American Dad – Volume One (2005) – DVD

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"American Dad (Pilot)," "Threat Levels," "Stan Knows Best," "Francine's Flashback," "Roger Codger," "Homeland Insecurity," "Deacon Stan, Jesus Man," "Bullocks to Stan," "A Smith in the Hand," "All About Steve," "Con Heir," "Stan of Arabia (Part One)," "Stan of Arabia (Part Two)"

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover "American Dad" is not without merit: though nowhere near as funny as Seth MacFarlane's flagship series "Family Guy" (or as pithy as that show's model, "The Simpsons"), it's surprisingly watchable once you get into the groove of its initial 13-episode run. Still, its send-up of American chauvinism flips over rather easily into a celebration of same whenever it verges on damaging critique. "American Dad" is like that college radical who turns conservative upon realizing he has to bring home the bacon–in fact, it shores up the double-edged sword of all Dumb Father comedies like "Family Guy" and "The Simpsons", which walk the knife-edge between mockery and glorification of the male imperative to be a thoughtless, self-indulgent jerk.

How, exactly, are we supposed to take Stan Smith (voice of MacFarlane), the titular giant-jawed CIA super-patriot paterfamilias? On the one hand, he lives to fly off the handle for stupid, self-righteous reasons, his main sources of angst that his wife Francine (Wendy Schaal) isn't servile and deferential enough; that his teenage daughter Hayley (Rachael MacFarlane) is a tree-hugging vegetarian; and that his younger son Steve (Scott Grimes) is an unmanly nerd unable to live up to his father's macho standards. Add to that an effeminate, alcoholic alien fugitive named Roger (Seth MacFarlane again) and acid-tongued German goldfish Klaus (Dee Bradley Baker) and you have a houseful of counterpoints ready to drive Stan to idiotic hysteria. We can expect every episode to provide Stan with a challenge to his Yankee authority that will make him look remarkably dumb.

Yet "American Dad" never quite pulls the trigger on his actual mindset. MacFarlane and company know that the show's bread and butter is Stan's ability to say and do completely repellent things: to advise his son that masturbation means "angels will kill you," for instance, or to hijack Hayley's homeless shelter initiative to stage lucrative "bum fights." The series revels in his ability to be a jackass without a conscience, much as"Family Guy" does with the supremely clueless Peter Griffin–there wouldn't be a catalyst for the stories without his powerful will-to-jerk and compulsive need to blurt out whatever inappropriate thought pops into his head."Family Guy" can get away with this because it's an apolitical free-for-all, but the satirical underpinnings of "American Dad" leave you scratching your head as to what the point really is.

In the prototypical "Homeland Insecurity," Stan is terrified by the prospect of having Arab neighbours. Francine would dearly like to have them and the rest of the neighbourhood over for a theme party, but Stan's fear of the new couple causes him to imprison them in a backyard Gitmo he's specially arranged. If his paranoia eventually leads him to imprison the rest of his neighbours as fellow travellers, rest assured that everything's relative: by the end, the Arab victims have remarked, "You're not nearly as bad as our last neighbours. They were black!" In one fell swoop, the writers have provided a justification for the very bad behaviour they spent an episode building up–leading one to wonder just where the target lies.

By the time of the two-part "Stan of Arabia," it's clear that all involved are more interested in the American right to act like a jackass than in hitting their Bush-league target. A bungling Stan gets himself sent to Saudi Arabia as punishment for ruining the boss's birthday roast and discovers the Saudi oppression of women is everything he's always fantasized about; unfortunately, he and his family almost wind up getting stoned to death for being infidels. By the time they're returned to safety, we've learned that while America might not be perfect, it's better than a broadly stereotyped nightmare of the Middle East. It's at this point the show's mask of criticism falls to reveal the frat boy underneath. "American Dad" has its wit and an appropriate fearlessness, but it also has a habit of becoming the very thing it sets out to mock: a jerk who does what he likes regardless of who it hurts.

THE DVD
One thing's for certain, however: DVD is the ideal platform for "American Dad". Fox debuts the first thirteen instalments on the format in razor-sharp fullscreen transfers joined by surprisingly bouncy Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks. A dozen episodes feature commentaries with co-creators Mike Barker and Matt Weitzman as well as various writers, directors, and, on "Stan Knows Best," cast members Rachael MacFarlane and Jeff Fischer. Seth MacFarlane shows up on the pilot for some reasonably in-depth discussion (mainly regarding what had to be changed for the show's post-Super Bowl premiere), but subsequent yakkers are almost solely comprised of name-checks and wisecracks, albeit very, very funny wisecracks. Meanwhile, "All in the Family–Creating 'American Dad'" (20 mins.) is a mostly uninformative exercise in back-patting and floating thematics in which MacFarlane, his production team, and the voice cast speak on the meaning of the show and its characters. MacFarlane comes off as smooth and smug while most of the other participants do themselves no favours with too-credulous assessments of their roles. (Apparently, they take a "satirical" approach–no kidding?)

"How's Your Aspen?: 'American Dad' Performance at HBO's 2005 U.S. Comedy Arts Festival" (25 mins.) is a public reading of the "A Smith in the Hand" episode, though why anyone would care to see this after viewing the episode in question is a mystery. As it stands, clips from "A Smith in the Hand" constantly interrupt the reading, rendering its usefulness doubly questionable. "Secrets of the Glass Booth" (5 mins.) is vaguely related to the process of rehearsing and reporting, but it's too brief and unfocused to be of any real use beyond more back-patting. "American Animatics" (14 mins.) compares storyboards from various scenes of various episodes, which may be of interest to animation fans but loses its novelty for the rest of us fairly quickly and is in any event rendered moot by an interactive multi-angle comparison (39 min.) that allows you to toggle audio between the finished "Threat Levels" episode, its animatics, and its table-reading. The episode itself is slowed down to match the read-through.

An unprecedented 41 deleted scenes are mostly random gags excised from longer scenes. Best finds the terror alert level lowered to blue, whereupon airport security starts tickling the Arab he's been frisking. "The New CIA" (3 mins.) is a laughless short of indeterminate purpose wherein Stan explains the CIA's new image. You can similarly hear the proverbial crickets during "Super Bowl Pre-Game Promo": here, Roger's consumption of the Super Bowl nachos prompts a feeble "operation" to acquire more. It's strictly on a Scooby-Doo level of humour. A promo for"Family Guy" rounds things out.

22 minutes/episode; NR; 1.33:1; English DD 5.1; CC; English, French, Spanish subtitles; 2 DVD-5s + DVD-9; Region One; Fox