shirt all the time, which explains why they keep referencing Shazam shirts in the episode that he doesn't wear, usually. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm looking at it now. The Lightning Bolt is there on the original design.

So it was baking into the character, Helix comic book, so he's a dork. Oh, and also, like, the pilot presentation, starts with a Frank Sinatra song, which is such a Seth MacFarlane thing. It's one I had never heard of before from a very patriotic album. The song is called You're a Lucky Fellow, Mr. Smith, and the song's about how awesome it is to live in America. It was done in like the anti-Pinko era of music from Sinatra and the gang.

So that was enough to sell it to Fox. They buy it for a 19-episode production order, which then, as Bob mentioned, how incredibly confusing it is, production and air episodes of seasons are like two apart, I think, numerically. Yeah, we were like, I think we were trying to do the math on that Gold Top Nuts episode that we covered,

and it got too confusing. So I think maybe technically there are only 19, they're in their 19th production season, perhaps, in the 21st broadcast season, because one season has like three episodes, thanks to TBS being weird. Right, yes. And they just sit on episodes for like years too,

which probably also affected why Seth McFarlane imagine this would be about like a reason all in the family could have jokes ripped from the headlines is that I think relatively they could like shoot, write, shoot and release an episode in probably a month-long timeline. But it sounds like American Dad episodes could sometimes be sat on for two years in some cases.

Also, they, they, produced it out of the Sun Woo Overseas Animation and the supervising director and director of this first episode supervising director to today is Ron Hugart who has been doing it from like the entire time. This has been his main job for the last

22 years. Yeah, a very respectable career. He went from Renan Stimpy to Futurama to American Dad and that has been the last 30 years for this man. Yeah, he was I think he was part of a while several Futurama people went straight to American Dad after it ended and that Hugh Gard I think was part of that. I saw too that the TED show

at the animated TED show that's coming it's a rough draft production and that Claudia Katz who we hear on all the Futurama commentaries from the Comedy Central era she's one of the producers she's the animation producer on it. But yeah he directed he directed on Renan Stimpy Stimpy's cartoon show didn't he or Stimpy's cartoon? I'm looking at the list here.

There's some respectable episodes like Haunted House, Rends Pecks, Feud for Sale, which is a kind of backdoor pilot for the two hillbilly characters. That's right, that's right. He also is a backshy guy who worked on Cool World and Mighty Mouse, and he did some work. He's a Brad Bird pal. It's why he worked on Brad Bird's family dog. A little on Iron Giant.

It's why the characters in Iron Giant are Hugh, is Hugart, or Hog Hug, if you remember for that movie. and he was a timing director on Duckman. He's worked on a ton of stuff we have covered, but has been on American Dad long enough to drink. His tenure on American Dad is of drinking age now. He is, I guess, the David Silverman of American Dad. That should make sense to most of our listeners.

Yeah, he was brought in pretty early, given the Seth MacFarlane designs, at least for Stan and Haley, and then he's the main guy with other character designers reworking it. Also, I wanted to mention on the original writing staff, three interesting people on the original writing staff. One is Brian Boyle, who, as Bob mentioned in the Goldub Nuts won, has been co-show runner of the series since 2014 and still is. And he's, I think, almost only worked on American Dad. Yeah, I was looking at his IMDB. He went from Friends to American Dad, and that's kind of it.

A few road stops along the way, or pit stops along the way. But, yeah, he's been with the show since the very beginning. And then also on season one, there's Dan Weber, who we know from Space Ghost and Darya and Futurama. And he's been working on The Simpsons since 2015. So I think when the brief stop, that happened on American Dad when they switched over to TBS. Basically, they were canceled for a little bit of time. And a lot of writers were released from contracts. So guys like Dan Weber, they needed a new job.

And in his case, he got to move over to the Simpsons where he's been there for now in his 11th year. And lastly, in the first season, is Craig Thomas, who he didn't stick around long because he had a little pilot idea for what if you were to ask your dad in the future how he connected with your parents. It'll never work. He is the creator of how I met your mother and the whole how I met your mother universe. So, yes, how to promote it, though, I want to mention just how this debuted. not only did it debut on the Super Bowl right after the Simpsons, similar to Family Guy.

It was Family Guy went first and then Simpsons aired after it in 99. This is the reverse. But they also had a 90-second pre-game segment short on the Super Bowl that was about like the family is waiting to watch the Super Bowl and they have to go out and get snacks. They forgot to get snacks.

And then Roger ate all the snacks. That Roger. I have a little clip from it here. Sweet TV. Like it? I borrowed it from the CIA War Room. Don't they need it for your big war on terror? Don't worry, I got it covered. I lent them R TV. Is that a terrorist training camp or a petting zoo?

I don't know. Better nuke it to be safe. Oh, I'm tingling with anticipation for the halftime booby fest. Let's hope there's no filthy sexual imagery this year. Just a nice, wholesome evening of sweaty, muscular men ramming into each other. What is it? Al-Qaeda? Oh my God! You're alien, friend. ate the Super Bowl nachos. Well, you didn't miss much.

Aerosol cheese, Francine. What, do we live in a trailer? Okay, nobody panic. Commencing Operation Nacho Freedom Storm. And hey, we just launched Operation Epic Fury. So these jokes have been lapped by reality. Yeah, why do we just say that now? You are many times watching this.

I was like, oh, well, that just happens now. Or a worst thing happens all the time now. It's why you just give up on political satire and make episodes about, weird obsessions with the old peanut commercials. Yes. Or Hey, Log Flumes. In these uneasy times, when our national defense is threatened,

only one man can keep our homeland secure. His name is Smith, Stan Smith. It's just toast, Dad. This time it was toast, Haley. This time. He's a mid-level CIA operative with a sixth cent for danger. We're a terror alert orange.

Which means something might go down somewhere in some way at some point in time. So look sharp! Wherever the American way of life is threatened. You like shaving your armpits? Because if the terrorists take over this country, that's the first thing to go. Creator a family guy, whenever CIA experiments go wrong. Resist him, quite seen. Resist him!

You and I are meant to... Happy hour! Whenever top secret information is exposed. You know, you think you'd be a little more grateful to the guy who saved your life at Area 51. Look, if my superiors found out you were living here, we'd all have our memories erased. Did you see Memento? It's not as good the second time. There's only one man who could protect the American family.

Dad, why is Hillary Duff in our house? Hillary is here of her own free will. Hillary, could you pass the salt? Passing an assault. Introducing American Dad. Help me, help me, help me! Hillary, look out for the mines! What did I just say? You heard me. What did I just say?

You said look out for the mines. I said look out for the mines. Sunday on Fox. This dog has character. All right, he was around for the Reagan administration. He knows how things are supposed to be. Oh, damn it, he's going to pee. Oh, no, no.

Nope, just dust. It's Henry Gilbert welcoming you to the break this time. And thanks to all of our listeners this week as we go a little off the beaten path once more by covering a show that debuted next to the Simpsons on Fox, in this case, the American Dad pilot that aired right after the Simpsons aired right after the Super Bowl. And we can only celebrate the American Dad pilot for you, listeners because of the support at patreon.com slash talking simpsons because this is me and bob's full-time job thanks to the support of you guys and if you signed up today for five bucks a month

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Explore patreon.com slash talking Simpsons to see all you're missing out on. But if you want something as nice as a dog that lives through the Reagan administration, then you need to sign up at our premium level at patreon.com slash talking Simpsons, because that has the $10 a month exclusive. What a cartoon movie where we cover an animated feature film just as in depth as we cover an episode of The Simpsons. This month we are covering TMNT2, The Secret of the Us. That's right, the second Ninja Turtles movie. It's its 35th anniversary this year, and we are following up covering the 1990 original by covering its beloved classic with a ton of history and fun thoughts to share. It's basically like three extra podcasts you get ad-free as well,

and that's just the most recent one. The month before this, we covered James and the Giant Peach from the 90s, the role doll stop motion adaptation. And we have hundreds of hours of exclusive movie podcasts in our back catalog. The Disney Renaissance has been covered, all the Toy Story movies, a ton of studio jibly films like Kiki's delivery service and my neighbor Totero. We've covered Who Framed Roger Rabbit? We've even covered junk like Shrek or Cool World.

It's all there in our back catalog. So please sign up today to check out everything you're missing out on at patreon.com slash talking Simpsons. After the Super Bowl, only the creator of Family Guy could bring you an all-new comedy big enough to follow the big game. You like shaving your armpits? Because if the terrorists take over this country, that's the first thing to go. Get a sneak preview of American Dad. This is Tim Fratzing. You and I are meant to happy hour.

And so that that aired before the Super Bowl just to tell people like, get ready to watch American Dad afterwards. And if you're an American Dad super fan, it might be 90 seconds of American Dad content you've never seen before. So it aired after The Simpsons. And this was the rating report for that night. Simpsons got 23.1 million after. And then American Dad retained most of that with 15.1 million viewers.

That was their ratings for the first night. Yeah, and we posited this at the end of the last episode we covered of The Simpsons, which was the one that aired before this. American Dad Family Guide probably would not be around today if the first episode was not in front of all of those eyes on Super Bowl Sunday. Yeah, it made people remember them and gave it a good start. It needed to then be a good show to maintain that popularity. But yeah, I think they, there are some of the biggest success stories of after Super Bowl debuts.

And I mentioned that before, but it's so funny that the Burbs show that debuted after the Super Bowl this year, not only has like American Dad co-star Wendy Shaw in it, but I didn't know that until looking it up after. Fuzzy Door, Seth McFarlane is a producer of the show too. So it's also like technically it's a sister series to American Dad as well. Yeah, I learned much later in life that Wendy Shaw and Scott Grimes are real people who have done a lot of things before American Dad. I just think of them as like whenever I see Wendy Shaw on things like Wendy Shaw is in Small Soldiers. But when I see her there as the overly sauced wife of Phil Hartman's character in Small Soldiers, I just think, well, that's just our Francine right there. Like, I'm just looking at Francine.

And so, yeah, the cast, as we mentioned, it's got Scott Grimes, is Steve, it's got Seth in the two lead roles. They got Wendy Shawl and Seth McFarlane on the first episode commentary is like, I love Wendy Shawl, and apparently he alludes to that some Fox executives did not like her for that role, and it took some fighting to get her in it. Yeah, her voice is perfect. And I've read an interview. This was surprised me.

It might surprise some of you out there that Stan Smith is a very hard voice for Seth to do just because it's so deep and booming and very like he's always being very loud and talking very quickly. So I've read that he often does that voice last in recordings. He said he really regrets it. Yeah, I saw that in the things too that he's like, oh, it's

funny to make fun of like 50s propaganda voice, but it actually completely is awesome. I think that's why I noted in some season 17 or whatever you'd call it on Hulu that Stan becomes silent for several episodes or just

his jaw breaks in one episode and it's wired shut and he simply can't talk for most of the episode Seth's pipes need a break yeah and going back to this first episode I noticed immediately like okay taking notes is taking a very long time and that's because this show

is edited down to like the the hair it is just the dialogue is cut so so tight everybody talks so quickly I guess because it's the pilot they have to jam in so much information it is a packed episode but then watching the later ones oh they can this trend. I would imagine these scripts are much larger than your normal

Simpsons or Futurama scripts. Oh yeah, yeah. I would bet too. And well, and another testament to how much stuffed it is or how much they make, too, is that at least on the volume one DVD, and it's also on YouTube this, this cut. The collection of deleted scenes for just the 13 episodes on volume one is over 18 minutes. Like it is 18 minutes of the lead scenes. There's only like I think 14 seconds of deleted, 20 seconds of deleted scenes from this episode,

but they have a lot of deleted scenes on just volume one, like a near episode's worth of deleted scenes. And do we know how far they got with the DVDs? The show debuted as the DVD boom was probably like right after the peak. And I have to imagine at some point they eventually gave up on the DVD releases.

I want to say they got up to 10, but I think they stopped making like bonus features. after 10, I think. Oh, or after 7. I'm looking online. Now, the last one they released, at least that I can find, is 14. Wow. Okay. I'm impressed. All right. Certainly, that probably was another reason they wanted to make this show at Fox is that if it could just sell half of what Family Guy DVDs sell, that is a huge profit.

Like, it's already paid for itself as a series. Though I do wonder how much, how successful. the DVDs were sales-wise. They, there's very packed DVDs and worth it, even now. This may not surprise you, Henry, but the last American Dad DVD set came out the same year as the last Simpsons DVD set, which was the year that Disney bought Fox. So that's the end of that story. Well, well, well, yep, that's, yeah, at the current situation, I believe it is that Disney just doesn't make their own DVDs or any disc anymore. And they sold off that business to Sony or, or they just let Sony print their DVDs. Most recently they've put out like the major things, like any Marvel show,

the biggest Marvel shows are Andor, stuff like that. But most TV doesn't even get a DVD release anymore, as we know very well for The Simpsons. At some point we were going to run out of commentaries. We're as afraid of you, people. It's not good. We're going to have to bother the writers ourselves each week. Oh, and one other fun thing about the behind the scenes

on this. Well, two more fun things. I did learn that from the commentaries that originally the fish was supposed to be, they're like, what if it was a French fish? Then when they saw DeBarreadley Baker, he literally speaks German. And they're like, all right, German fish. That's what we're doing.

