American Dad Rate/Review: Pilot (1AJN01)

[Andy]

I know, I know, this show doesn't look too good. But for now I'll give it the formal R/R treatment and wait until the end to decide if I wanna keep doing this or just do it for FG.

Thread opens once the episode finishes airing.

[Rekart]

Better than expected. It started slow, the part that I'd already seen in the original 6 minute pilot, but it got better after either the first or second commercial break. The first I think. A lot like Family Guy, as the reviewers said, but maybe slightly different humor. Not that far off of Family Guy at some points, I don't think. It has potential, and this one wasn't terrible.

4/5

[JMS]

This is pretty much what I expected. Not much changed from the original pitch. I’m still confident that this will develop. All in all, this episode wasn’t good at all. It had it’s moments, like the Jack in the box bit. But not much more than that.

2/5

I'm moderatly dissapointed.

[Andy]

Okay, that wasn't funny. I guess the Seth sitcom formula just doesn't work as well without the cutaways. And the jokes were not jokes at all. The political satire attempts were just stupid, and the rapidfire jokes were all duds.

Someone else can make the AD threads. I'll stick with OFF and FG, thx.

[J.Re*]

first act was really crowded, but it evened out very well, had some clever jokes and really funny ones.
4/5. gets a bit of a curve considering that its a pilot

[kuumuus]

cancelled.

[Mason]

very poor. maybe one laugh the whole time ("I got a little carried away there") and a ton of shitty attempts at satire. characters were obnoxious, animation is annoying, plot swiped from standard sitcoms...and most importantly, it simply wasn't funny.

[Icedragon]

Eh, not that great. Too obvious on the political humor for me, and Roger's watse jokes were really bad.

b-/c+, and thats generous. Ill watch it in May, but im not putting a lot of money in this show...

Loved the Law and Order opening parody from Family Guy.

[The Victor]

Terrible.

[Spooner]

Didn't disappoint, didn't thrill either.


"Oh wait! He killed himself in jail!"


If it turns out as I think it is, and Francine is just as incompetent and idiotic as the rest of the family, that'll be interesting. Usually you've got the voice of reason (Lisa, Brian) but I don't immediately see one in American Dad outside of maybe Haley... but I don't see her developing into a true VoR.

Thought with the creators, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the liberal is teh one who becomes the VoR.


edit- Oh yeah, 3/5

[Wavy Gravy]

I found it really funny, actually. There were a few real laugh-out-loud moments (the Iraq cutaway, the Jack-In-The-Box thing, etc.), and it didn't seem too "Family Guy"ish to me, which is a good thing - I want a different show from this, not a repeat of the same thing MacFarlane's already done. I've got faith in the series, and I look forward to the official premiere on May 1.

[Homer Jay]

This seemed to sitcomish with a twist, the relationship between the father and daughter got old quick. C- and that's generous.

[Fett101]

Meh.... I'd rather a Larry and Steve Saturday morning cartoon.

[Spooner]

Just thought of something, why get rid of the 50's lounge singer music from the pilot? I was digging that, a lot.

[bigstu554]

It was alright, but I'd be surprised if this show sticks around all that long.

[used]

man, i wish it wasnt so cool to bash this show... anyways, its not as good as family guys pilot, but what can top the kool-aid man? definatey not the jack-in-the-box guy, as we saw here tonight. The show was pretty good with a few really funny moments. I hope it does well, as its a much more entertaining half-hour then a lot of other crap i could be doing.
3.5/5 (4 on poll)

some great moments:
-"wow, your stream is really powerful"
-"its too dangerous now, ill come back tonight"
-"Oh wait.. he killed himself in jail"
-"the god/bush phonecall.

[DotheBartman]

Really. Fucking. Awful.

I consider myself a fairly leniant guy when it comes to political humor. I'll read editorial cartoons that probably aren't all that insightful and still chuckle at them, just because I enjoy political humor so much. But this was not even anywhere close to satire. It was a horribly inane and unfair stereotype of conservatives that even I as a fairly staunch liberal (on most issues) found to be pointlessly demeaning. The only thing close to a decent political joke was the "some time and at some place" orange alert gag, which was incidentally done far, far better as just an offhand sight gag on tonight's OFF. Really bad.

But of course the political humor was just a side note to the sitcomish plot that, barring the alien and the fish (two of the most obnoxious cartoon characters ever, hands down), could have easily been done in live action and would have been equally inane. Shit, the joke writing was so sitcommish it could have been written on "Just Shoot Me", and probably would have been clever there too (which is not a compliment to Just Shoot Me by any means). A few times it seemed to want to segue into a Family Guy-esque bizzarro pop culture gag ("Did you ever see Memento?", "And don't make me do that E.T. finger thing...." but just stopped, leaving behind absolutely no trace of humor.

