TV

TV REVIEW: American Dad – “First, Do No Farm”

AMERICAN DAD! – “First, Do No Farm” (Season 17, episode 14)

American Dad continued to expand its sonic palette in 2020.  In a season that already included The Weeknd, the show pulled off its biggest musical “get” in 2020 with Weird Al Yankovic.

The setup:  Stan Smith thinks his daughter Hayley is getting “soft”.  Fed up with her overly sensitive and lazy ways, he takes inspiration from the humble farmer.  Stan bulldozes the family home and sets up a “micro farm” on the property, with only a shed for everyone to live in.  Everyone adopts the Waltons-like surname “Boy”.  “Steve-Boy”, “Jeff-Boy”, and “Mom-Boy” for example.  Creature comforts are banished.  Violators are shunned.  Needless to say, Roger the alien is the first to be shunned.  He soon takes up with the “varmints” — rabbits.

This, reasons Stan, will make Hayley-Boy “farm tough”.

To make a short story shorter, Stan screws up big time by building a secret basement with all the food, TV and video games you could desire.  He too is shunned, and moves in with Greg across the street.  But he has already created a monster in Hayley.  Yes, she got tough, but she also lost her heart, turning into a cold, farm working machine.  This is not what Stan intended, and so he must undo what has he done.  With sabotage.  Varmint sabotage.  Rabbitage!

“Let’s do it!” says Roger.  “And do we contact Weird Al’s people?  See if he’s interested in ‘Rabbitage’ as a song idea?”

Cue up Weird Al Yankovic with my favourite Beastie Boys parody yet!

As Al says, he didn’t write the lyrics, but he sure did nail that vocal part!  “Listen all a-y’all it’s a rabbitage!” wails Al, as Roger and his rabbit allies destroy the farm.  Sure makes you wish they recorded a full song, doesn’t it?  Pretty cool collaboration.  Roger, dressed as a rabbit, destroying that farm in sync with Weird Al, is worth a repeat watch.

In the B-story, Klaus the goldfish has joined Scientology, which involves unsubtle Battlefield Earth jokes.  South Park did it first and better.  Scientology jokes are like shooting ducks in a barrel.  Fun, but way too easy.

4/5 stars for the episode

10/5 stars for “Rabbitage”

 

Advertisement

Best of 2020 Part 3: TV & Movies

Best movie: 

I’m not a Christopher Nolan junkie, nor a spy thriller fan, so it’s quite a surprise that I loved Tenet as much as I did.  I think I understand 95% of it now, and I’ve only watched it three times, so that’s not bad.  Seriously, I think John David Washington is great, as was the whole cast.  One normal and one inverted thumb up for a movie I file in my science fiction collection.  Great stuff.

Best shows:

5. Jeopardy! – final season with Alex

4. Star Trek: Picard – Season 1

3. American Dad! – Season 17

2. Star Trek: Discovery – Season 3

1. Star Wars: The Mandalorian – Season 2

Jeopardy’s never made my lists here before but watching Alex Trebek keep on going and going only weeks before his death is awe-inspiring.

American Dad had a better than average season this year.  Some of the episodes this year will go down as the series’ best:  “Brave N00B World“, “300“, and “First, Do No Farm”.  The latter features a new Weird Al Yankovic called “Rabbitage” based on — you guessed it — “Sabotage” by the Beastie Boys.  The season also featured pop star The Weeknd in an episode called “A Starboy is Born”.

I’m jumping the gun a little bit on Discovery as the season hasn’t ended yet.  However, setting the season over 900 past the days of Kirk and Spock has opened the show up to new possibilities and…discoveries.  It has been a great season with some standout episodes that felt more like The Next Generation than anything since.  Contemplative episodes with minimal (sometimes zero) violence.  Trek is back, and Discovery is currently the superior show, even over Picard, which was pretty good itself.

And finally we have Mandalorian, which despite an unimpressive initial teaser trailer went on to be the show we always hoped it could be.  And it was Bill fucking Burr’s Mayfeld that really pushed it late in the season, adding some much needed character development.  All this made it so much more delicious when Giancarlo Esposito’s Moff Gideon did all the moustache-twirling villain stuff at the end.  Then we get Boba, more vicious and primal, and the stoic but intense Jedi.  Bonus points for doing what Qui-Gon Jinn failed to do in Episode I:  just crush the fucking droid with the Force already!  Thanks, Luke.