And they also said that another early plan they had, I was like, okay, what if the fish was like a black guy? And who did they say would have voiced him? Mike Henry. That's right. Right. Yep. Cleveland himself. I'm kind of disappointed. we'll get to it. I'm disappointed that they gave away

Klaus's entire backstory in this episode. I guess they just felt the need to explain him. I know they do a lot more with him, but I thought, oh, wow, you blew what could have been an episode. And I'm sure they regretted it too. Oh, yes. Yeah, they actually, yeah, that's on the commentary too. I'll just say it now that they say that like, some people ask us, when are you going to explain Klaus's backstory? And I'm like, it was in the first episode. It was a cutaway. You totally forgot it, didn't you, viewer, who's talking to us? Yeah, I misremembered that cutaway as an entire episode, but no, it just happens in the pilot. Yeah, I do remember

when he gets dopled or, sorry, I'm using MST3K terminology here, but he gets his brain, Klaus gets his brain put into an African-American man. He has like a fun having a body again montage set to the song September

by Earth, Wind and Fire, which I remember me really cool. And the rest of the cast is mostly like either family guy or other writers. I'll name them as they come, but one final bit of history that I had forgot about, but it's on the DVD is that technically there is

a theatrical short of American Dad that was also made to promote this TV show. Right, this was new to me. It's called on the disc of the new CIA, and when I pulled it back up, and the info on it online, I was like, oh, wow, because Bob, I don't think you did

either. Neither of us went and saw the Jimmy Fallon film A Fever pitch, right? No, no. I was not boycotting Jimmy Fallon, but I was like this movie career is not going to work out. Taxi and then this. It's why he now just enjoys being on late nights

and has a good time. Drinky, drinky motion. And I've enjoyed, I've watched him perform it live. He does do it. But okay, so. What, he drinks live? No, no, he does a great job. They turn the cameras off and he just chugs a bottle of Jim Beam.

I was looking, I was looking of like, where's he hiding the booze? No, he was, he walked right by me and he high fived a friend next to me. I did not get a high five. from them. But yeah, the movie fever pitch, it's a remake of a British film that sounds much more interesting, but it had the great luck of being a film about a guy who

loves the Boston Red Sox, who gets permission to film at Boston Red Sox games, and the year that the Red Sox break the Curse of the Bambino and win the World Series. So if you were watching the World Series game four, when they win, Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore

in character run onto the field and kiss together during the game because they were filmed it for the movie. It was truly insane. Look, honey, it's Luke and Debbie from FIFA Pitch. I don't know if those are the characters' names. So since that was the April release for Fox, they decided that they would put in front of it a trailer length short called The New CIA that I would say has like 10% better animation. I think it's animated a widescreen.

and it's the characters talking to camera, introducing the idea of the show to the potential viewers who are going to see fever pitch in April of 2005. It was written by Barker and Weitzman, and I have a little clip of the end of it here after Roger, first Haley gets tased and knocked unconscious because she starts chanting no blood for oil going off script,

and then Roger comes in, and Stan is not happy about that. You guys, you guys, there's a spider in the shower. Can somebody kill it for me? Roger, damn it, get upstairs. Oh, that's, uh, Roger. He's not some alien we're hiding in our attic. He's, uh, he's my cousin. He looks like this because he smoked a marijuana cigarette once. That's all it takes, kids. His head swelled up like a melon. Nope, no more hats for him. Who's his favorite baseball team?

We'll never know. What are you talking about? You know I love the Padres. Go Padres. Stan, are you? You finish with your... Why is Haley on the floor? Dad tasered her. You what?

Stan, how could you? She was ruining my movie. No, blood for oil. No, blood for oil. Turn that off. Stop it. No, blood for oil. No, blood for oil.

Damn, dad. You told me you do that tased. You know what happened last thing. You know what? Forget it. I'm just going to gas the eight-legged bastard myself. Hmm. New pine fresh scent.

No, blood for oil. No, blood for oil. No. Roger, get back in the kitchen. Oh. I said turn that. Turn it off. Turn it off, dammit. We're revealing all of these hidden American Dad treasures.

So next time, Jimmy Fallon has a movie, don't boycott it. You might miss another original American Dad short that gets played in theaters. Yeah, it's not like, you know, that one charity theatrical short that they did of King of the Hill where it actually did feel like theatrical level animation a little bit, that one. It's not that much of a step-up. Yeah, yeah. It just is like slightly better. So American Dad aired this episode at the start of February.

Then they take it off until May 1st. They don't air the second episode until May 1st because that's when Family Guy returns with North by North North Cahog. So basically becomes the Seth MacFarlane power hour at 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. And yes, I was dutifully watching and hating Family Guy. And maybe Family Guy coming back and annoying me allowed me to appreciate American Dad more. after you watch the new family guy enraged you then see the next episode of American Dad and you're like

these are what they should have been doing It soothed me Though the first season is only seven episodes Ends at the end of June And then they resume it with season two in September Even though it's like two months apart But that's just the beginning of how complicated it gets Yeah I guess technically

What season one has 13 or something like that I mean then Disney Plus has its own deal with the American Dad episodes? Yeah, Volume 1 is 13 episodes. But if you look at production codes, it's 19 episodes that were made for season one. And then only seven aired. And I think Hulu makes it just the seven episodes for air order, I think.

Hulu and Disney Plus, I want to say. I have a headache now. But, okay, but let's, with all that out of the way, let's get into the episode, which begins with, guess what? Seth McFarland has one composer he loves, and he works with him on everything, and that's Walter Murphy,

and he does this too. Yeah, the Alph Clauseen of American Dad, and he has not been fired like Alclawson. Seth McFarland loves big band stuff, and Walter Murphy writes big band things that he can sing, and that's Good Morning USA is a very fun song. I enjoy it. I stole my head.

And in the first three seasons, we get this newspaper gag, which is their version of the chalkboard gag. And the most terrifying thing about this is there was no text for me on Disney Plus. Oh, that's crazy. Wow, I didn't watch closely on Disney Plus. I did my notes from the DVD version,

and the DVD says, Democratic Party missing, presumed dead. That was the headline. Yep, also still true. But here's the thing. I often download things to make prep easier. And I notice, like, oh, this version of the first episode doesn't have any text on the newspaper.

That's kind of creepy and weird. I guess they put it on afterwards and they got a different version of this episode. Let me go to Disney Plus. Not on Disney Plus. Huh. Interesting. Wow.

That's crazy. I wonder why clearly they got sent a bad, a bad version of it. But that, yeah, it's eating this while. You got to hold on to your DVDs, folks. You never know what's going to get censored on these things. When I looked up the list of headlines, I was reminded to that in season three, they even stopped trying to be, like, ripped from the headline stuff. Or like, they don't reference like Scooter Libby or whatever.

It's just random comedy for the headlines in season three, I think. Or they just don't do it. But it's much more fun to have the random thing instead be a Roger persona. That's a more fun, the couch gag. Yeah, apparently those start in season four much better. I never liked the newspaper jokes. They were never that funny. And it did feel like, well, this is too close to a chalkboard gag.

You're going to get a lot of comparisons to the Simpsons. You should avoid this, if possible. I can see why they thought, like, oh, we're such a political show. whatever happened even that week we can have a hilarious joke about it but even on the like the early as these commentaries they have to remind themselves

why they did a joke about something that week because they don't remember they don't remember the Bush era minutia from the news that week so after the opening and we learn about how the Democratic Party is useless as we all know we begin with

what feels like the most Seth McFarleney bit of it to me if it's just it's just characters sitting around the table, each explaining what their deal is, basically. And let's hear what all of our characters do in the first minute of American Dad. Shut up, Steve. I have a term paper due. Oh, yeah, right.

Community College. Big girl, big girl. Hey, you think that diploma will help you land a better section when you're waitressing at the Olive Garden? I think you'll hit puberty before you turn 14? Why, you want to do it with me? You're sick. Steve, you've only got one sister.

be nice. And Haley, Steve's big boy hair, isn't going to come in any faster with you taunting him. Oh, Francine, Liebchen, I love the way you rule with an iron fist. You know, perhaps when you're finished there, you would stick your naughty pinky finger into my bowl and let me feel you. Close. I don't think... You're right. When the kids are gone. No, Roger, you cannot borrow the car. You know, you think you'd be a little more grateful to the guy who saved your life at Area 51. Look, if my superiors at the CIA found out you were living here, we'd all have our memories erased.

Did you see Memento? It's not as good the second time. You know, it's funny. He's making a knock on Memento, and here we talked all about Christopher Nolan's next movie that aired in the trailer. Oh, yeah. Like, these are my favorite kinds of American Dad jokes, where just a little aside about a very specific thing about pop culture. And yeah, Memento, once the trick has been revealed, you know where it's headed. I remember watching, it was a DVD favorite of mine.

Wasn't it a secret? That Memento DVD was too complicated. You had to like solve puzzles. That's when we were getting way out of hand with these DVD menus. There was a way to watch the movie in order, but you had to like solve puzzles. Right, right. See, I never did that. I just remembered friends telling you that, yes.

Like it was, that was the era of that and Fight Club. Like these are the fun DVDs that also made you a cool movie bro as well by having them. Though I saw Memento in theaters. I remember enjoying it. I did too. A friend's dad took us and I thought, what's Semento? And I guess he had heard about it on NPR. I think that's where my mom heard it too. Yes. So it blew my damn mind at like 19 or whenever I saw it. It has been a minute since I've seen it. I need, I can give it another shot. Maybe I watch it in the run up to the Odyssey, the next Christopher Nolan film coming out. Which I get this guys, it's about a guy who misses his wife. Can you believe that?

I sent some common themes here. Well, I have a lot. lot of respect for this scene of American Dad, how complicated it is, and just like the puzzle pieces being put into place, because we have to establish the setting, all of the characters, some of their backstories, and their relationships with each other, how they feel about each other, and it's all happening in, I don't know, like five to seven minutes. It is like a masterpiece of establishment. Yeah, in just that one clip that, that was a 56 second clip I played, and if characters listed these things in a minute, it would be hard, just to list them what out being funny.

But they have to make them jokes like, Steve, he's a horny teen on the verge of puberty. Haley, she is a college student at community college and kind of a loser. Francine is the mom. It's the nice. Kind of ditsy? Yeah, kind of inappropriate. The Klaus is a German horny fish.

Roger is an alien who Stan owes his life to and Stan is a CIA agent who's trying to keep him a secret. Boom. You got it all right there in the first minute. And I credit the show for picking Olive Garden as a joke. It still exists 21 years later. And I think now it's more expensive than most people can handle. And also, I think Haley is usually written to be like 19. I think they've aged her up to 21 in the show now, too,

just because of how much he drinks alcohol at bars, I would assume. But now Haley, the character, would have been born after this episode aired, thanks to sliding timeline. I guess the same with Steve, too. And Steve will get that big boy hair in season four. It's 1,600 candles. He gets his first pew. Remember that big opening? He runs down with his dick out saying,

I got my first pew. I am a man. You know, I don't love the, I did remember disliking horny Klaus. Klaus gets to be so much more interesting. Yeah, yeah. It is verging on like a Meg from Family Guy style joke, but I like when the show recognizes,

why did we have Klaus? Like, what's the point of this character? this is unnecessary, so they really highlight that. Yeah, now, you know, in the newest episodes, Klaus is instead kind of people's friends again. Like the way Stan and him in the Flumwright episode, they go like, dude, K-Dog, what am I going to do? And they just, they're kind of just pals down.

I think, too, they have a problem that they solve pretty quickly is that Klaus and Roger conceptually cannot leave the house, and that ends up really constricting stories for both characters. Yeah, I was looking at some of the thumbnails for season one, just to refresh my memory, like what was season one about? I think about halfway through, they have to get Roger out of the house. Yeah, I remember one of the first times, like Roger, Roger like drives to pick up, stand somewhere in an emergency,

and Roger's like, look, I even styled my own wig. Nobody can tell to me. And after that, they'd say, you know what? Even a costume is just funny. He can be anybody. And no one realizes he's an alien, even if he has just a crappy wig on and a shirt. And even though this is drawing back to all in the family, I guess the vibe they're really giving with this sitcom parody is the 80s.

Yes, yeah, yeah. I mean, those are also the sitcoms Seth McFarlane. And Whitesman and Barker grew up on. And I mean, I love that Roger is just a total crappy roommate, is how he's first written as a guy who never, like, Stan will ask in a second, like, did you call your, try to call your old aliens friends? He's like, ah, you know,

I forgot, like. Well, like many of us, he was caught up and watching a marathon of I Love the 80s. Those were great, weren't they? That was, before they were podcasts. You could just watch, celebrities remember things. Yeah, I was like, when was I Love the 80s? When did that air? 2002. So, yeah, in 2005,

you'd be sitting down on a Saturday for about eight hours of that. Oh, man, those are so great. And then it's like, and then I Love the 80s part, do comes along where they say, like, here's more things that happen in 1983. They hand Michael Ian Black a Rubik's Cube, they watch them go. How much do you think Michael Ian Black got paid for that stuff? I'm going to say, I've heard behind the scenes of those, those, you know, you talk to the camera

shows, and I feel like it's not very much. Paul of Tompkins has had very funny stories about that, including how they tried to turn it into a daily show-type show with him as the host, and people hated it, and he took it very personally and it led to a dark time in his life. Was that best week ever? Yes, yeah, best week ever. The side show of it. I remember he told this funny story about how he was

eating more out of depression of everybody hating him. So not only is he on camera, but he's gaining weight and his clothes are starting to like fit worse and he says like, it's like I'm a sad Hulk. Smash. Hey, speaking of Hulk, then we get a reference to Lou Farigno, the Hulk. Yeah.

And I love this joke killed me because Roger is naming the one thing everyone knows about Lou Forigno, but it was new to him. Like, did you know he was deaf? That is the first thing, yes. I think I learned who Loufregno was as a kid because my mom and him, I think, share the same birthday. And then I swear, the second thing she said is, did you know he's actually deaf? Yes.

We get an able to this joke from Roger. He's like, oh, it kind of makes you take him less seriously. I also, I love that he is just going like, pretty. pretty sure I asked for Piquan Sandy. Roger being so prickly in this early era is funny. I remember, like, Francine gets him cheese it's and not cheese nips, and he has a similar reaction. Yes.

Oh, I mean, I'm watching this, I have definitely cut down on all of these snack garbage in here, but I have very specific feelings on all of those things, too, I remember. I'm just like, eh, you know, I really wanted this. You're making me settle for this. I don't know. You know, I prefer cheese nips, and you cannot cancel me because that is the name of the product. Man, of the cheese things now, I think Doritos were usually my favorite of cheese flavored things. Though I was much more of the sweet side of the aisle that Roger likes to operate into.

