American Dad DVD Boxset – click here to buy today from Play.com
The American Dad Boxset Volumes 1 – 3 is a collection of episodes from this hilarious comedy series. Created by Seth MacFarlane, it is the animated tale of Stan Smith who works for the CIA, forever on the look out for terrorist activity. His desperation to protect USA from threat is demonstrated in his extreme behaviour, the terror-alert colour code displayed on his fridge, and the way in which he is often found shooting at the toaster as it pops up the toast. With outrageous story lines and quick-fire gags American Dad shows Stan completely lacking reason in what he perceives as a world gone crazy.
Married to Francine and with teenage kids, he also shares his house with the flippant space alien Roger, who was saved from Area 51 by Stan and is permanently grounded in the house. Then there is Klaus, the sex-obsessed goldfish who spouts German, due to a failed CIA experiment to transplant a German brain into the head of a fish. He spends considerable amounts of time drooling over Francine. Stan will do anything to protect his family and his country. Francine hides her past life as a drug taking party girl, for the love of her extreme right wing husband; she represents the stereotypical American housewife who is frustrated with her husband. Daughter Hayley attends community college. She is a left wing liberal who Stan struggles to trust, and is constantly at loggerheads with her father. Dorky son Steve fails in his attempts at cool as he hits puberty, and aspires to emulate father Stan.
A star-studded cast make up the voice-overs, including Patrick Stewart, Beau Bridges, Bill Murray and Eddie Kaye Thomas. Volume 1 consists of 12 episodes, including the original pilot show. Volume 2, first shown in 2005 contains 19 episodes with Volume 3 first shown in 2007, consisting of 18 episodes.
In Series 1, Francine’s memory is wiped by Stan as he fails to remember his wedding anniversary in ‘Francine’s Flashback’, and Stan is punished by being sent to Saudi Arabia, which he surprises himself by enjoying immensely, particularly the male dominated structure of society. As he renounces his US citizenship his family are sentenced to be stoned to death, while Roger is pursued by a prince.
Francine’s birthday revives memories of George Clooney stealing a celebrity film moment and she longs to destroy him in ‘Tears of a Clooney’. When she and Stan fly off to Prague where Clooney is shooting a movie, she attempts to win Clooney’s heart so as to break it, but it is Stan who befriends him, ruining her plan as Clooney’s heart is broken by Stan himself, while Roger creates a vineyard and employs foster children in a private sweatshop. In ‘Stan Knows Best’ Hayley takes up residence in her boyfriend’s van and gets a job as a stripper, while Steve attempts to date a girl by trying to gain her sympathy, informing her that Roger is his disfigured sister. In ‘Roger Codger’ the alien falls into a coma and wakes up in a landfill site. ‘Deacon Stan, Jesus Man’ finds Stan as a new deacon and Roger impregnates Steve. In ‘A Smith in the Hand’ Steve is taught the wrongs of masturbation by Stan, whose use of ointment results in his becoming a masturbation addict, and Roger gets a job as a barman. ‘Con Heir’ finds Stan admitting that his recently deceased dad was not his real father, claiming the genuine dad is actually a master spy, and Francine attempts to find out the truth, while Steve dates his grandfather’s aged friend. In ‘Rough Trade’ Stan and Roger switch lives as Stan sits in the house all day and Roger takes the role of car salesman. ‘It’s Good to be Queen’ sees Stan searching for revenge for a prank he experienced while in high school, when he flaunts wife Francine as a former homecoming queen, only to find that her title was unfounded. He then dates the genuine queen.
In Series 2 ‘The Best Christmas Story Never’ combines Ray Bradbury with Charles Dickens, as Stan challenges secular attitudes. He saves Christmas by travelling back to the past to kill Jane Fonda with the help of the Ghost of Christmas Past, played by Lisa Kudrow. ‘Stannie Get Your Gun’ finds Stan as a National Gun Association spokesperson when he becomes paralysed accidentally by gun hating Hayley. Son Steve grows steroid-enhanced breasts in ‘Helping Hands’, while Stan faces an eating disorder after meeting Steve’s new and obese girlfriend in ‘The American Dad After School Special’. In ‘Dungeons and Wagons’ Steve rules the universe within a video game world. ‘Failure Is Not A Factory-Installed Option’ continues from where first series episode ‘Homeland Insecurity’ left off, with the storyline of a jewel-encrusted golden turd as the final temptation for a straight cop, played by the talented Beau Bridges.
Series 3 finds Stan vowing to make the people like him, after he eavesdrops on his contemptuous neighbours in ‘I Can’t Stan You’. Wife Francine volunteers to be a surrogate mother for gay neighbours, triggering Stan’s kidnap of the child as well as the kids of a lesbian couple in ‘Surro-Gate’. George Bush spends a night of drunken debauchery with Stan in ‘Bush Comes to Dinner’, while Francine pleads for a real family holiday after finding out that all her holiday memories are nothing but artificial creations in ‘The Vacation Goo’. ‘Haylias’ reveals that daughter Hayley is actually a sleeper agent who has been brainwashed, and is activated to prevent her from moving to France.