If this goes past a season, the ghosts of "Futurama" and "Andy Richter Controls the Universe" will be weeping. I notice Fox plans on premiering a new "satire" next month about advertising executives, that seems to be lacking in any punch whatsoever about its intended target. Maybe if someone at Fox commissioned a genuinely smart satire of their own kind, they could have it illustrated for them why dreck like this fails.

D-

[Tibor]

seth macfarlane's a fucking hack





shit sandwich. not dignifying this with a grade or punctuation at the end of this sentence

[Tetsujin]

I guess I'm in the minority, I loved it. Not better than Family guy but still damn funny. I guess I'm just a sucker for political satire. 4/5

[Jane Velez-Mitchell]

The satire being released next month...it looked like a super bowl commercial joke.

as for AD...it gets a 2/5. pretty fucking bad, but maybe one or two good lines. as for the jack in the box bit...? what was that all about. i mean...that's mainly a west coast thing that ALOT of people in the country are just not gonna get as much as others. seriously, way to isolate an audience. so many flat jokes, so many annoying characters.

[Ihaveblink]

It wouldn't be so bad if I could find a character that I like. The politcal stuff is very shallow and forced. The fish is on the same as Scrappy Doo in annoyance. I hated the theme song too. The show has potential, but needs much improvment.

C-

[Spooner]

The higher your post count, the more you hate it.
The higher your post count, the more you hate it.

Generally, at least.


EDITEDITEDIT- The verdict is in from DYA!: "S'allright."

Not a lot of people see it lasting too long though. I'm one of em. It's all right, I can watch it for a season, but 4-5 seasons of this... it's not happening. I'd actually rather American Dad not be taking the spotlight off Family Guy, and I think I'd rather Futurama were back. I love MacFarlane, but he really didn't seem to put a whole lot oh thought into this. At least not after he got word Family Guy was coming back.

[skittlebrau]

Horrible. What more can I say?

[pat]

Bordering on crap. It had a few funny moments, but I don't see this staying around long. I'll just give it a 2/5 just to be generous.

[reyontoyeny]

It wasn't as horrible as I was anticipating. I chuckled once. Hopefully, this show can start being funny and distance itself from Family Guy a lot more. I guess the horrible pilot and horrible reviews lowered my expectations to a point where I was surprised how tolerable it was.

2/5

[Ryan]

3/5...I didn't much like it, but I really don't like giving pilots a 2/5 score...

[Hank Scorpio]

I guess I wasn't expecting much myself. The ultra-conservative father/Stepfordish wife/ultra-liberal daughter/geeky son schtick has become tired and old.

Plus, there were WAAAAY too much scenes of American Dad in his underwear. That's just not right.

Homer in his tight-whities? Now that's FUNNY!

[IdRathaHavaBeer]

i go 4/5

i had a lot of laughs but there were a couple jokes that went too far. even though i liked it (perhaps because its a new funny cartoon) i don't know how long it'll last, but this was only the pilot and the regular season eps might be better - they need to get rid of either the alien or the fish (preferably the alien)

[Rowdy]

Dear lord..............no point in starting anywhere as it should all be in the trash. Unfunny all of the way through and even disturbing very often........

[arlen_texas]

But this was not even anywhere close to satire. It was a horribly inane and unfair stereotype of conservatives that even I as a fairly staunch liberal (on most issues) found to be pointlessly demeaning.

For a guy who loves All in the Family and is (as he's admitted) trying to do an AITF for our generation, MacFarlane seems to have forgotten some stuff about Archie Bunker, including that he was basically a good guy who was ignorant and scared that the world was passing him by, and that every time he did something wrong, it backfired on him (he tries to prevent a black family from moving into the neighborhood, and winds up inadvertently helping them move in). You got the feeling that the person who was most hurt by Archie's bigotry was Archie, and you rooted for him to get more open-minded and get closer to his family, which he did as the series went on.

But Stan is a complete jerk, and he gets away with a lot of the jerky things he does. Archie was basically powerless; Stan has power and abuses it. That may be a political commentary on the times or something, but it's not a recipe for a good central character. The idea seems to have been that Stan can do all these jerky things but his redeeming quality is that deep down, he loves his family. It's not enough. He's still too big of a power-abusing unpunished jerk to be the main character of a show.