I'm finding out now cheese nips no longer exist. Man, they went to the dustbin of history just like Aunt Jemima. Yeah, they should just call them cheese chumps or something, but they went away in 2020. Who knows? By the time this episode has come out, somebody at the White House might have called the press conference to say they're coming back. We're going to bring them back. It'll be better than ever. You'll be nipping like never before. Okay. So, speaking of things that suck, the terror alerts, the terror alerts we get a reference to as well. Yes, I mean, we all lived with it for a very long time, but this was the Homeland Security Advisory.

system, which let us know how afraid we should be via this color-coded system here. It was an effect from March of 2002 to April of 2011. And can you believe there is a new system in place? Well, that is called the National Terrorism Advisory System, which is more specific but not color-coded. Man, well, if they can't bring it out into colors, I'm not even listening. Yeah, well, as I recall from reading all the correct books you were supposed to read as a liberal back then, you know, like a stupid. stupid white men. Lies and lying liars who tell them.

Wasn't one of the facts about that color-coded system is it never went below yellow. Like they never made it. They never told you to relax. Yeah, it was just built to it still fear. I never went to green or blue or like the calmer colors. And that's what's helpful on the show is that Haley

just says all the things that I was programmed to say as a good liberal back then of just like her. The way she claps back at him is just like what I would have said then. But I do think that Seth, it is what Seth McFarlem believes. But I also think around this time or a little after, he was getting sick of himself being a smug liberal.

Like that's why Haley gets bashed a lot as the show goes on. Brian just becomes like a complete smug liberal hypocrite on family guy. Yeah, Brian gets it a lot harder, I think. And I think that color-coded things has, I swear they was still on the refrigerator in the newest episodes I just watched, I think. I guess it's just a part of that prop that will always exist as a reminder of when the show began. It's kind of like the sailboat painting in the Simpsons living room.

Yes, yeah, except it's related to like the post-9-11 darkness of our lives. And now you can just think of it like, oh, is this stand like pro-LGBQ plus? Oh, you're right. With this rainbow on his fridge. I also, he's at a snap, ready to snap at a second to just shoot anything like the animation of him just blasting the toaster is very. funny too. Haley and Stan argue here and I remember like Whitesman and Barker

in 2013 they said like we learned pretty quickly that political banter between Haley and Stan only had a limited shelf life. It wasn't giving us as much as we thought it was going into the show. That would have been boring after a while just to see okay what's the topic of the week so that

explains why I think honestly by season two they're letting off of that a lot. Yeah you can see it's even kind of losing steam in this episode Yeah, I think usually they find, even in this season, the episode where Haley moves out because she refuses to go along with all of Stan's rules and then she becomes a stripper to Payne's meat. Like, that's more about a family story and about pride and stuff than it is about, you know, there is an episode about gun control where they, that is that kind of story of just like, what was it? The National Gun Association, right? Isn't that what they?

Something like that. And this is where we see that Roger has put on a little weight. Isn't Lisa Silver way out of your league? Well, not, Haley. Don't bury him before he's dead. I think you got a shot, Steve, as long as you don't wear that Shazam shirt. Oh, don't everybody help at once. My goodness, Roger. When was the last time you wade yourself?

Oh, oh, ow, oh, Francine. You know, we can't all look like those anorexic aliens in the James Cameron movies. I'm sorry, Roger, but I'm sorry, Roger, but I'm not. putting you on a diet. Starting today, no more junk food. What? No, no, not my Frankenberries. Oh, Francine, please be reasonable. Oh, God, I've got a bear claw in my ass.

And sometimes it's just funny to hear Roger say things. Yeah, he's a great boy. The Seth McFarlane said he came up with it of like, what if on a Hannah Barbarra show they had cast Paul Lind to play a wacky alien? That's how he plays it. And Roger enjoys his vices, probably more than any other member of the family, but is this weight thing a recurring issue for him? I can't remember the being overweight for two overweight for the family. I think that definitely there's later ones where he's like, boy, I've really put on the weight, or I need to stop. But eventually he just, you just accept

his shape is his shape. And you don't think about if he is fat by comparison to other things. Plus, he just exists as such like a sexual being that you never think of him as like fat and unattractive, right? Yeah. And Roger can do anything in the show. Like he can, he is all sexualities. He can drink or do any drugs. He can have any job.

He is like one of the most flexible characters in like any of these shows. But also he never doesn't feel like Roger in the show. Yeah. And he has like a lot of Dr. Zoidberg anatomy jokes where it's never really clear how all of his stuff works. Does he even have a penis? Well, what does he do with it? Like I love also there's such a great joke. joke, a running gag in the show of just like, it's Roger, isn't it? Of course, it's Roger.

But they just, they always go like, okay, we're going to meet somebody new this time. Wait, it's you, isn't it, Roger? Probably. Though, yeah, this bit about Steve being a love Lauren, little boy. Sometimes Steve has written to be a kid who, like, is so immature he couldn't even talk to a girl. And other times he's very horny and wants, wants to get a girlfriend. But I think he's, he's like Bud Bundy. I think he's like Bud Bundy. I think he always, always stays a virgin, I think. Yeah, and they're clearly drawing from Revenge of the Nerds down to casting the man who played Booger in Revenge of the Nerds.

It was only upon watching it this time that I realized that he is really patterned after the main nerd in Revenge of the Nerds. The actor just passed away, RIP, to the main nerd. And his buddies are really, I mean, they're a mix of, like, John Hughes in Revenge of the Nerds, like, characters smashed into each other down to, like, the wacky Japanese exchange students. Yeah, it's perfectly... The 80s comedy characters.

You're right. They just decided like, you know, if we're going to just have a character that is Booger, let's hire Curtis Armstrong and he'll be snot. We'll just do that. Why pretend? It's great to hear the real booger.

And he's still doing it in the show. Yeah, it sounded like he had remained very close with his co-star. And it sounded really rough for him losing his friend like that recently. I also remember, yeah, another great callback with two Revenge of the Nerds is like, Like in one episode, somebody says, like, haven't you watch that Revenge of the Nerds movie lately? It's kind of dated. There's a couple jokes that seem pretty bad.

And Snott says, you know, I've never seen it. And that's all he says about it. I do like that. I think I mostly only watched Revenge of the Nerds 2, Nerds in Paradise, as a kid, because it was a movie nobody saw and it was on TV a ton. Yes, yeah, that one did air much. That's why I always thought the jock was always their friend in it, because he becomes their friend at the end of that one, right?

Yes, Oger. Oger, yes. Yeah, I think that one definitely played the most. I also think I've never watched unedited revenge of the nerds. Like, I've never seen it with, at least the first one is outrated. I don't know if the second one went down a rating. I can't recall, but I've only seen TV. It might have, but yeah, I watched this, the first one late in life, and that's when I realized, oh, John Goodman is in this.

Okay. Wow, I did not know that either. Early roll. And also Klaus just being jealous of Francine Or of Stan making out with Francine It's a little too much like Brian wants to have sex with The mother in family guy

It's also like yeah With Lewis I have too many American dad facts in my brain I can't think of family guy names The characters look so similar We're trying to keep them all straight in our heads And we get a taste of how selfish and egotistical Stan is In this first scene

He's not just a paranoid maniac He's got all these bad qualities He thinks his son will take after him and he tells Francine, oh, tell Steve how many girls I kissed in high school. Francine says, I didn't meet you until college. And then Stan replies, yes, but I've told you. So he's bragging about his conquest to his wife. Which we know he made up.

He was a loser in high school. That's why Steve is a loser now. Like, and he's in there. But yeah, we see it on King of the Hill as well. There is just something funny about a jock-like or military-like dad. who then has a dork son. And also the writers of these comedies, like with Bobby Hill and this,

can much more relate to nerd, comedy nerd kids of these parents instead of the cool dads. In 2005, if you like comic books, you were scum of the earth. Yes. Steve knows too much information to even be wearing a Shazam shirt, which...

Yeah, you can like Batman, you can like Spider-Man, but if you even know what Shazam is, you should be in jail. seven no eight seven years before this aired I was wearing to school pretty to my high school pretty regularly

not a Shazam shirt but a shirt of the the superhero from indie comics Madman created by Mike Allred and if you don't know it his logo is kind of a parody of the Shazam Lightning Bolt where it puts a punctuation mark at the bottom

of it to make it look like an exclamation point so I walked around wearing I had two versions of it, Bob. Is that cool? Wow. And if somebody said to me, oh, that's a Shazam shirt, I'd be like, no, it's a Madman shirt. You haven't even heard of it. I would wear the Shazam shirt and say, no, actually, I'm Scott McLeod from understanding comics.

Yes. Oh, that's a good one, too. You'd make a lot of friends that way. Yeah. So that's why the next time we see Steve at school, he has to put on his Shazam shirt because they kept in the line of Roger telling him not to wear it from the pilot with his old character model in it, which that's how it's so confused. Also, Yike, that Roger is eating a bowl of frankenberries,

which is already pure sugar and then multiple donuts. I think Seth McFarland also has a thing about like he struggles with, he's a very fit guy who state, but I think he has a Roger in the back of his mind that tells him he wants to eat all the donuts and frankenberries and he must fight it every day. Yeah, I mean, he had a real glow. up once he started being on camera more and started getting more money. If you see

the old cartoon network Seth MacFarland, he was a doughy nerd. Yes, yeah. And I just heard a story about, on doughboys, they had on these two women who were great guests, who talked about being writers on Ted, and that they said that Seth MacFarland brings in donuts

and for the whole crew is a nice thing, and he does not eat any of them. He watches everybody else eat them. And he weeps. He's He just thinks like, no, remember Roger with the bear claw on his ass? You can't be that. You can't do that.

I think surviving 9-11 made him stronger. Yeah, maybe that is when he decided, like, I'm going to start taking my health seriously. You never know when you could go. Is that funny that then he makes a movie with Mark Wahlberg? Like that. They have so much in common. They're both guys who almost were on flights for 9-11. Though Seth MacFarlane has never had the guts to say, well, we all know it's true,

that he could have also saved everybody and stopped the terrorist. He teamed up with Marky Mark. And they ate Walbergers beforehand, so they were full of protein. All I can say is things would have gone a whole lot differently. I think it's how Marky Mark put it. In between him saying some other stuff, he said in the past, too. Okay, but he sounds really crazy now, doesn't he? Well, he's one of those prayer app people.

Yeah, I think I think on Michael and us, they talk to about Walberg has one of those, like wake up at 4 a.m. and do all of your like three hours of exercise before everybody wakes up type lives. Yeah, yeah. Whenever I see those on Instagram, it's not Mark Wahlberg, but it just, I feel like they're designed to make people mad. No one actually lives like this, but

I imagine he does live like that. Well, he can afford to, to his richness for sure. So we go with Stan to the CIA office. That's not in the six-minute pilot version. This part is not in it, nor is the school scene that comes

after it, but that we get a little bit of stand at the CIA with the angle of his desk like, this is the season one CIA design. I prefer the glow up of the more open office they have. Yeah, that was a much better idea because people have to come into his office and the staging is often very cramped and weird. I like the open office CIA. That's the only time I want an open office on a TV show. It is better for filming or for like dramatic setups of things. He's not horrible for working in. Me and Bob, the last office job we had, was together in a truly torturous open office where you could get no work done. I basically only worked in open offices, and they're a bled upon humanity.

Go back to the cubicle. Dilbert lied to us. Give me my little jail cell. And this is where Stan gets off the phone that he's going to, that they're having IKEA rebuild a rack, as that's a hilarious joke. But basically, we left it in shambles. The place was much worse than when we left it. We really fucked the place up. But fortunately, a lesson was learned there, and it would never be repeated.

Don't check the news, everybody. At the time, I viewed IKEA as having good furniture because I was on the brink of I moved out once and moved back home and about to go to grad school, about to move out again. And I was like, oh, IKEA, I can't wait to go to IKEA and buy get this a new couch or a new bed. Not some garbage relative or friend is foisting off on me. Yeah, I think 14 months, 15 months after this aired, I moved to Berkeley, California and made my first IKEA trip to furnish my home in a similar fashion. And this bit here, this is the first cutaway in the show. And they say it on the commentary.

They're like, we want to cut back on these cutaways partially because we walk by the Family Guys' Riders Room every day and we don't want to bother them by ripping off cutaways. And like Family Guy, it's vaguely racist. I mean, you're going to find some iffy, tricky stuff in these early. American Dad seasons, and this is, I will say, despite being a liberal show, they were making some kind of ugly jokes. And it's like, aren't those headwraps funny? Yeah, no, I, it definitely was true then. I think it's sadly still a little true now. I think people are best, some people are better at this recognizing it. But it felt like back then that if you were a liberal who was against the invasion of Iraq, you could at least say, well, but Republicans, we all agree, that was

Those Muslims are a little iffy, aren't they? And hey, this Muslim's drinking a beer. See, that's also a bugged me. I was like, wait a minute, you're making a joke about Sharia law covering up of a woman. And then it's like, get me a beer. That's Haram, guys. That is Haram. I think they might be indicating there's some hypocrisy going on.

Yeah, I guess you're right. I'm just so glad these kind of cutaways. I think they have a better thing with their Persian neighbors who move into town. I think that's a little better. Yeah, this just shows you how, like, what could slide on TV. Like, they do use the Arsler a lot, as did many shows around this time, like Venture Brothers. And when it pops up, it's just like, whoa, I'm like walking through a minefield. I'm not used to hearing this.

Though it is crazy that even today, I feel like shows like American Dad have lined up on this. But you can talk on news media. you can talk about Muslims and just Arab people in a way that you could not do about any other group of people. Like you can make such blanket prejudicial statements about them and nothing will happen to you. Like nothing happens. It was like the smoking gun of the atheist movement.

It's like, well, these guys hate Christians, but they really hate Muslims. Yes, yeah. It's like they definitely, what was it? Fucking Bill Maher around this same time had the joke. about saying like, look, I, I'm who am I siding with? The guys who stone people to death or just a stupid, like he always was talking about degrees that's like, oh, well, I hate Christians, but who am I siding with here?

