American Dad - "White Rice" - Talkback [11/21]

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Broadcast Order: Season 6, Episode 5
Production Order: Season 5, Episode 15

Writer: Rick Weiner & Kenny Schwartz
Director: Bob Bohen


A new episode airs tonight at 9:30 PM Eastern. Here is the synopsis:
 
Wow, another episode where Stan doesn't understand his wife, trivializes her concerns and then does horrible things to her to make his life easier? And people wonder why no one likes the characters on this show.
 
As I said in the FG and Cleveland threads, it's what they do.

A few years from now, Seth McFarlane really WILL get another series greenlighted and it will be with another family with unlikable characters, guys.
 
Well, considering that the other three shows had jerks in the main plot, I guess it was right to make Stan be a jerk too. I wonder if it was all planned or just a coincidence that all the eps had a common theme?
 
Like I said last week, when Peter does horrible things to Lois they seem childish, impulsive and not meant to truly hurt. He's a big overgrown, retarded child. When Stan does horrible things to Francine they're cruel, calculating, selfish and ongoing. Peter is just a big fat, drunken, manchild. Stan is just an all-around horrible human being.
 
Yes, he's awful. And awful people doing awful things, reasoning be damned, is their device for comedy. Also, it clearly shows that Stan can't take care of himself at all. He's not as far off from Peter as you may expect.
 
Retarded is such a harsh word. Why don't we just say that he's spoiled and stupid?


Funny. That's the kind of personality that Stewie should have.
 
Yeah, but the thing is, whenever Stan is a jerk, he learns his lesson and becomes a better person at the end. Granted it just resets itself at the end but that's animated sitcoms for ya.
 
And Peter doesn't? Last week's episode had a whole sequence where Peter totally admitted he was wrong and apologized to Lois. And not every Peter/Lois episode revolves around relationship troubles. It seems to me that the majority of the American Dad episodes I've seen are just Stan being hurtful to Francine and using his government connections to manipulate her.
 
I thought this was a very good episode. Wanting to be a comedian/actor/writer, I can identify with Francine here, though I don't think I'd do her kind of sitcom. I really laughed at the idea of Stan having a psychologist hypnotize Francine in order to take his problems away. When I saw the "Dan" character on Francine's show, I noticed he didn't speak during his first scene, wondering if maybe there'd be some kind of surprise or twist invovling his voice, but I didn't notice any when he did talk to Stan.

Also, did Hayley appear at all in this episode?
 
Didn't we have this exact same conversation last week? *sigh* I'll explain it to you again: Stan's (like Roger's) calculating nature is funny because the consequences of their behavior is not lost on the characters or the audience, and it leads to a dramatically satisfying conflict and eventual conclusion (even if the lessons they learn week to week are forgotten by the next episode). Peter's inability to comprehend the effect of his actions only makes him seem like a bigger jerk, and the only time he ever regrets anything is if he wrongs Lois (or one of the "cool" characters). Most of the time his behavior is encouraged and actually vindicated by the show and its writers, and he ends up not appreciating the consequences of his actions and the audience has no payoff. Stan and Roger's characters are much more in line with highly popular characters like Cartman and Bender than anyone on Family Guy, so you can't say that's the reason AD isn't mainstream popular.

And yes, the Stan/Francine marital issues plot has been done to death, but like this isn't true on Family Guy (and for that matter, the Simpsons and Cleveland)?
 
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