2020 was the Year Without a Marvel.  Boo.

TV REVIEW: American Dad – “300”

It took 17 seasons (or 15 by some counts — it’s complicated), but finally, American Dad has wound up one of the longest running sagas in television history.  It’s the story of Roger the Alien’s golden turd.  Begun in season 1, Roger’s turd has been the subject of a recurring story over the course of the last decade and a half.  It has incredible powers of evil, similar to the One Ring of Tolkien lore, over those who encounter it.  Good people corrupted have lusted and murdered for it.  The lump of jewel-encrusted poo has appeared briefly in several episodes, forming a long story arc unfolding over many seasons.

You can follow the saga of the turd in the following episodes:

  • Season 1 episode 6:  “Homeland Insecurity” – Roger lays the golden turd.  Two electrical workers discover the treasure, but only Jim survives, killing his best friend for it.  He calls his fiancee only to discover her having an affair.
  • Season 2 episode 3: “Failure is not a Factory-Installed Option” – Guilt-laden Jim parks his truck on train tracks, killing himself.  The investigating cop on the scene finds the golden turd, and brings it home to show his wife.  He quickly regrets tampering with evidence, and decides to turn it in.  Instead, his wife puts rat poison in his tea.
  • Season 10 episode 3: “Blargsnart: A Love Story” – The cop’s wife is executed for murder. Their son, an important man with presidential ambitions, discovers the turd hidden under a floorboard in their house.
  • Season 12 episode 1: “Father’s Daze” – The man and his presidential campaign adviser fight over the turd. They are both killed and the turd is later discovered by a cleaning woman who realizes its true significance. She takes it to the Vatican where the leaders of all the world’s religions decide what to do about this prophesized “turd” of events.

  • Season 5 episode 9: “Rapture’s Delight” – In a fanciful Christmas story taking place during the future of the book of Revelations, freedom fighter Jesus returns the turd to Roger.  (“Ah, an alien.  One of my father’s side-projects”, says a trash-talking Jesus.)  Roger uses the turd to power his spaceship, in order to ultimately stop the Anti-Christ. (This episode is not quite in continuity since everyone dies in the end, but could still take place in American Dad’s future timeline as a sort of coda to the turd saga.)

The saga finally concludes in American Dad’s 300th produced episode:

AMERICAN DAD! – “300” (Season 17, episode 21)

Though it went on like the Song that Never Ends, the turd saga was wrapped up in grand style.  I’ve made the argument that American Dad is trying to keep up with Rick and Morty lately in terms of epic storylines with universal consequences.  In its own way, American Dad has caught up this year.

We mundanely begin in the Smith family kitchen.  The family have been trying for years to get on Family Feud and have finally received their application letter.  Famously, Family Feud only send you one application; no second chances.  Roger promptly destroys the application in another one of his endlessly destructive gags.   The family realizes (via flashbacks) that Roger ruins everything, and banish him from the house.

The screen transitions to the letterbox format, indicating we are about to pick up the saga of the turd.

At the Vatican, the Pope, the Dalai Lama, Beyonce, and other important religious figures discuss how to dispose of the evil golden turd.  It can only be destroyed by sending it back through the portal from which it originated — Roger’s ass.  Its power to “corrupt and twist the human mind” is the only thing preventing the world from ascending to true peace, but the leaders squabble and fight.  None of them can do it; they need a “chosen one”, a person who is immune to the turd’s power.  Fortunately, the Knights Turdlar find the chosen one and send her with the turd to Langley Falls in America.

Roger’s not home — he was evicted, remember — but he’s not hard to find.  The deed is easily done, and the turd is returned to its origin by the chosen one.  The consequences are immediate:  a bright wave of light circles the Earth.  Utopia!  World peace…and Roger’s demise!  He shatters into (wink wink) 300 pieces.