Or I, or, you know, the Jewish religion is stupid things too, but who am I siding with here? He always, it always turns into like, oh, it's coincidentally enough, the one you really hate is the brown people. Like, that's the one you really hate. Anyway, off of my soapbox, I was on a Haley style. the soapbox theory. Shut up, Henry. I also had to remind myself that like, oh, right, Osama bin Laden

is alive. Yeah, he's in hiding. Yeah. I totally forgot that. That he's been dead for so long. I forgot that it was a big deal. We really should have given him a trial. It would have been funny. Instead, he gets compromised to a permanent end. I don't

remember how Barack Obama told us Osama bin Laden was dead. I remember how John Cena told me. I thought it was. We got him. Oh, that's right. We got him. That's okay, I do remember it. Yes, that's true. Remember that Aaron Sorkin thought it would be as remembered

as 9-11 the day that I just remember I was playing Portal 2 co-op with my friend and when we logged off he'd been dead for a couple hours. And that I remember on Twitter, the Rock knew about it early and told people guys, you're going to hear some crazy news

tonight. It's exciting. Yeah, I just saw that tweet again for some reason. I don't know when it popped up, but I did see that. But here, Osama bin Laden is alive and well, and they're making expensive erasers that make it look like it's up as pooper, which gives Stan so much joy. And this is where we meet the surprisingly resilient character of Jackson. He's in the newest episode.

Yes. I was thinking, like, I mean, I recognize him from watching the show before, and I was thinking, does he persist? But, yeah, these coworkers just stick around. And they get developed a little more, too. That Fox Return Season premiere episode, has Jackson in there, voiced by Mike Henry,

and Stan has like a rivalry with Dick who's voiced by Dave Kekner, who's not in this episode, but is in the next one. And when they're walking around, they remind me of like Lenny and Carl in that Lenny and Carl also look like surviving season one character models

that get to stick around. And they're very like everyday guy kind of characters. The CIA is insane and stops being, the CIA is just a magic group of people by season three as well. Most politics is removed from them in that case. Also, we've lived through the attempts to make the CIA woke as well

of seeing commercials of like, as a gay man, I loved bringing my skills to the CIA. I was like, ugh. Yes, I'm an imposter syndrome survivor, and they hired me. Oh, those were the worst, man. Now that there's not a Democratic president, you can just hate the CIA again.

Once the Democratic president comes back, we'll have to say like, oh, but they do good things. They're on the up and up. Don't worry. Also a great gag that Stan then wants to show it to somebody else. Only Stan laughs at it and he says, he thought it was funny too. So we then cut to the Pearl Bailey High School, named after the singer-in performer who was born in Virginia. I assume that's why it's called the Pearl Bailey. That makes sense. And this scene is not in the, they don't go to the, they don't go to the,

school in the pilot, I think, because they realized, like, let's not commit to whatever his school chums are going to be in the, when I say pilot, I mean the first six minutes that they made. By the time they animated this, they figured out the three core friends for Steve. You got Bougar, you got Toshi, and you got Barry, who I think Barry just repeats Steve in the background. He doesn't really talk. He doesn't really talk in this one. By the way, he called Bougar. His name is Snots. Snott. Ah, Stott. Yes.

Very thinly-veiled bugger reference. But let's listen to the first appearances of all of Steve's friends at the lunch table. There she is. Gentlemen, if you'll excuse me, I have a fully developed woman to conquer. Lisa Silver? Dude. You're a madman. Thank you, snot.

Oh, Mar-Marmer. Baca. This is a beautiful day for love, Toshi. Thank you. Steamer! Steamer! Steamer! You're cool with chicks. You're cool with chicks.

Ow! Hi, Lisa. Did that hurt so good? It's Steve. Steve Smith? Remember me? Ah, it'll come to ya. Hey, you want to go out Friday night? It's okay, baby. I can handle this. Yeah, baby. How could she just reject me? Like I was a nobody. Hey, I love your dog.

Thanks. Hey, want to come back to my apartment and pet my schnauzer? Okay. And then we can play with this dog. Wait a minute. That's it. I just need to get a dog and women will be all over. my jock. So yes, you heard without the subtitles, Daiske, Suzuki there. You know, I've done enough now that I could catch. I caught a couple words there, mainly the Sakara. I forgot about this guy and how they kind of have their own boomhauer.

Right. That is, functionally, that is what he is, isn't he? Even though the guys understand boomhauer, it's kind of the reverse. And in this, they're just being like casually racist and just hearing what they want to hear, even though he is just constantly deeply insulting to everyone. He hates everybody. Occasionally he will reveal he knew how to speak English the entire time and just never wanted to speak it. Or also that his parents don't speak Japanese and don't know what he's saying.

I remember that joke as well. And yeah, it's an actual, Suzuki is a Japanese actor who moved to America and most of his work is playing Japanese or Japanese-style characters. in stuff. Yeah, I saw this is one of his first roles and definitely his most prominent role. And yeah, when Steve says, give me my Shazam shirt, he reveals the Shazam shirt he basically never wears in the show. It also snaps the bra of Lisa. Now, now I have a theory here. Only in this episode is the character Lisa, voiced by Carmen Elektra. I have a feeling that's because

Seth wanted to try to get a date with her. Or just to get her in a room. Yes, yeah. And look at her. Let his charms take over I base that again on like The character of Brian On Family Guy is the most Seth McFarlany type character you hear Sometimes and that Everybody accuses him of you only date Bimbo's

And not You know what I'm making assumptions about Carmen Electra as a Bimbo Maybe she's not But she would not return to the show I can tell you that much Yeah I forgot this about the character I wasn't looking at the cast list

was she on the This is not peak Electra This is the downfall of Electra We all live through it Yes The Dark Age of Carmen Electra This is a few years after the single out She took over Singled Out

And also I think she was on Baywatched In like ladder era Baywatch too I want to say Yeah still married to Dave Navarro This is our Electric Corner Okay Well good for her I guess No no at the time

Oh they broke up Okay no Not good for her I take that back I also like that Steve, it's not just that Steve is a loser that a girl wouldn't want, that a cheerleader probably would want to date, but also that he's a jerk who snaps her bra like a total creep. Yeah, hey, you know what? For being a nerd, he's got a lot of confidence, but he's misusing it, I will say.

Most nerds wouldn't even get this far to approach the girl, but then you couldn't have a show. Yeah, I think I witnessed a nerd, a fellow nerd friend of mine. and I would have never done this with anybody I was attracted to in high school. But a fellow nerd friend of mine did once in class ask out the hottest girl in the class, and she instantly turned him down. And it was so everybody felt so embarrassed for him. It showed you why that doesn't happen. Yeah.

Well, the way it normally works, well, not from experience, of course. I was a hunk, a heartthrob, if you will. You spend all year obsessing over one person, and then you build this up in your head to the point where you become psychop. and then when you finally talk to them, everything goes wrong and you never see or talk to them again after that. Normal way things work.

You've wasted a whole school year on that too, right? Yeah. No, I think we were both taught by shows like Doug or other ones of like that you needed to put, or Steve Urkel, that you needed to like pine after one girl all of the time and not like meet other people or talk to them. It goes back to Charlie Brown. Make one girl your project.

And put them on a pedestal. and imagine a version of her that doesn't exist that you talk to in your mind. But in real life, you don't get punched in the face like Lisa punches Steve, which is pretty funny. No, it's worse. You just get humiliated emotionally. And it Steve walks home. In the pilot version, that scene isn't there in the six-minute version. So it's much more random that Steve just comes home and goes like, hey, can I get a dog? I prefer Steve witnessing this guy, talk a woman into giving him a hand job.

And then he realizes I should get a dog. Yes. And this episode is so stuffed full of plot ideas that I forgot this is the one with the dog. I remember these jokes. I just forgot that it was in this episode, the very first one. It's tossed off so fast in this episode. I forget it too. And speaking of cutaways and how they stopped doing them,

this is the most like, this feels like just a little scene they took from a family guy, like this one bit here with George W. Bush and God. Yeah. Although, I guess it's legally cut away, but it's the new, they're watching the news, which is then cutting to a video of something. So it's like within the realm of reality. You know what? You're right. It does, if it was truly a family guy style cutaway, Stan would say, this is just like when God called up George W. Bush.

And yeah, I mean, this is all, I mean, God didn't actually call the president, but this is all true. He said he was chosen by God. He said, like, the war in the Middle East would be a. crusade, you had to take that back, all this stuff. I'm just so tired now. Yeah, yeah. I've got a godless demon in the White House and things didn't get better. We have a man who hates

religion, who you can tell he detests all of these people who want to put their hands on him, their grubby little prayer hands. But also the people around him who are those kooky Christians, they just accept like, well, whatever he does is fine because he's our guy.

Yeah. I mean, I don't want to go on about this forever, but there's like some stupid clip out there where he's holding a Bible. You guys love this, don't you? You love this shit. Yes. Or I'm just going like, oh, yeah, it's the Bible. It's the greatest. Don't we fund. Or the Chappell guys have brought this up many times lately how he keeps saying like, I don't think I'm going to heaven. I don't think so.

He keeps talking about his own death and we're wishing him the best. And yes, now to think of back then, it's like, boy, George W. Bush said some stupid things. It's like, man, there is equally bad as far as body counts go, I would say at this point, in my opinion. But it is crazy what a dumb thing George W. Bush said sounds like now after 10 fucking years of tough. We're like, we're enlightened people from the future, although we've been made crazy by a 21 years worth of news. But just imagine a time when the president could say something like misunderstand and you would laugh and laugh. Can you believe this moron? He said nuclear.

Instead of like, he can finish a sentence, though. Even if added at a current president press conference, if he said, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice. Can't get fooled again. That would be a great press conference for Donald Trump. And God, I'm done. Never mind. Imagine if a president was under 60.

I believe I read a point that other than Obama, there has never been a president born after 1946. It's just not ever happened. Yeah, 46 is the golden year. I mean, like, that's when George W. Bush was born. That's also when Trump was born, except their president's like 25 years apart from each other. Yes, yeah, that like I think Bill Clinton is younger than,

or is the same age as Trump too, but, does. Well, they have a lot in common. Anyway. A lot of friends in common. Yeah, Clinton's also 46. Wow. It pays to be 79 or 80 years old. Yes, I mean, also, yeah, it's Conan O'Brien said this recently, too, just like, it's like trying to parody the Weekly World News. You can't really do that. It is such old news to say, the president paid to have sex with a porn star and then paid her to not talk about it and then got sued over it. No one cares. It's meaningless. Anyway, this George W. Bush is talking to God.

And it feels like the centrist choice in the joke is that then God sees Dick Cheney as his boss too. Like that that's how powerful that piece of shit Dick Cheney is. And it was the perspective of the time that like, O'Cheney's in charge. And yes, he was like an evil mastermind puppet master. but also a lot of people don't realize how evil the Bush family was and how a lot of George W. Bush's mannerisms and his persona was a big put on. Yes, yeah.

And Dick Cheney loved being the sin eater or the one everybody hates. To try to preserve Bush's credibility or persona, I think on the commentaries they're recording him in 06 or maybe late 05, and that's already when the polls on Bush and Iraq are turning on him. And this is even before the, you know,

the complete collapse of the economy as well. So, yeah, they're getting on Bush here as the honeymoon is completely over, and America is getting sick of the guy. It was refreshing at first when candidate Trump was saying, you know, this guy sucks. Like, the Bushes suck. They're garbage. And he was anti-war then?

Yeah. A lot of things are changing, folks. So then Haley comes home and oh yes, the God monologue too. This version, it got cut down a little bit for their first airing after the Super Bowl because Fox was a little worried about having God talk. This was the joke that worried them the most about being seen by the Super Bowl audience. I see. Well, man, the Christians are really getting it on Sunday night after the Super Bowl in 2005 with that Passion of the Christ parody and now this.

You're right. man, they got all of the Christ stuff in the Ned one, except, as we said, how confused it made us feel at the end. It's like, so wait, is religion good at the end? Is this what you're saying in the end of this episode? Even they don't know. So then Haley gets molested like she's an ice agent, or I'm sorry, but like he's an ice agent, I should say. And like she is a member of ISIS. Or like TSA. Yeah, yeah.

It's, except I've been living the life of the paying to not be molested. level of TSA. Hey, if they feel like it, you'll walk through the whatever and they'll still want to pat you down if they feel like it. It does feel like a one in ten time. It's like, oh, you've been

randomly selected, like, wonderful. Great, great. Now, if you're an old woman in a wheelchair, you're going to get your ass rocked, grandma. So, but this time it's, well, actually, no, sorry,

this time is the joke when he shoots the toaster. Instead, when he gets a pack of gum on her and throws it away, he just says, okay, so it was a pack of gum. He just admits it. And this is where Steve comes home and he's very depressed, but lying about the girl turning him down that she was sick that day. And he swaps over to asking for a dog.

Stan isn't so sure about it. Also, Klaus looks up Francine's dress, which seems like a regular occasion. Yeah, he can see her schmutz klitsen. and schmutz's means dirt and I think Klitsyn is supposed to make you think of a vagina but I believe it's a made-up word or it's a word they're misusing to make you think

of Francine's parts. On the commentary, they say that the D. Bradley Baker told them it means dirty place. That's what they say. I believe him. And the Francine just goes like, and then it just picks him up.

This is the first appearance of Klaus's little dish because I think they realize like, we can't just be immobile in a bowl all of the time. It is kind of funny how he has to drag himself around in this little bull. By now in the show, honestly, even 10 years ago in the show, Klaus can teleport wherever he needs to be and it never needs to be explained. And this is where Francine has to pretend to Steve is planning to join the army, which Stan is just like, really?

Okay, it instantly leaves to do it. It reminds me of when Stan used to think Steve could be anything, as opposed to like he stopped respecting Steve a long time ago in the show. Yeah, he has really figured Steve out by now. I was reminded of one of my favorite more recent Steve jokes, which was in season 16, there's an episode called The Last Ride of the Dodge City Rambler. And in it, the opening gag is that Steve picks up a train magazine and instantly gets into it. And then Stan shows up and goes like, oh, maybe you're on the spectrum.

