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Worst TV Show of the Week

American Dad on Fox

Anti-Semitism. Mocking the disabled. Sleazy sexual innuendo. Scatalogical references. Graphic, gory violence. And all in cartoons aimed at children. These are hallmarks of only one man: Seth MacFarlane, the “creative genius” behind such Sunday-evening Fox fare as The Cleveland Show, Family Guy, and American Dad. All the foregoing were on display in the July 17^th rerun of the November 11, 2010 episode of Fox’s American Dad (9:30 p.m. ET), undeniably the Worst TV Show of the Week.  

In this Halloween-themed episode from last fall, Stan is dismayed to find his neighbor Buckle has put together a better “haunted house” than Stan has. “It contains all the stuff I wanted to do when I was an Imagineer at Disney…but I was told it wasn’t ‘family-friendly,’ says Buckles, as a knife-wielding demon pops out of a mailbox and shrieks, “I'll (bleeped f******) kill you! I'll skin you alive, you little whore!” Stan vows to make his house even more frightening than Buckles’ – especially when Francine states she found Buckles’ house scarier: “He has this terrifying Semitic woman…I couldn’t help it. My panties overflowed and filled my shoes!”

Meanwhile, their son Steve and his friend Snot visit the home of their Japanese friends Toshi and Akiko. When Toshi refuses to go trick-or-treating with them, his mother begs Steve and Snot to take Akiko with them. Akiko appears at the top of the stairs; the camera pans over her legs as sexy music plays and Steve exclaims, “Boner!” This scene alone is enough to nauseate viewers; remember, all these characters are children going trick-or-treating, and Akiko is young enough to need her older brother to go with her. But then, given that MacFarlane’s series Family Guy features a “humorous” recurring character, Quagmire, who is an admitted pedophile, perhaps the cartoon’s sexualizing of young children is not surprising.  

Steve takes Akiko trick-or-treating, promising Toshi he’ll have her home by sunset. But when the moment comes, the love-stricken Steve convinces her to go to a party with him. Toshi, enraged that his sister has not returned home, draws his samurai sword and chases the pair across town. As Akiko runs away Steve follows, gasping, “Next time I’m gonna get a crush on Snot’s sister. She can only move so fast in those polio braces.”

While this is happening, Stan’s pet alien Roger has a brainstorm as to how Stan can outdo Buckles: “You work at the CIA. You can get real stuff that’s scarier. Real corpses. Real eyeballs. Real skeletons.” Catching the alien’s enthusiasm, Stan decides to go one better, and brings in a group of serial killers. “What’s scarier than real, live murderers?” he reasons. The possibility that using serial killers as a subject for humor on a Sunday-night cartoon might be distasteful to some obviously doesn’t matter to Fox.

The episode also works in some of MacFarlane’s trademarked sleazy sexual references, with Francine dressed as a nun, whining,  I don't know about this costume. I want to go as someone sexy.” “C'mon, everyone does the sexy thing. It's so played out,” says Stan – who is dressed in a lion head, tight leather bustier and panties, and fishnet stockings. Stan shows Francine the serial killers, hoping to scare her: “Between them they’ve killed 86 people and most of the hookers Drew Carey has slept with.” But neither Francine nor the neighborhood children are frightened of the killers, so Roger tries to inspire them. A murderer leers as Roger strips off Francine’s habit, revealing her in panties and a bra. “Gotta appeal to their rapey side,” Roger states as he presses her face against a plexiglass window. Inside his cell, a killer drools, “Now that’s a head I could cut off. Let me outta here!”

Roger lets the killers loose from their cells. One is shown pursuing a giggling little girl, while the rest chase Roger, Stan, and Francine outside. But the day is saved by Toshi and his sword. In a horrifically graphic scene, Toshi uses his katana to brutally dismember and behead the serial

killers. His own face splattered with blood,  Toshi splits one killer vertically from head to toe. The body falls apart in two halves, revealing gore within. He then cuts another’s body in half at the waist, the bloody innards and skeleton visible; and cuts off hands and both feet, then the head, of the last killer. The bloody severed head rolls up to Francine. Roger picks it up and takes severed head home with him.

Not that long ago, such graphic gore (not to mention sleazy sexual innuendo) was considered suitable only for adults. Today, Fox is proud to broadcast such content on the publicly-owned airwaves, when millions of children are in the audience.             

For graphic violence, American Dad is the Worst TV Show of the Week.