Product Description

From the delightfully twisted creative minds behind Family Guy comes American Dad, the animated tour de force featuring CIA operative Stan Smith, his outrageous family, and Roger, the alcoholic extra-terrestrial who lives with them! Follow the adventures of the Smiths from the California desert where Stan's wife Francine relieves her wild youth at the Burning Man Festival to Saudi Arabia, where the entire family is sentenced to death by the Vice and Virtue Police! Whether it's rigging elections, erasing memories, chasing sleazy strip clubs, or staging "bum fights," it's all in a day's work for Stan, and it's all here in the side-splittingly hilarious first 13 episodes of American Dad!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4741 in DVD
• Brand: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
• Released on: 2006-04-25
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Animated, Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: English
• Number of discs: 3
• Dimensions: .70 pounds
• Running time: 284 minutes

Features

• From the delightfully twisted creative minds behind Family Guy comes American Dad, the animated tour de force featuring CIA operative Stan Smith, his outrageous family, and Roger, the alcoholic extra-terrestrial who lives with them! Follow the adventures of the Smiths from the California desert where Stan's wife Francine relieves her wild youth at the Burning Man Festival to Saudi Arabia, wher

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Whether American Dad! will ever enjoy Family Guy's cult status remains to be seen, but the first 13 episodes of its inaugural season, collected in this extras-laden three-disc set, are promising. After a few episodes, CIA agent Stan Smith and family gradually emerge from the Griffins' formidable shadow, and the show finds its own comic voice. And it sounds a lot like Paul Lynde. That would be Roger (voiced by Seth McFarlane), the housebound alien who saved Stan's life at Area 51 and now lives with the Smiths. Not as inspired a creation is Klaus, the German-accented goldfish who lusts after Stan's wife, Francine. He does, though, have an inspired meta-moment in the episode "Bullocks to Stan," in which he provides faux scene-specific commentary (during the episode!) in anticipation of the show's release on DVD ("I wasn't sure about the Squeaky Fromme reference," he offers, "but it's a smart joke, and the fans have come to expect that from us"). As for the rest of the clan, Steve's children are the typical dysfunctional siblings: Steve, a socially awkward geek, and Hayley, a liberal counterpoint to red, white, and blue-blooded Stan--at least liberal enough to sleep with Stan's boss, Bullock (playfully voiced by Patrick Stewart) in the episode "Bullocks to Stan."

Though the jokes in American Dad! are not as free-associative as in Family Guy, McFarlane cannot seem to resist dispensing with character integrity for a gratuitous potshot at, say, Lisa Kudrow. But as with Family Guy, American Dad! tears at the sitcom envelope. The blasphemous episode "Deacon Stan, Jesus Man," had the distinction of being voted "Worst TV Show of the Week" by the Parents Television Council. And American Dad! has its own version of Family Guy's surreal titanic bouts between Peter Griffin and that chicken. The episode "Homeland Insecurity" features a digression in which a Department of Water and Power worker greedily kills his partner over a gem-encrusted gold "turd," only to find out his wife is having an affair. As he wails to the heavens, the words "To be continued" appear onscreen. According to the audio commentary, the writers do indeed intend to continue this compelling soap opera. So that's something to look forward to. --Donald Liebenson

Customer Reviews

Good Morning, USA!
From the twisted mind of Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy), come the misadventures of a man who will stop at nothing to protect his family and country in the hilarious animated comedy series "American Dad!". Stan Smith is an overprotective and high-strung CIA agent who loves his family and is constantly on the look-out for terrorist activity. In addition to his sympathetic trophy wife Francine, his ultra-liberal daughter Haley and his awkward pre-teen son Steve, the Smith household also includes a freeloading alcoholic space alien named Roger and a perverted German-talking goldfish named Klaus. "American Dad!" is the latest animated sitcom in Fox's Sunday Night lineup. The animated series shares numerous similarities with "Family Guy". "American Dad!" follows a more plot-driven storyline without the heavy use of cutaways and flashbacks. Its cutting-edge humor and outrageous characters are great. The 3-disc box set features such memorable episodes as "Francine's Flashback", "Bullocks to Stan", "A Smith in the Hand" and "Stan of Arabia", and guest voice stars like Carmen Electra, Stephen Root, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Gina Gershon, Matthew Lillard, Molly Shannon, Seth Green and Patrick Stewart.

If you're looking for riotous humor and fine extras, then check out "American Dad!: Volume One". All 13 episodes of the uproariously funny animated series are presented in standard full screen format. Its picture quality is quite good with solid colors. Its 5.1 Dolby Digital sound is crisp and clear. Among special features, the 3-disc set includes in-depth audio commentaries by series writers and voice cast on 12 episodes, "All in the Family" and "Secrets of the Glass Booth" behind-the-scenes featurettes, numerous deleted scenes, animated comparisons and promo spots. Overall, "American Dad! Volume One" scores a "B+".