And then Steve goes like, what? No, I'm not. But then starts talking like he's on the spectrum. and he says, I should be tested. And Stan says, those are very expensive. While, meanwhile, a trade magazine is quite cheap. Yeah, I like when they drill into the very weird interests of the characters that suddenly emerge out of nowhere. Like in the most recent episode of this, as of this recording, Francine is secretly way into log flume rides.

And there's an entire world of fans of these rides with their own lingo. And even their therapist, their couples therapists, thinks it's stupid. But Francine devoted to the lifestyle. Yeah, in that episode, one of my first one of my first, favorite bits is where they go to a dedicated message board and it's just it's so many specifics but it's also just a good joke about like

insular message board culture in general that is very familiar to most nerds watching the show so this is when Stan decides to get Steve a dog you know Stan a dog's not such an awful idea it might teach Steve the

responsibility he'll need for when he one day joins the army are you seriously contemplating a military career thinking about Hey, did somebody order a brand new dog? Oh, sweet, Dad, you're the best! What the hell is that? It's a dog!

Oh my god! He can barely stand up. Well, of course, he's 19. Stan, honey, didn't the pound have any younger dogs? Francine, this dog has character. All right, he was around for the Reagan administration. He knows how things are supposed to be. Eh?

Oh, damn it, he's gonna pee! No! No! No! No! Nope, just dust. Hey, dumbass! Your dogs have dead. You hear that boy? That girl talked to me, and I didn't even have to talk to her first. Come on, Thor. Let's go cruise them all.

Yeah, a dog, a very old sick dog, could have been alive in 2005 and also alive in the Reagan administration very briefly. Now that old dog is younger than the TV show American Dad. Yes, I like in the pilot six-minute version, it ends on the dust pee joke. That's the joke that ends the presentation. And when the lights went up, Fox was like, you got it, buddy, the 19 episode.

Here's your millions and millions of dollars. Also on the commentary, I learned a fun bit that or relearned, because I definitely listened to this but forgot it. When it goes to the nighttime establishing shot, the flag is not up. And I never noticed the flag is not up then. They say on the commentary, oh, see, the flag's never up at night,

because that's not proper flag protocol and that's very important to us, which sounds like a network note, I think. It would apparently be disrespecting the flag to have the American flag up at night. So I think a censor made them change that to have the flag down at night. It was a weird time to be alive.

The flag was, oh my God, I think it feels like right now there is not the oppressive support our troops feeling that was then always yelled at you, back at that time. Who knows? Six weeks from now, we're all forced to salute our brave boys at gunpoint.

But right now, it feels like you don't have to support the troops. We're not seeing as much Flagmania yellow ribbons. I guess in general, nobody feels like even trying this time. We don't know what's going on. Like, why are they there?

Well, it's because one country gets to choose, I guess. It's not us. It's not us. Nope. Anyway. You know, family guy A good joke about this actually

The one viral the week of this. Oh, I think I missed this. No, you reposted it. It's the one where Stan is two sides. One side is Uncle Sam and one side is the country of Israel. And they're in a pact to destroy the world together. Yes.

And Stan puts the moves on his Israel's half and she says, we can't. We have the same father, Satan. Yes. Which it feels more and more true every day. No, hey, look. It's an ethno state because it's like America. It's just the same.

It's just the same. We wrote the blueprint. I mean, Hitler was copying off of us with, you know, discrimination against people. He was like, oh, you guys with the Native Americans. What if we did that here? Oh, we're making the blueprints. Your Jim Crow laws show us how to legislate racism. We can do that here, too.

Yes, it's America has so many things to be proud of. And we didn't get any credit. I also like how he's dragging the dog around, too. He doesn't seem to read. realize he's like killing this. It's just a corpse of a dog and he thinks it's impressing girls. It gets shot later, but I choose to believe the dog was already dead. I mean, isn't that balzy on the part of Seth McFarland and White'sman and Barker that they're going to kill a dog in the first episode?

I think they work really hard to make you think this dog should be put down. That it's, yes, they're doing the dog a favor so you don't have to be sad about it. So we have a quick little cut to Stan in his undies, just like in the opening scene. Just to drill home the funny thing about Stan that like you might think, oh, Stan's different from Peter Griffin in that he's not fat. But actually, he is a kind of fat in his own way. Yeah. He's got like a former buff guy kind of hard fat going on. Yeah, he's a guy who, you know, in his 20s was in great shape and still thinks he's an amazing show.

shape. When I was watching some with my husband, he would always, he said like, Stan is hot. He likes the Stan's look in the show. He's got that big chin. I guess that also is a hallmark of a Seth MacFarlane design, a crazy chin in one way or another. Stan looks insane from any other angle outside of the one he's mostly drawn in. It is, I feel like it was probably a mistake, but I'm just so used to it that I think it's fine. But man, what a freakish head. Oh man, and that profile shot of Stan like, yeah. I'm like for that half and half joke. It's very, yes, it's insane.

They say on the commentary, too, they're like, we don't really do too many head-on shots. You're not getting as many front-facing Simpson shots in the American Dad world. Then we cut down to Roger, who is on the hunt for snacks. He can't find any. Francine is hidden them all from him. And this is where there's the first tiny deleted scene.

But he complains in the aired version. He's a little mean to Francine. But Fox made the... them lighten it a lot because here's how filthy it was in the first line about how bad he is a Francine. No potato chips, no cupcakes. Ah, you bitch, Francine, I'm going to pee in all your plants. You bit, like, hearing him just like call her a bitch is like, that is a little harsher.

Yeah, I prefer when Rogers more creative with his insults. Like, he uses the word biotch in this one, too, that I'm like, eh. Yeah, but it's 2005. 2005. A little lazy, but it was, it was a word you can. could grab out of the air and throw it in your comedy. And he then, this turns into a bit about, like, oh, an intruder in the house, which, and hey, it still works today. That is classic gun control lines of like you are much more likely to shoot a member of your family than any intruder if you have a gun in the house. Especially if you make your wife hold machetes. Then she can't hold the guns to back you up. I love that drawing of her with the double machetes. That's a great job. Yeah. I forgot about this joke. And I think I heard that. that Osama, is that you? Many, many times when they were advertising this episode.

Right, yes. I think it was like over and over again they showed him shooting. It was the terror alert line. It was the shooting the toaster line. And then it was Osama's that you was like in so many of the, and those commercials aired a lot, a whole lot. Which I understand Fox was getting behind their big new animated series. But yes, the dog is shot to death. And this is where Roger lets us know that E.T. to you, though later he will introduce a lot of ET-like abilities he does have.

Yeah, they have, like we said earlier, they have fun with Roger's anatomy and his many different powers, and thankfully this thing about shooting goo out of his body every seven hours does not persist. I remember he did a sort of E.T. finger thing of basically, I think our gayest

episode ever guys, pals covered it in one of their many good American dad, great American dad podcast. But basically him and Stan get closer, and connect soul-wise, like, through a finger thing, that is essentially written like they had, they hooked up, and Stan is ashamed of it. Yeah, you cannot avoid E.T. jokes

when you've got this alien character for so long. And I even have just so used to Roger that I forget that, like, wait, his proportions are an E.T. joke. Like, these are E.T. proportions. The way he shuffles around in a very strange way. Yeah, yeah. Boy, that walk cycle must be hard. And they've had Roger do everything in that body type, actually. So that's the end of the first act, and we make a hard pivot in the next scene from Boy Gets Dog to Boy Runs for Class President.

Yes. Although there is a banner in the lunchroom to set up this plot line in the first act. That's right. It's not commented on, I believe. You know what, you're right, yes. Oh, I think, I think Steve says I've been wedged by both of the student body candidates. Oh, yeah, he'll say, he says that to Hillary Duff in the scene after that. That's right, yes.

Okay, yeah. But let's hear about a. A burial of a dog. God, please watch over the soul of this dead dog and carry him up to heaven because he sure as hell can't walk. He's dead. Amen.

That was beautiful, honey. I used to have a dog, and legs and arms. I was an Olympic skier before the CIA switched my brain with a goldfish. Well, what were we supposed to do? Just let East Germany win that gold medal? Not on my watch. You know, Steve's dog would still be alive

if you right-wing lunatics would agree to gun control. You know what I have to say to that? I thought it was going to fart. This sucks. Now I'm never going to get a girl. Wait a minute. Is that why you wanted the dog? Yes, sir.

Well, son, you don't need a dog when your old dad is the greatest ladies man of all time. Come on. And there is your Klaus' backstory. And I'm not sure. I guess there probably is a sliding timeline in American Dad. But if not, that means Klaus has been with them for 40 years. I'm not even sure if Stan is 40. That's right.

Yes. He's younger than Fran now when he was. I guess in the sliding timeline it could just be that Stan inherited Klaus instead of has been in the CIA for 20 years and was part of this, you know, iron curtain plan of theirs to steal Olympic medal. I see that Stan is often cited as many different ages, but between 40 and 45.

Okay, I like, boy, so I want to imagine him as 45, just so for a little bit longer, I'm younger than Stan, just for a minute. And about five years will be older than every, animated sitcom dad. We're kind of almost there. I just saw another of those things of like the ages of everybody when they first appeared on Star Trek the next generation. I am only younger,

we are only younger, than Patrick Stewart in season one. Every other actor is like 47, 45? He was 47 in season one. Okay. So, but other than that, every other actor was, I believe, under 40. And then in season two,

the actors who played Dr. Pulaski, she was 49. So if you want to count her, then she was younger than us, or older than us. And, hey, it's fair to bring that up in this episode. It's not a digression because Patrick Stewart is still on the show. And he's in both of the new episodes I watched. He's starting to sound a little old, got to say. Yeah.

I mean, so is Seth McFarland. I feel like you can really hear it most in the stand voice because it is a very hard voice to do. And he is now doing this 21 years later, so I can understand that. Yeah, you're right. Yes, yeah. It's everybody's aging. Wendy Shawl, though, sounds exactly the same. And she's 71, I think. Yeah.

She's sort of like a Katie Segal figure in that, like, Lila, I don't really clock any significant difference in her voice. Even like a faint difference. Yeah, I think she's, I'd give her the award of the best maintained pipes. So Phil Lamar is doing pretty great, too, these days. And she's going to be in the new One Piece season, Katie Segal. That's right. She plays the part that folks had been fancasting Jamie Lee Curtis to play, right? Dr. Cureha, yes.

And Jamie Lee was like, I'm busy being in Borderlands. Making some of the worst post-Oscar decisions, many actors. Borderlands and Ella McKay. A lot of people were tricked into Ella McKay. It was a big, like James L. Brooks put a plate of cheese under a giant cage, and all the big actors came scurrying in. Wow, James L. Brooks, I haven't watched any of his films. since as good as it gets,

but they must still be an in-demand director. I'm not hearing about them, so they must be good. They were so good, you don't need to know the names of his films after that. You don't need to see any of his work this century. It's still good. Then this is where there's the biggest deleted scene and the only other deleted scene on the DVD. When Stan says he's a ladies man,

there's about 30 seconds of him explaining that more to Steve. This sucks. Now I'm not. never going to get a girl. Wait a minute. Is that why you wanted the dog? Yes, sir. Well, son, you don't need a dog when your old dad is the greatest ladies man of all time.

You know what they used to call me in college? The penis. Oh, no, wait, it was a penis head. And actually, it wasn't college. It was high school. And, you know, it may, in fact, have been a derogatory term as opposed to an acknowledgement of sexual prowess. But none of that matters, because the penis is on the job.

And he's going to help you find a woman. Come on. That's fine, though it does give away the way. reveal at the end that Stan was a nerd. Oh, that's true. Yeah. Kind of, I can see why if it wasn't just for time, it was, wait, this blows the reveal of the episode. Though, yes, penis. You know what? Actually,

it may have been derogatory, but that doesn't matter. Guy, let's go. So we head to the mall. They credit on the commentary, family guy director, Peter Shin, who helped lay out a lot of this chase scene that happens in the mall, too. Yeah, it's impressive. I mean, given what they can do with these character designs, this looks pretty good.

This, I think, also establishes an important thing about Stan, that he is in very good shape, if he needs to be, for a joke. And they can just make him an action hero for insane things to happen. He can also take a lot of damage. Yes. Oh, my God. The shot of him, after jumping through the window with his face full of glass in the next shot, is such a funny image. Damage to his jaw is a hallmark of his character.

But yes, this is, it's like a zany scheme where Steve is supposed to stop him from stealing something. And then he just gets too into it and knocks over like he injures many people in this long chase sequence. Yeah. Stan gets too into the role of this purse snatcher. So Steve can never catch up. And then Stan just like jumps out of a play class window, runs down the street, leaves them all entirely. They have one little line for the girls that he robs that they were caught. throwing up. A bulimia joke is all they have time for there. It's, hey, it's the edgy 2005. It's how it goes.

Yeah. Then we cut to the home and we get another first in the series. A guy who seems like he could be a one-off joke character for this episode, but actually ends up being one of the most endearing, supporting players in the whole series. Yeah. Jeff Fisher, we've gone over this character, although I'm not sure if he was featured in Gold Top Gold Nuts or Top Gold Nuts, whatever that episode was called. Yeah, gold-top Nuts.

I think he is not in that, no. But he is named after the voice actor who performs as him, and he is designed to look like that voice actor from 21 years ago. He has not looked like this quite as much anymore. I'm sure he's lost the bucket hat. But do you remember the origins of this? Because I misremembered that he was a writer, but he is a voice actor they brought on.

