American Dad!
2005
Original language: English
- animation
- comedy
The story
The series focuses on an eccentric motley crew that is the Smith family and their three housemates: Father, husband, and breadwinner Stan Smith; his better half housewife, Francine Smith; their college-aged daughter, Hayley Smith; and their high-school-aged son, Steve Smith. Outside of the Smith family, there are three additional main characters, including Hayley's boyfriend turned husband, Jeff Fischer; the family's man-in-a-goldfish-body pet, Klaus; and most notably the family's zany alien, Roger, who is "full of masquerades, brazenness, and shocking antics."
What it’s like
Bright, flat, saturated cartoon colour in a suburban palette of beige cul-de-sacs, cheap interiors and CIA-tinted greys, with hard-edged vector animation that never softens into anything dreamy. The sound is brisk and busy: a jaunty theme, quick overlapping dialogue, cutaway stingers and pop-culture riffs packed into every scene. Pacing is relentless, with cold open to cold open, and the tone is loud, irreverent and mean-spirited in the way of a cartoon that enjoys being offensive. It suits a lazy evening on the sofa, background noise while folding laundry, or a comfort rewatch when you want chaos rather than calm. Intensity is high: frequent crude and sexual jokes, smutty innuendo, bodily gags, cartoon violence and gore played for laughs, and sharp satire of politics and religion. Arcs follow a bumbling, self-satisfied dad and a household that keeps cycling through the same mismatches, with little lasting change. It is for viewers who want rapid-fire, adult-leaning animated sitcom humour and are fine with bad taste as the point.
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