American Dad! recently celebrated its 20th anniversary not long ago, so now is the best time to look back at it all to see just how far it’s come since that very first season. American Dad’s future is currently in flux as although it’s still one of the most popular animated series that fans love to see time and time again, it’s been caught in between networks in some notable ways in the last few years. But it’s all because American Dad caught fans’ attention early on, and never really has let go since that initial premiere all those years ago
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American Dad! first premiered with Fox back in 2005, and 20 years later is now one of Seth MacFarlane’s biggest animated franchise. Family Guy might be getting all of the credit, but American Dad is just as (and in some cases) even more popular. When looking all the way back at Season 1 after all this time, there are a few gems that continue to stand out as major episodes that fans won’t want to miss if by chance they’re jumping in for the very first time.
A Smith in the Hand (Season 1, Episode 9)
American Dad! really took some time to find its right footing, and that includes the balance between its conservative atmosphere and its humor. With a very politically charged and closed off Stan Smith working for the CIA, it also meant there was still quite a lot to explore when it came to Stan…exploring himself. The final episode of the series’ initial production run was “A Smith in the Hand,” and didn’t amount to much more than a series of self-pleasure jokes but it was hilarious seeing how it all got there. It was only the tip of the kind of Stan we’d see in the years the followed. The first sign of the real wackiness to come.
Bullocks to Stan (Season 1, Episode 8)
Speaking of wacky characters, there aren’t many in American Dad that have gone as wild as Avery Bullock over the years. He started off from a very peculiar place already as well as Stan’s boss who was also very sexually active. This would later morph into degeneracy as Bullock started to have much more complicated vices and fetishes, but the early kernel was there in his brief tryst with Hailey in “Bullocks to Stan.” It also leads to a point where Stan and Avery have a huge fight in a diner, only for Bullock to pass it off as part of his grand plan. An episode like this just hits so much better in retrospect.
Francine’s Flashback (Season 1, Episode 4)
What made American Dad! stand out from Family Guy so early into its run wasn’t its focus on politics, however, it was Stan’s access to all sorts of gadgets that would ultimately run afoul of the rest of his family. The first truly example of this came with “Francine’s Flashback” as it revealed that Stan had actually been secretly wiping out Francine’s memory when he forgot their anniversary for the past 20 years. Naturally, things go wrong and she reverts back to when they first met…only to reveal that their origin story started off in an expectedly wild way. Not all of the episode ages that well, however, so just be aware of that going back in.
Roger ‘n Me (Season 1, Episode 20)
Stan and Roger’s friendship is one of the main pillars of American Dad’s history, and it really got started here. When the two of them connect on a deeper level than ever before as Stan realizes he doesn’t have any other friends, this leads to a wild result where Francine needs a dangerous (and expensive) operation while Steve and Haley are trying to date a pair that they think are their soulmates.
It’s an episode where no one makes the right decision, and end up with a terrible result at the end of it all. But because this is American Dad, it’s also the kind of ending that just makes sense for the series. And this episode helped to launch a dynamic we would see flesh out in all sorts of ways in the years to come.
Helping Handis (Season 1, Episode 21)
Now not every episode of American Dad‘s first season ages well, but this is one of those cases where that outdated nature of the idea actually amplifies how well it works today. When Steve grows a pair of breasts thanks to some special CIA level steroids, he ends up becoming very popular at school for some terrible reasons. To counter this, Stan takes some of his own to grow even larger breasts to prove to Steve that popularity was truly fleeting. It leads to one of the most audacious visuals in American Dad‘s history, and that really helped to launch the series into a whole new atmosphere.
That wasn’t all though as Francine’s story ended up being even wilder as she was a back alley doctor for a gang, and talked them into robbing a bank (immediately resulting in their deaths) in order to save herself from all of it. It was one of those ideas that really wouldn’t work in how American Dad is currently written, and really helps to emphasize how that first season used those rougher edges to succeed.