Yes, yeah. I only know this because I just listened to the commentary, is that Barker and Weitzman knew him IRL, And they both went to a Grateful Dead show in 1991 in Las Vegas and that Jeff Fisher knew both of them, but Whitesman and Barker didn't know each other. So Fisher brought them together at a Grateful Dead show. And so partially they're paying him back

by making a character that is him in the show. When they tell that story on the commentary, Seth McFarlane like kind of, I think he's kidding on the square of like, oh yeah, Jeff's great. He's great. It is a weird move that feels like it's going to go in the wrong direction. Like, oh, wait, so you are inviting your friend to be on our show to play himself,

and he's a guy that no one has ever heard of? But he is such a lovable stoner. I come to love Jeff in the show. He's just a little sweetie pie. And they include him in the new opening. They did a new opening for the return to Fox, and Jeff is actually in the living room for the first time. That's right.

Oh, that's great. You're right. That was quite an upgrade for Jeff. Same as how they got rid of the The Married News team isn't in the background of the drive to the office anymore either. Instead, I think Principal Lewis has an upgraded appearance in there too

because he's a much more important character these days. Because also the Married News team broke up right around when Barker and Weissman broke up as well. So it's been over a decade. But yes, let's hear our first appearance of Jeff as Roger also makes a deal. Hey, Jeff. Hey, babe.

Some guy at the restaurant sent his meatloaf back because there was a hair in it. But it's cool. because it was mine. Picnic in the park? I can't. I have this paper due. Bummer. Well, you know what Shakespeare said. I mean, I don't, but I'm sure you do. See ya. Chilling with Jeff, sounds like fun.

Yeah, but this is due tomorrow. Listen, Haleykins, obviously I can't leave the house. But if you supply me with Twinkies, ho-hoes, you know, any of your basic white trash food stuff that your freaking mother won't let me have, I'll write your paper for you. What do you know about crime and punishment? You mean besides the fact that the suffering of man

both necessary and useful, which is revealed to us during Raskolnikov's redemption. Nothing. You got a deal. Sorry about that. Once every seven hours, like clockwork. Yeah, he sees she's eating a twinkie and goes right for it. Yeah, and this will set up the final joke in the episode, but obviously they don't do this with Roger anymore. As far as there could be a callback to it much later, but this is not a common element of Roger's body.

Yeah, I feel like every now and then he may splooge, but it's pretty low. late. It's a rare occurrence. I also like how he calls Twinkies and Ho-ho's white trash food when it's like, but you love this stuff. So he is like also smugly looking down on it. I have to remind myself, too, this is Seth McFarland

playing off of his sister here. This is sharing a scene with her. They say on the commentary, too, that like she was just a temp voice for Haley and then the Fox liked her and they wanted to stick with it. I wonder if they wanted to like her because it's

she's really though I that makes me sound like I think she sucks I like her she's good and say it's really yeah often with

these temp voices that stick around they just get so used to them that it would feel weird if they cast someone else and then like casting as a big hassle once you got everything else

locked down so it's like well why shouldn't it be Rachel just just have her on the show and she has a nice singing voice they're very good together as a pair of siblings who even sometimes play characters who date

in some episodes I'm sure they're used to it this also reminded me I read I read crime and punishment for senior AP English in high school. And I feel like I should really just read it again because I don't think I learned anything from it. I like, I've been doing this in my old age. I feel like it's so important to go back and reread these books.

We're assigned in high school because they're not, they were never made for 14-year-olds to read. They're made for adults that have had, like, they've lived lives. They can return to them and, you know, get more out of it. So I feel like we're doing a lot of these books in injustice by only just showing them the teenagers and making them. and making them, oh, that's the book you read in school. And I think about how, you know, when you talk about a lot of books you have read more recently, Bob, that are, you know, translated into English, that they have much better localizations now, even annotated ones. And, like, I remember reading crime and punishment over 30, almost 30 years ago. I was probably reading a cheap public domain localization of it, not a recent one.

Yeah, a lot of these classics have newer. translations, like with me within the past 30 years and they have a lot more resources and they're not censored anymore. So it is best to seek out like, what is the best translation of this French book that previously I might have just read the public domain translation from the late 19th century. Yeah, when when I was a teenager, I most got into reading Franz Kafka, you know, both novels like the trial, but also the, and the castle, but also pretty much all of his short fiction work. but then in the last 10 years I have re-read the shorts

as in, you know, obviously metamorphosis, but it was hastened by seeing, oh, there's a brand new, like, translation of it with a lot more, like, notes on it. And I read this great essay about how, like, Kafka was trying to be funny

and a lot of English translations take away the humor because they misunderstood it. And these new localizations are trying to bring the humor back. Just like in Dragon Quest localizations did the same thing. It's the same type of thing. I'm reading about that cockroach guy.

I'm falling on my ass. It's so funny. So Roger has a deal. And then we're 55% of the episode. And this is where we finally have Steve mention on his date with Hillary Duff as she's being held captive. Again, joke about like, the CIA kidnaps whoever they want. Like, yes, that happens all the time. It happens all the time now.

Hillary Duff at the time, she was super. hot because I guess we were still in the Hannah Montana era of Miley Cyrus. And I think Lizzie McGuire, her show, had just wrapped up or she was on the phase of a career after that. Yeah, yeah, it's like there's lots of people who still have Hillary Duff. But yeah, I do feel like Lizzie McGuire, at least in my brain space, got replaced by Hannah Montana because it felt like I wasn't a kid for it, so I can't tell you for sure. but it felt like Hannah Montana was a bigger deal than Lizzie McGuire after the fact.

Yeah, the premise was more high concept. Like, what if she was secretly a rock star instead of, I believe, I have seen a few Lizzie McGuire. I'm not going to lie. And I'm pretty sure that the gist of it is it's a regular girl. And sometimes there's a cartoon version of her that tells the story in different parts. Oh, okay. I have seen Hillary Duff in the news lately for good reasons, I think.

But it was just the headlines were like her admitting she learned nothing. as a child actor, even though she had on-set tutors. And generally her talking about like, boy, it's rough on child actors type of speech. Even though she, I think, is one of the luckier ones to, I think, not be so poorly off. And this means if you meet her, she is very dumb. You can trick her. She's learned nothing. You could probably convince her that she actually was on American Dad.

So she runs off, though, and things don't go so great for her. old Hillary. Oh my god. Dad, why is Hillary Duff in our house? Hillary is here of her own free will because she wants to have dinner with Steve. Hillary, could you pass the salt? Pass him the salt. So, as I was saying, student body elections are next week and I have personally been wedged by both candidates. Whoa, you hear that, Hillary? Looks like you're a winner with Steve. Help me! Dad, you can't go around abducting people just because you're CIA. Hillary, look out for the mines! What did I just say?

You heard me. What did I just say? You said look out for the mind. I said look out for the mind. Really fast cut dialogue overlapping. I love it. Before she died in the Smith's front yard, she was in the movies,

The Perfect Man and Cheaper by the Dozen 2 in the year 2005. Right. Cheaper by the Dozen 2. I remember reading a review of that that she's in it for the least amount she could be contractually obligated to be in it, I think. I'm looking at this poster. There's too many people in it. Well, I mean, I guess,

If the first one is about a dozen kids to a family, then they got to add more kids to it by the second one, right? Yeah, and Eugene Levy is he's in the poster holding up the two. I bet he's funny. Oh, right, yes. And am I wrong that Clark Kent is in it, too, Tom Welling? Hmm. I'm not seeing him in the...

Oh, yes, he is. Okay. I remember correctly. Clark Kent from Smallville. That's why I didn't say Superman, because he had not... I don't think he, okay, yes, he sort of becomes Superman in the very last episode. It's why I barely watched that show because I wanted him to be Superman. I didn't need to see the Dawes Creek stuff around or the Buffy stuff around being Superman before he becomes him.

If they could afford to make him Superman, they wouldn't have filmed in Vancouver. It's, yeah, they, there's so much Vancouver. In DC comics, like even to today, Peacemaker filmed in Vancouver, though, I think I saw from another of your Vancouver. Vancouver neighbors posting about like a whole block of Vancouver has turned into like the set of Shogun season two right now. Oh yes. Actually, it's on it's done at Port Moody where we often go because there's a lot of breweries like in a big block next to each other. And you can look out and see all of the like Japanese sets for Shogun season two. They had to tear them all down and build them all again because they got renewed or they got more episodes or whatever happened. Yeah, I think I think that thing with Shogun it was one of those tricks where it's like, we're all.

a limited series. Oh, people like the first season. Actually, we're not. Thankfully, there are more books in that series. So Hillary Duffstead, then we got to Stan and Roger hanging out. This is their first real scene together after the opening. And Stan doesn't give a shit that Roger's eating junk food, which is fitting for Stan. He doesn't, whatever Fran says, he doesn't really care. That's where we get a joke about stealing elections, which, you know, they have to say that about the first one. Bush beat Kerry in a pretty...

I wish he didn't, but it was pretty handily, I think. But, of course, stealing an election is bad, and that's why we looked to Dick Cheney to tell us how important democracy was in 2024. He can't anymore because he's dead, but, I mean, he got the message out there while they could. If only people had listened to him and Liz Cheney and how important democracy is.

I mean, we have to deal with all of the stolen election stuff constantly hearing about it, but it was, I guess, fun in quotes to remember, oh, when it really happened, when it was true, and when all the jokes about it weren't, like, insane. Yes, it's like, no, it actually, it is just fully provable and it actually was stolen. Though also in season one, this reminded me of how they have a joke, I thought it was in this episode, it's in another one I watched, where, like, Haley says, you kidnapped me or you kidnapped this person, and he's like, I liberated. And it reminded me of, like, it was a joke about how if you said that we invaded Iraq, they'd be like, we liberated. Iraq. How dare you say invaded? No, you just say invaded. Nobody cares.

Yeah, we don't even get the euphemisms anymore. It's sad. I feel like, though, here's a big head take I've got here. I think this stuff about fixing elections. Obviously, he is directly saying, I'm in the CIA we fix elections like I did with Bush. But this definitely feels like a reference to the historical fact that

the CIA and other American security groups have overthrown Democratic elections all over the globe for like 70 years now at this point. Absolutely. And Steve is just another dictator being installed. But they're not like literally saying it in this episode. So this is where we see that we've got Shelley Maxwell is running already and that she is defamed in classic style through a sex scandal that's being jinned up by the CIA. something like I would never happen now with candidates. You wouldn't hear about it.

No, no. But instead of being in some emails, she's in a poorly doctored photo where it seems like she is sleeping with a jack-in-the-box man. Who, as I learned, he has a lot of stories about jack-box out there and a lot of a full Wikipedia of lore can be found on old jack-box.

I feel like we are, at this time, we were getting sort of the tongue-in-cheek commercials with the Mr. Jack-in-the-box. Oh, yeah, yeah. I think, though, by 05, they hadn't yet started doing the ads of like, hey, stoners, buy this. Like just saying it out loud, right? Yeah, I did like one of the reactions. The kids are grossed out. And one kid says, he's not even human. That is good. And the voice of Shelley here, this is another of these like, wow, listen to commentaries. You learn crazy things. So the actress who voices her, her name when this aired was Kim Parks. I believe she has since gotten married. And her IMDB listed her as Kim Parks, or Kim Furtman, but her main job to today is associate producer on Family Guy.

She is a non-writing producer who's worked on Family Guy. But she is a child actor who then became a more management-style producer after her child acting career. And so McFarlane occasionally asks her to just do random female voices in episodes because she is still good at doing a kid voice. And I guess Rachel McFarlane can do other voices, I guess she briefly was with Hillary Duff very quickly, but Wendy Shaw, I feel like she is just locked in as that character,

sort of like Katie Seagall is not playing other characters than Lila on Futurama. Or also on King of the Hill, it is rare for Peggy's voice actress to do any other voice, too. Yeah. Yeah, I think Rachel McFarlane on Family Guy, even when we did The Simpsons guy, like Rachel McFarlane did like a random voice in that episode. but I think on American Dad, she can't do that as much.

I did look up like, what, okay, what did were Kim Parks' acting jobs? The only one that we had seen, or I know you've seen too, Bob, is she's in one episode of Pete and Pete, season three, the episode pinned, where Big Pete joins the wrestling team. Oh, yes, yes.

In fact, I recall specific jokes from that episode. I pulled it up. She's one of the secondary cheerleaders, on the cheerleading squad. The episode ends with Endless Mike versus Big Pete in a wrestling match. The one joke I remember, it still sticks with me to this day, is that Endless Mike weighs too much to be on the wrestling team. So he literally pulls out a tooth while on the scale to make it.

And I was like, man, that's messed up. And I'm glad to be a kid watching this in 1996. And then on the commentary, Seth MacFarlane reveals a crazy thing that, Listeners, you can fix a Wikipedia right now with this information because it's not on Wikipedia, which is Matt Whiteman early in his career was also a young actor who did voice work, and he was cast on the new Kids on the Block cartoon to be the voice of Jonathan on the cartoon. Crazy. So he, like his voice is out there on this cartoon. He was, and it's one of his only acting roles, he was like,

Scott Menville and Josh Keaton, who have gone on to very long voice acting careers. It's also one of their earliest jobs. Whiteman wouldn't go on anything else, but it's not on his IMDB. And if you go to the Wiki for the New Kids on the Block cartoon or the official Wikipedia page, it's his union name, or maybe his non-union name back then. He is credited as Matt E. Mixer. Like, that's who is credited as the voice of Jonathan. And so folks, put in parenthetical Matt Whitesman as Matt E. Mixer on it.

Oh, my God. Yeah, yeah, we need to fix this. It's funny. I was thinking, who did Scott Menville play? I bet it was Joey. It's Joey. Of course. It's full of other actors, too.

I didn't watch one second of the new kids on the block cartoon. We were radicalized to hate it. Yeah, we already were told it's, well, it's at least a little fruity to like new kids on the block. That's for sure. Or that's for girls. So after this fake scandal is set up, we do cut to the home that he still is holding the jackbox prisoner. I'd say by season three,

there'd be a creepier joke about Roger discovering him, I think. Yeah, and he wouldn't be as terrified to see a captive man in their basement. I mean, by, I think, season, man, in season six or seven, there's a joke that Roger steals the skin off of Jeff and cuts it on and puts it on his body. I think that's how crazy they get with him. It doesn't take very long. So this is where spinning headlines back in vogue

as a spinning headline announces that Steve has won the election. This is where we also hear that Roger has a new assignment about Henry Kissinger, which back then nobody said much about Henry Kissinger. He's just like, oh, that's like the Simpsons' one joke about the Paris Peace Accord is the most you had in regular TV. about, hey, Henry Kissinger is actually evil kind of thing. And he's still around? I'm sure he has some, like, working some stuff behind the scenes in 2005.