It's your patriotic duty to see this series
Not since the days of Caroll O' Connor's `Archie Bunker' has a character so expertly satirized current events---all while making all audiences feel like he promoted their side of things.

When it looked like the show was about to be cancelled the creators of `Family Guy' came up with another series. Critiquing `post 9-11' America, `American Dad!' updates `All in the Family's' formula through a cartoon format. The animation style and some of the voices are similar to 'Family Guy', but this series has much more in common with those inherently political sitcoms of the 1970's.

CIA Agent Stan Smith wants to protect his country-but he also
wants to maintain his own little sheltered world view. Despite his job Stan ultimately has a very limited grasp of international affairs. However he does know that he loves his family and is only trying to do what he thinks is best for them---by any means necessary!

In the pilot episode, Stan attempts to get his son Steve a dog so he will then be popular with the ladies-never mind the fact that this particular dog had been selected only because it was alive during the Reagan administration-making the poor thing older than dirt in people years! After it is accidentally killed during a `home invasion' false alarm, he again tries to help his son out by rigging the school elections so Steve is elected the school president!

"Threat Levels" exposes the realities of public sector vs. private sector pay. When the formerly homemaking Francine enters the real-estate business and then quickly becomes a success Stan feels emasculated. He loves his wife, but her new career cuts away at his fantasy of the `male-breadwinner head of household' myth he had constructed and maintained for himself. Even having her boss arrested and the agency she worked with shut down does not resolve this situation-Francine simply becomes an independent agent! Hayley sees an opportunity of her own using one of the homes which mom is trying to sell as a homeless shelter. Somehow, dad ultimately muscles little brother away from the cockfighting business he had established at that same shelter and takes over it himself. The episode wryly explored anxieties being felt over shifting economic realities and gender.

13 episodes make up the first half of this 2005-2006season release. Episodes you and your own `family' will love include "Bullocks to Stan" because he learns that his boss is sleeping with his ultra-liberal daughter Haley. Because Stan and Haley were close when she was younger but drifted apart because of their divergent political views, he wants to recreate that earlier relationship. Stan has difficulty processing that his daughter is both grownup and sleeping with the boss (voiced by none other than Patrick Stewart).

Another good episode mixing sex and politics together for laughs is "A Smith in the Hand". Concerned that Steve is receiving sex education at school, Stan volunteers to give his own demonstration to that class. During that demonstration, Stan attacks masturbation and sex as inherently evil. Resultant crotch injuries then require Stan to apply ointment to his own crotch, and he discovers masturbation for the first time. Steve then discovers what dad is now hooked on and they hypocritically go around promote the idea on television that masturbation is bad all while doing it themselves. Finally, Francine steps in and tells them that she has had enough and sexual feelings are perfectly normal.

Francine usually keeps her own opinions to herself, but she really is a closet liberal underneath it all.
This is apparent when Stan attempts to erase her mind so she will not remember that he forgot their anniversary or that it is their anniversary ("Francine's Flashback"). Instead of only taking off 20 hours however, the CIA scientist erases 20 years and she is now unable to remember anything about her current life-including that she is married to Stan himself. Despite what he had CIA colleagues do, Stan becomes panicked by this development-he had not wanted things to go this far and fears loosing Francine forever. Her memory is miraculously recovered at a concert though and another crisis is temporarily averted in the Smith household.

Francine's quick thinking saves the day when Stan panics about the Iranian new neighbors ("Homeland Insecurity"). Suspecting that they are `terrorists', Stan then decides they will be detained in his home-attempting to publicly justify this through the Patriot Act. Contrasting, Francine takes the more sophisticated approach-she sells the whole thing as a neighborhood block party which just happens to have a "Terrorist Detention Camp" theme. She is the one who really has the people skills needed to conduct covert operation!

I'm honestly not that crazy about the ending two-parter "Stan of Arabia", where the Smith family temporarily lives in Saudi Arabia. Okay yes, the CIA does travel internationally but the series creators themselves obviously did not have knowledge of the Middle East before writing these episodes. `American Dad' usually works (and very well) because they could show Stan being a well-intentioned dofus without complete knowledge of the America which everybody else around him does know about. This plot device doesn't work as well when the writers themselves lack in knowledge of the same thing they attempt to critique.

Extras include Commentary on 12 episodes by Creators & Producers Mike Barker, Matt Weitzman, Seth MacFarlane and others, a featurette called "All in the Family: Creating American Dad, a " featurette called "Secrets of the Glass Booth: Behind the Voices of American Dad , a Animatic-to-Episode comparison, and 42 deleted scenes

Family Guy Mark II
Closet Monster ????????? - I think this guy must be talking about a different show. Seth Mcfarlene has taken the Family Guy formula into a new domain of superb american satire. American Dad is fast establishing itself as a show to equal the genius of Family Guy. Seriously funny can't wait for the DVD release!!