There’s a big musical number featuring Patrick Stewart’s CIA director Avery Bullock, who announces there’s no more need for the agency.  The song features blink-or-you’ll-miss-them cameos from all sorts of favourite characters from Santa Claus to Alistair Covax to The Weeknd.  But the family is bored and can’t stand utopia!  Will they selfishly try to restore Roger and end this world peace nonsense?  It’s the Smiths; of course they will!  Roger’s 300 fragments were scattered by the Knights Turdlar, hiding them in the most inaccessible places on Earth.  But Roger’s offspring, Rogu can “probably” sense all of Roger’s bits hidden all over the world.

The story comes full circle when they track down the final and most important piece (the butthole) to Family Feud’s own Steve Harvey.  The TV show host isn’t giving it up…not without a Feud!  But an unlikely Fast Money victory isn’t the end of the turd’s tale.  It always exacts a heavy toll (as the previous episodes in the saga demonstrated).  Restoring Roger and undoing utopia has bloody consequences for the Smiths.  It’s the kind of death-laden storyline that only a time travel trope can undo!  Future Roger needs Past Roger to ensure the turd is never found in the first place, and hopefully also to not get kicked out of the house!

There is one more episode left to go this season, but American Dad demonstrated some epic scale storytelling with “300”.  That required epic aspect ratios.  Most of this episode is in the standard widescreen, but goes letterboxed for the turd saga.  It even briefly goes back to full screen when we revisit the origins in season 1.  Three aspect rations, one epic episode.  What a way to end this long-running story, which was not a turd at all.

5/5 stars

…But is the saga really over?

 

 

TV REVIEW: American Dad – “Brave N00b World”

AMERICAN DAD – “Brave N00b World” (Episode 4, season 17)

Chinese ice cream can save the world.  That’s the message of this episode of American Dad.

CIA agent Stan Smith has a new assignment.  A North Korean general is expected to be in China for an Overwatch video game competition.  Stan and his team must enter the contest and progress through the rounds to assassinate the general, but first he will need his son Steve’s help playing the game and looking like a millennial.  Jackson better learn to vape if he wants to fool anyone into thinking he’s young and into Overwatch!  If the team can get some Chinese ice cream while there, so much the better.

Unfortunately for Stan and his team (and the world), his attention is split between his son and his assignment.  He wasn’t totally honest with Steve, who thinks this is more a father-son trip than a kill-a-North-Korean-general trip.  As Stan is learning, focus is key.  So how can he split his focus between assignment and son?

Since it’s Stan Smith we’re talking about, you can safely assume he screws it up and the mission goes wrong as usual.  But this time, he didn’t just screw it up Stan style.  He didn’t even stop at full Sledge Hammer.  This time, Stan goes all the to way maximum Rick and Morty, and destroys the entire world.

 

Smith misses his shot, botching the assassination.  China launches their nukes.  America retaliates.  Mutually assured destruction.

Fortunately, China saved mementos of their heritage in a culture pod, including a cone of delicious Chinese ice cream.  So America launches an eagle-headed missile adorned with truck-nuts and blaring “Kickstart My Heart”, and the culture pod is destroyed.  Before you can say “Kee-stah-ma-hah”, there is nothing left of the Earth.  Nothing but rubble, dust, and ash…and a single scoop of Chinese ice cream, floating in space, past Mars, past the asteroid belt, and into the void.

For one million years, the ice cream floats through the cosmos undisturbed until finally an alien ship happens upon it.  What an incredible taste!  They must have more.  Scans show that Earth suffered an “extinction event”.  The only way to get more ice cream is to re-create the Earth and let time do the rest.

The world has a second chance.  Will Stan do it differently this time?  Will anyone discover the truth of this new reconstructed existence?  Will Bill Nye show up at the end to throw cold water all over “Ice Cream-ulation Theory”?  You’ll have to watch to find out.

In the B-story, the entire rest of the family gets their heads stuck in the banister, which basically puts Roger, Francine, Hayley and Jeff out of action.  The best instalments are usually Roger-centric, but not this time.  Perhaps American Dad needed to catch up with Rick and Morty, or perhaps it should try harder to live up to the promise of old episodes like “Lost in Space” or the saga of the Golden Turd.  At first it appeared this episode was going to a gamer-based comedy.  Then it evolved into something more existential.  It can be stated firmly that “Brave N00b World” returns the show to a high point like the good old Mike Barker days.