I feel like it really wasn't until 2016 in mainstream media. That maybe this is just me as a Bernie bro remembering it as a big moment. But when Senator Sanders was able to, like, punch back at Hillary Clinton with, you know, that's bad optics, was able to return fire in a debate with Hillary Clinton. I'm lifting up my shield. That he mentioned that, like, he felt that she should be ashamed about being friends with Henry Kissinger instead of bragging about it and listing the very public record of the literal war crimes and mass murderer. Henry Kissinger is guilty of. And Clinton was unapologetic about it, but it felt like it became a mainstream talking point of like, actually, Henry Kissinger fucking sucks.

Yeah. Right around the time he was like turning 100, people really changed their opinion on him. It was like a bipartisan photo op. Like you could get like there was so much sane washing of that piece of shit. I am glad now that like when he died, nobody, even what would have been like the nice New York Times obituary had to say like, well, but also in Laos, he did this or he also technically committed like treason by delaying a peace agreement in Vietnam, all those things. He was a land of contrast. So this is where he agrees to write the notes for some free churros, which I'll write 12 pages of podcast notes for some free churros.

No questions asked. Man, an essay is a lot more work. The ideas have to stitch together. Yeah, actually, that is true. Podcast notes, they're only read by me and not graded. That's true. So we then cut to school where Steve is enjoying his power. They even have like a thought balloon joke after he asks out Lisa and she says yes.

Which is, they say on the commentary, like, oh, we wouldn't really do that now, would we? I like listeners might know, I'm a big fan of thought bubble comedy and innovating within this joke space. There's only so much you can do. But it's Stan reminding Steve that girls love power. And then the thought bubble of Roger appears reminds Steve to pick something up from the store. Right. He wants Prell. It's a great specific, too.

Yeah. There's something about Roger saying a specific brand of something that's just funny. Yeah. Pecan Sandy's, Prell, Chocodial, We'll get to the Chocodiles. And also I like that Roger is seemingly like psychic. Like he projected himself into there. It's like, again, I'm going to mention the most recent episode of American Dad we both watched.

But like in that episode, there's kind of a similar joke where Roger is able to teleport into a computer somehow. Yes. And no one questions like, well, how is this happening? He just is sort of floating around on the desktop. They're more just annoyed at him and just click the X on him to make his pop-up go away. This is where Steve, though, sees that he's going to need a little bit more than just Lisa as his girlfriend because he needs to get her away from the bathroom to hear guys talking about their urination. That's where we get in our next clip, another first appearance of a major character in American Dad. Hey, Steve, congratulations.

Why, thank you, Lisa. Say, I was thinking maybe you and I could go out. I'd love to. Yes! Oh my god, score, score, score, score, score! Women love a man with power. You were right, Dad. Hey, sorry to interrupt, Stan.

I was gonna take a shower, but we're all out of Prell. You mind picking some up? Yeah, yeah. Thanks. Oh, hey, Steve, kudos on the beach. Man, your stream is so powerful. Thanks. I wish your locker wasn't right next to the boys' room. Yeah, me too. Then again, I am student body president.

Smith, what's the meaning of this? Principal Lewis, I'm taking your office. Pursuant to Pearl Bailey High Statute 39F, quote, the student body president may acquisition any room on school premises for the purpose of conducting school business. You can read. The system works.

I'll be back for my stuff. You're amazing, Steve. I'm going to go tell everyone we're going out. Good old Principal Lewis. He can be as insane as Roger, except he's a human instead of a magic space alien. Yeah, and I guess like not a super strong character in this first episode, but they are establishing him.

Here at least, what is established is that he has like, he's a depressed guy and he's sick of the school. Like definitely he's a disillusion teacher. Soon enough he'll be established as an ex-con super drug addict who, you know, is a sex worker, will have fights with wild animals. he does pretty much anything you need him to do. And when we got to meet Michael Richardson in person, I think we both complimented like specifically how much we love doing,

we love his principal Lewis. He's a very gracious guy. They say on the commentary, Barker and Weitzman, that they wanted him in the show because they loved working with him on Home Boys in Outer Space. Oh, okay. Was not a viewer of that show, despite all the Simpsons writers involved? The IMDB says he's in 21 episodes.

of it. So he was a real regular on it. God, there were, there are 21 episodes of Home Boys in Outer Space. I was also reminded of Home Boys in Outer Space because I just listened to the Scott hasn't seen podcast where they, the movie they watched that week was Mambuseled.

Which you've watched very recently, Bob. I haven't seen Mambuseled since it was new. But they reminded me that like specifically Spike Lee shouts out that show by name as a show he truly hated. I'm not sure if that is mentioned, but the Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer is, which was the show that, I guess, the premise was so offensive that not much of it aired. It's about a, I assume, a slave working at the White House when Lincoln is president. Right. Yes. Which is also referenced in the clerk's animated series. And you know who voiced Desmond Pfeiffer in that scene? Kevin Michael Richardson. Okay. So yes, he was on the clerk's animated series. I wonder if Kevin Michael Richardson, so he's in home boys in outer space. And then I did.

Definitely Simpsons writers worked on it. Then some Simpsons writers worked on Teen Angel. And he's cast in Teen Angel. And I wonder if then they did it because they knew him from Home Boys. And then Al Jean learns how much he likes working with him on Teen Angel. So he starts becoming a regular on the Simpsons. Like, does it all go back to Homeboys in outer space? I think it does.

Oh, by the way, yeah, he was not a slave because it was the North, obviously. And he was a nobleman from the UK chased away to America. and he becomes Abraham Lincoln's valet and antics follow from there. Yes. Bambuzzled is dated by that reference to that show. I love that this show lives on in at least two

references. The show that aired like three episodes. Excuse me. Oh, it aired like how many did it air? Four episodes. Sorry. But Home Boys in outer space was like a, he was grinding the Spikely hated in general that on like WB

and UPN. That was home to some of the sitcoms he was mocking with the, is it the black and tan show? What was the name of, well, the show that's on, uh, in the show within bamboozle. In bamboozle? I apologize. I think it's been six months since I've seen this movie. Okay, but I didn't rewatch it, but after listening to the podcast, I did rewatch the, the ending montage for the movie, which still packs a punch.

It's still quite powerful. It's like a, it's like a montage of blackface segments. In, in things you're like, oh, that was in all of these. all of these movies and it's the it's the bugs bunny one that always hits the hardest I'm sorry Henry I watched this two years ago I'm looking at my letterbox review now

okay sorry I pulled it up I just pulled it up in my letterbox the other day you and Nina might have been the most recent people to have logged it and in my memory I was like oh yeah Bob watched it like probably last month but okay get that memory checked apologies apologies

so Steve is now in charge of the school he's getting drunk with power already originally in the script, they say that the joke was going to be a Shawshank Redemption reference in that when he takes over the school, he plays classical music over the PA system,

which is what happens in Shawshank Redemption. But instead, they decided it would be funnier for him to ride around on the school mascot. It's all right. I like him saying, I'm riding the buffalo as this buffalo mascot costume man is rampaging and making real buffalo

noises. And then he wants to ride the Lunch Lady next. Though I guess having such a specific reference to a movie is in kind of the American Dad style. That is true. Then we come back from the commercial break and the commentary gets very silent for about half of Act 3 and I have no clue why. That means something was cut out. Too hot for DVD. I wonder what.

But we learned that Steve is basically on a date in the lunchroom. asked for the steak is not nearly Salisbury enough and it needs to be improved. And we also see that he's changing the name of all periods to Steve's. And then we got a cutaway joke where the ultimate punchline is now the menstrual cycle is being renamed to Steve. That also felt like a bit of a family guy style joke. We're cutting away within the building though, so it feels like they're trying to do their own version of it. Also in the deleted scenes for Volume 1, there's like, like at least like two cutaway jokes that are lengthy that they clearly deleted, I think,

because they wanted to not have a cutaway gag later in the show. There's one, one I remember from watching it that was like, oh, this is such a family guy joke. I get why they cut it. They referenced that Bill and I, the science guy and Carl Sagan had to battle over being the one science nerd allowed on television. That is very family guy. Meanwhile, we cut back to Roger and he is enjoying piggin' out. Oh, Haley, you are the best. What else we got here? Chocodiles, haven't tried those.

Oh, oh, oh, my God, how good are these? Uh, mm, mm, mm, dangerous, mm. How's my paper coming, Roger? You know, it's due tomorrow morning. Doubted under control, Haley, do not worry. Okay. By the way, Haley, oh my God, these chocodiles, These chocodiles, Haley, oh my God.

These chocodiles, oh my God. Yeah, they're good. Back to work. I'm on it. Chocodiles, I never had one, so I decided to look in like, what the hell is a chocodial? Well, it is related to the Twinkie. They're mostly popular in the 80s, like many things Seth McRland enjoys and enjoys parody. They were discontinued.

They came back in 2014 as chocolate Twinkies, and then in 2017 as fudge-covered Twinkies. So this is a case of them not trusting their audience. Like, you're too stupid and nobody. a Chocodile is. This branding has failed us. Look, it's just a Twinkie, but it's a different thing. I was talking, I was on a walk with my wife today, and I was talking about this joke in Twinkies and how just revolting Twinkies are, because it's one of those food items where the chemicals

are so potent that if I concentrate, I can summon the taste experience into my brain and just remember it. And what I really recall is, like, the Twinkie is like an organ they cut out of cake. For some reason, the Twinkie is always hotter than anything around it. The Twinkie is, like, oddly warm, but it's also, like, very moist and very stale at the same time. It's an incredible triumph of food science in an evil, evil way. Yeah. We were more of a ding-dong family or the Little Debbie Brownies.

The Twinkies rarely, and then when I would get one, I would think, man, it's really drying out my mouth. I have kicked my Twinkie habit. Oh, was a habit. Were you a Twinkie addict? I mean, definitely earlier in my life when I was like, oh, I buy a little. my own food now, I would be like, I can get a six-pack of twinkies. I'll eat them very slowly.

End of night, whole box empty. Like, if you put chockadiles in front of me, too, like, I would have lacked the self-control to not just be Roger of like, oh, yeah, you're supposed to have a chocodial or a twinkie in one bite, right? Like, as Roger does here.

Like, I guess they really compress in your mouth. Now, I mean, they're so bad for you, like, in a million ways. And the macro is on. them are terrible like calorie wise on top of that like yeah and also you can just have better snacks for the same amount of calories as in just like higher quality not healthier for you but like you can have a sponge cake that is higher quality that's not like a two dollar twinkie instead sure like or like a snack people would eat today that who aren't your grandma no one and no one's

going on getting sponge cake i uh the chocodile as well there is a lost chocodial mascot too. Did this come across for you and your research? I think I might have seen something about this but I didn't write it down. Here's a little commercial, a mid-70s commercial for Chocodial with the character Chauncey Chocadile. This may take a while.

Have a chockadile! Host is Chocodial from Choncy Chocodial. It takes a while to eat a chockadile. You have to wait a while. Have a chocadile. It's so big and delicious that it takes a while to eat a chocodial. It's so big and delicious that it takes a while to eat a chocolate. Chocodile. Host is chocodial.

What's a golden cake covered with chocolate flavor and cream filling inside. So big and delicious that it takes a while to eat a chockadile. Host is chocodial's cake. I don't trust this mascot at all. He sounds a little too manic for me. Also, I don't think it does take a while to eat it. It doesn't take a while to eat a Twinkie. I mean, yeah, I'm looking at these.

And I also read at some point there was a dispute like, oh, a Chocodial isn't just a chocolate cover Twinkie. but then people will realize, yes, it is. That's all it is. Yeah, especially when it's the same hostess branding, too. I think we've talked about this on King of the Hill as well, but I was more of a fruit pie boy than a Twinkies as well. Yeah, I've talked about this too where no one was monitoring my food intake in high school. So for lunch, I would get a hostess fruit pie and a can of Coke.

And I still have all of my original teeth. I think, too, if you were to look at the calorie count, it's got to be like two Twinkies equal one fruit pie. Like those fruit pies are the dense. Oh, I bet you could jam three calories, three Twinkies worth of calories into a fruit pie. There are many variations on the Twinkies out there. Also, I just, this now basically in general for me,

I've really been good on my diet for this year for the last two months. And I have gotten back into the zone of like the impulse items, you think of as a kid, at least for me as a kid. Oh, I'm going to the register with Mommy at the grocery store. Let's look at all the fun treats there. Now I basically just have to view them as like light noise around me and I cannot look directly at them to be tempted. Henry, you only get those if you're a good little boy and you've been awful.

You've been so naughty. It's too naughty. You're making too much noise in the store. And also now that we're old, it can't be a diet anymore. It has to be a boring lifestyle. Yes, no, it's not a diet. It is just, I be, I rebegan the lifestyle of ignoring those sweets and making it more of an event. If I have, if I eat some junk, it is because, oh, we went out to dinner for the first time in a few weeks or just making it special instead of just, it can't, in general, it can't be in the home.

That's really what it is. I can't trust myself with it, just like a gun. Yeah, I can't trust myself with a gun in the house or Twinkies. Well, when Amazon hears this, there can be flying drones up to your wind. dough. That'll be wrapping on the glass. Oh, man. That was, again, in dark times, I remember when things were going so good at a job 10 years ago, I remember when there wasn't just a fuck-it day of like, you know what, on Amazon, I'm going to order this like 20 pack of Twinkies and I'll eat it until I get sick of eating. Knowing Amazon, it was there right after you clicked that order button. Yes, yeah. It came very quick.

Yes. I see, and so I see too much of myself and Roger here. He's like, oh, Chaka, I was like going into a sugar coma and then fucking up and missing a deadline. Those were all things I was doing as well in darker times. He's a messy gay. It's relatable. It's relatable. Oh, also I learned that Choncy, I had forgotten this in a season five episode where they go into Roger's brain, Chauncey Chocadile lives in there Like they eat Chauncey Chocad

Season 5 you said, right? In season 5, yes. Okay, yeah. That sounds right. And you know what? I also love how McFarland keeps repeating, oh my God, Haley, oh my God, chocodiles, oh my God. So we see that all he could work on for his Kissinger thing was Kissinger,

colon, more than a Jew. Yeah, he was a war criminal. He did so much. There's too much that you can even fit into multiple series. of books on it, really. Or in the lengthy podcast series. You know, our chopper friends have tried to fit it in. And I think even in a three-episode series,

Matt Christman could only explain so much about Henry Kissinger's crimes. It's a vast tapestry. And this all leads to the sub-stories meeting in which Haley gets out of writing her paper by bringing the dead dog to school and gets excused for like, oh, you've suffered a loss. You can have some more time. I like that they dug up the dog. Yeah, the dog has been buried. Yeah.

Though soon enough in the show, Roger wouldn't even care to, like, apologize that he screwed up. He just wouldn't care. Then we cut to Steve. He's added epaulettes to his Shazam outfit. He's drunk with power. This is where his friends are complimenting him on chocolate lockers. And you know what? The joke that he unlocked the porn in the school library.

And then I enjoy the joke that you think the guy is making fun of his friend, that his mom has a porno website. but the guy's proud of his mom. Yeah, yeah, sex positive teens in 2005. You know, I would bet half of parents on the PTA are doing some side gig of online sex work. In this economy? You got to. But this is where Steve learns that there's lines Lisa won't cross,

which include physically touching him in any way. She has too much of her dignity then. So then Steve goes crazy, just like many a guy propped up by the CIA and commands that there is no kissing or touching aloud. in the entire school for anybody. A couple of sets of teens call it off, and then we see a science teacher

about to have sex with a frog saying, not tonight. It's too risky. I like that as, you know, they could have easily cut to just like a teacher is having sex with a student, but it's funnier having sex with a frog. I agree that the frog is ready. It's not like some kind of horrible animal abuse case.

The frog wants it. Lots of animals can talk in the world of American Dad, and so consent can be given. So then we cut to Stan getting a call from Principal Lewis, and he worries about the worst news. This is Stan Smith. Mr. Smith, I'm afraid there's a problem with your son. Oh, God, he's gay.

This is it. This is the gay call. I've been ready for this for years. Uh, no. It's just that he's gone mad with power. He evacuated the entire school and barricaded himself in my office. I see. Henry, antidote.

Hey, how'd the dead dog work out? Did it buy us some time? Yeah, he gave me till Monday. Oh, great. Here's my list. Sorry, Roger. that was too close a call. I'm going to do my own work.

What? Where am I going to get my fix? Not my problem. You can't do it alone, Haley. You don't have the scales. You're not smart enough. Somebody will clean that up. So that's slime eruption two of three.

And he just gets, he's like, eh, something's he can clean it up. Like, he is completely useless, like just a total turd. And he asked that Stan has seemingly killed himself on screen or as at least like induced a, a suicide pills. He's foaming at the mouth when he's calling for help.

He's that scared that Steve might be gay. I think every character in American Dad is bisexual for a joke purpose. But Steve, most of the Steve being gay jokes are just that him and snot love each other and would have sex or have had sex. We're only in season 21. We don't know where it's going. I saw in the multiverse episode they did, Steve went to a multiverse where snot is a woman and impregnated snob.

Okay. Oh, did a fanfic writer pitch this? I think, though, too, Snott had to say, or that universe is snot had to say, that people get pregnant in that universe not through sexual intercourse, just to make it clear that Steve did not. I think that was mainly just to make it still canonical that Steve is a virgin. Okay. And so we then see that Stan,

and Francine have gone to the school where Steve has barricaded himself. And this is where Francine gets really her only other big moment in the episode as she needs to distract after she gets punched in the face accidentally by Stan, too. Which he was trying to just do the little like a... Face Lugger, like a little knock on the chin, a soft knock on the chin. And yeah, I guess like we get a taste of Francine being like a little inappropriate at the breakfast table. But here we're kind of leaning more into like, oh, Francine has had a wild pass. and she is doing TMI about this story with the teacher she was in love with.

Yes, I think it's in the first season. They have the amnesia bit where Francie gets amnesia and she thinks she's a teenager still and she's a crazy wild party animal. But there are so many things with her going on. Like she's a former arsonist. She can pretty much have any relationship in the past too. But in this case that like we hear a story that, she had a crush on a teacher.

She invaded his home and was cutting herself for attention that they were lovers that lades him to going to jail and killing himself in jail. Yes. Yeah, she's telling the story. Stan keeps trying to shut her up. But she's like, I don't know if he went to jail or killed himself.

Oh, wait. He killed himself in jail. She feels no guilt about it. She's just like, oh, right, that's what happened to him. I mean, it's also like such a dark story of like, She framed this man for like sexual assault of a minor and he killed himself in prison. You know, welcome to American Dad Super Bowl audience. Yes, yeah.

Have you stuck around for an hour after the post game? Well, here, after the lead character in the show punched his wife in the face accidentally, she has a very dark story to tell. But this is where Steve and Stan reconnect after Stan sneaks in. And he has some comforting words for old Steve. Look, son, Roger was right. You're not like me. You're not as good looking, or as strong, or as smart, or as good sexually. Oh, wait. He killed himself in jail.

Damn it, Francine. We're having a moment here. Listen, son, I'm going to show you something I've never shown anyone before. That's me when I was your age. Oh, my God, you were hideous! Well, it certainly wasn't the stallion I am today. The point is, Steve, you'll be just fine, because you're chock full of potential. Wow. Thanks, Dad. Oh, but I don't want to face Lisa Silver.

I got you covered. Hello, INS. Hey, is this Nick? Hey, Nick, it's Stan. Hey, what's going on? Hey, how'd that wire tap on your wife work out? Oh, oh, sorry about that. But hey, better with your brother than some stranger, right?

Right, yeah, moving on. Moving on, right, right. Say, listen, could you do me a huge favor? You know the Silver family at 419 Elm? Yeah, let's deport them. You're the best, Dad. This is Not as funny today

Nope, no, not Well, because it would seem silly back then That why would somebody call in to like illegally deport somebody Who is a seemingly a full American citizen That would never happen Also just reminder if you don't remember INS was what it used to be called before Like this joke about INS

is almost when like ice is just about to exist like as a group or yeah I like when did it come into be I'm looking at this up now it's I guess it was created in 2002 yeah I think that maybe then actually the joke only works if it's INS which people were more familiar with

as a term back then then ice yeah I guess INS went away in quotes in 2003 and then it was supplanted by ice So this episode is being written in the uneasy changeover between these horrible organizations. And INS certainly did it a lot too, but you hear about it more now, and they're doing it more often. I mean, headlines every day about it. It sucks, though, I mean, even you just hear about, like, you know, people who come into the country, like, from England, who are then, you know, held captive for months because they're,

the implication is they have to inflate their numbers or they even get paid off per, you know, deportation you do, even if it's under completely fake circumstances. And they're not being run by hilarious characters like Stan Smith. Yes, yeah. No, and same too, this idea of like, oh, yeah, we're arresting, you know, or we're wiretapping your wife to find out that stuff. Like, it feels like there's a story every day about doing illegal things

as either ICE or police officers. I feel like if the world gets better than American Dad has to go away. So good thing that that won't happen. And it's also funny that he deports his girlfriend and he just goes like, you're the best dad hug. It's cute. No more voice acting for Carmen Electra. Though the character Lisa does return a number of times.

But not with Carmen Electra. Let's say it's not Lisa Silver anymore. It's Lisa Gold. And she's a totally different character who looks the same. Sure. So after all that, it's time for things to wrap up at the dinner. table in classic sitcom fashion as every story wraps up. Mmm, great stew, Francine.

The peas are like floating survivors from a sunken beef ship. Steve, you're awfully quiet. Are you still upset about what happened at school? I'm fine with that. I just wish I was smoother with the ladies. Oh, okay, Melissa, so I'll meet you at the arcade tomorrow after school. Bye. Thanks for the help, coach.

My pleasure. But if you expect to get me, boob, I'm going to need a buttload of twinkies. Uh, gazuntite. And I assume that Roger, much like his poor workmanship with Haley, never followed up on this, and that's why Steve never got any boob. Mm-hmm. Or the boob getting was happening off-screen.

Roger, useless once more. Uh, and this, also that I was shocked to see credits are never white text on black for American Dad. They always have credits over. The credits play over the last scene. of the episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is, I'm sure if you watch these on Disney Plus,

though, they probably have the full credit sequence. I think so. I think so. Yeah, I think it's, in TBS even, I have had to like so quickly pause to find out voice actors in some episodes because literally they wrap up the plot in the last 30 seconds in some of them and you can't look at the credits there. It's actual, it's not a one-off joke.

It is the end of the story. And after the credits, this is where we get to see. for the first time security officer Manuel Pena, who is the mascot of the title card for underdog productions. And I think we found out more about this guy in our discussion of American Dead last time. Yes, yeah. I did look up a recent thing about him that his old YouTube channel got taken down for copyright strikes of some kind, but he still has a current YouTube channel that he's updated, I think,

within the last three months when I just checked it and most of it is just him filming family members at military events but also guys you can look it up for yourself just go YouTube channel Security Officer Pena every title of his YouTube videos I want to say

have his full email in them and I don't know why interesting well we can reach out to him get him on cameo maybe he should have a cameo just to say like I have a good time or whatever. Does he make enough money to not have to be a security guard anymore? Does he stick with it for love of the game? I know. I just love seeing this guy. It's sort of like the absolutely deal at the end of the Tim and Eric show.

And they film new ones. He has variations. You know, it's not always, have a good time. Like, I think when I went to the Wiki page forum on the American Dad Wiki, there's like five variations up to now that they counted. But it could even be more. I forget if they did do a new one for him for the new Fox episodes. I can't recall. Well, he was put in place to stop nerds like us from storming the office because we were so mad about Family Guy. I think he's probably put down a lot of Simpsons fans in his time, probably. But yes, that wrapped up the first episode. And yeah, I agree with you, Bob, when he said the outset, this episode, I remember it as all the pilot of American Dad and really the first season. It's not as good. It gets better later.

But this is for a first episode that is rough in places, maybe. I think it holds up really well. You're right. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think everyone was just getting better at making animated shows. So this first season, I was looking at the thumbnails, recalling what I remember from the episodes and thinking, yeah, this had a pretty strong start. They would, you know, have permission to go crazier later, of course. But it's not as rough as like season one of King of the Hill or season one of the Simpsons.

They have an idea of what they want to do. And they quickly leave the family guy and the political stuff behind and just have fun with a bunch of insane characters who can kind of go anywhere and do anything. Yeah, it grows into such a. a great series, but you can, you know, like with the Simpsons as well in its very first episode, you can see the seeds planted and how it's going to grow and how they discover over time what they're best at and what makes the show even better. And yeah, they can't, obviously in an age, in this age, political satire doesn't work anymore. It's meaningless.

But darn it, you can still make people laugh with crazy references. To Chaco Dials even can still make people laugh. And yes, thanks everybody for listening to this special one-off episode of Talking Simpsons. And if you want to support the show and get all these episodes ad-free and one week ahead of time and also access to a whole bunch of other stuff, go to patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons and sign up at the $5 level. And when you do, you can access all the podcasts ad free, like I said earlier, but also access an entire back catalog of full-length exclusive episodes on Patreon. We've covered shows like Futurama, King of the Hill, Mission Hill, Batman, the animated series, and The Critic. and every month you'll also get a new episode of Talking Futurama and Talking of the Hill for that five bucks. So check it out.

Sign up there at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. There's also a $10 level, and that gets you one mega huge podcast once a month for patrons of that level. What is going on there, Henry? Bob's referring to the What a Cartoon Movie Podcast, which is basically like three extra podcasts you get each month in addition to all of the ad-free bonuses that you get at the $5 level. this month you're going to hear us talking about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2, The Secret of the Ouse. Yeah, that's right, it's our once a year live action cartoon movie that we cover.

We cover the 1991 before, and now in time for the 35th anniversary we're covering Secret of the U's. The month before that, we covered Henry Selleck's great adaptation of Roll Dolls, James and the Giant Peach, and those are just the most recent out of years and years of what a cartoon movies that we cover as in depth with history and deconstruction

as we do an episode of American Dad or The Simpsons. So sign up today for hundreds of hours of bonuses. You can find the list of everything in the collections page too when you go to Patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. Once more, sign up there, patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. And I've been one of your host, Bob Mackie. You can go to find me on Blue Sky and Letterbox as Bob Servo. And my other podcast is Retronauts.

that is a classic gaming podcast about old video games. Find that where you find podcasts or go to patreon.com slash retronauts and sign up there for a bunch of cool bonus stuff as well. And Henry, what about you? You can find me on a blue sky and Instagram as Talking Henry, and I'm always posting up a storm there for, for Haley-style posts as well on there. But if you want to stay in the loop about this podcast and our sister podcast, What a Cartoon.

You definitely should be following the official account at Talk Simpsons. on Blue Sky and Instagram. You'll know whenever new episodes go live or whenever we have cool news to share, that's at Talk Simpsons Pod. And don't forget that every free episode of Talking Simpsons and What a Cartoon, which includes the American Dad ones we did, those can be found at Talking Simpsons.com. Thanks so much for listening, folks. We'll see you again next time for the latest episode of our community podcast.

Talk to the audience, and we will see you then. Stan, what gives? Holy Toledo, you killed your son's daughter. And don't ask me to bring him back with that E.T. finger thing because that's a giant load of crap.