5/5 stars

TV REVIEW: American Dad – “The Hand that Rocks the Rogu”

AMERICAN DAD – “The Hand that Rocks the Rogu” (Episode 20, season 14)

Ever since the debut of Rogu earlier this season, American Dad fans have eagerly anticipated his next starring appearance.  This was saved for the season finale, “The Hand that Rocks the Rogu”.  Rogu, if you recall, is Roger’s homunculus, birthed from a tumor.  He has Roger’s ability to disguise himself as anyone he desires, but also has the temperament of a small child.  He needs to be watched and cared for like a child, despite his alien nature.

It’s Rogu’s childlike nature that makes him a perfect candidate for the schemes of Steve Smith.  Steve needs money, so he can afford the curly fries in the school cafeteria instead of the boring old straight kind.  The solution:  babysitting.  Mom doesn’t think he’s ready.  Roger, however, thinks he’s up to the task.  Roger leaves Steve to take care of Rogu, while he does one of his many jobs (a female prostitute).  If Steve does well, his mom will have to admit he’s ready to babysit.

Ominously, taking care of Rogu has three rules (shades of Gremlins):

  1. No candy.
  2. No screen time.
  3. Don’t let Rogu look at the ant farm.  (He won’t chip in for it, so he shouldn’t enjoy it.)

Predictably, within minutes, Rogu’s eaten some licorice.  When he starts barfing up little balls of Rogu that turn into fully-grown Rogus, Steve knows he’s in way over his head.  One turns into three, and three turns into dozens.  It only gets worse when Klaus the goldfish tries to contain the situation by giving the Rogus a little screen time….

Season 14 produced at least three exceptionally good American Dad episodes, and two of them centered around Rogu.  The bizarre alien offspring has quirks (a love of innocent jokes for example) and abilities far different from his father Roger.  American Dad felt rejuvenated this season and Rogu was a key part of that.

If you only watch two episodes this season, make ’em Rogus.

4.5/5 stars

TV REVIEW: American Dad – “Stanny Slickers II: The Legend of Ollie’s Gold”

AMERICAN DAD – “Stanny Slickers II: The Legend of Ollie’s Gold” (Episode 15, season 3)

As we review our way through significant American Dad episodes, several outstanding musical numbers emerge.  When it comes to memorable TV tunes, there’s the Simpsons and then there’s American Dad.  A highlight of the earlier seasons was the song “Ollie North”, sung for one of Stan Smith’s heroes, the scandal-ridden Colonel Oliver North.  Done in an after-school-special style, the song is meant to educate!

As a kid I remember a summer of waiting through Oliver North hearings just to watch an episode of The Transformers.

Stan’s tune succinctly summed up the entire scandal.

In the 80s there was Cold War drama,
We fought the Commies inside Nicaragua,
Our friends were the Contras, Freedom was their mantra,
So we sent them lots of money for guns, and landmines.

But Congress stopped the Contra money flow,
Just ’cause they moved a teeny bit of blow.
But then a hero came forth, His name was Oliver North,
He and Reagan went around the sissy Congress.

OLLIE NORTH! OLLIE NORTH!

(Spoken) You see, North secretly sold missiles to a harmless country called Iran who would always be a grateful ally. Then he gave the profits to the Contras. Genius!

But the sales were uncovered by the press,
Reagan and North began to stress,
‘Cause what they did was technically high treason! (But it was totally justified.)

North volunteered to take the blame,
To save Reagan from prison rape shame,
The truth he did bury with his hot secretary,
Thanks to her shredder, he got off totally scot-free!

OLLIE NORTH! OLLIE NORTH!

He’s a soldier!
And a hero!
And a novelist!
And now he’s on Fox News!

But that’s not the story here.  Working for the CIA, Stan Smith has access to information.  He knows that North had a secret cache of gold, and he buried it somewhere on his property. The very house that the Smiths live in today! Ollie North’s gold has long been an obsession for Stan.  He named his first child “Hayley Dreamsmasher” because having kids meant giving up his quest for the gold.  Now, Stan thinks he has decoded secret messages left by North. When Stan begins actively pursuing Ollie’s gold again, the family grows concerned. Then a giant pit mine is dug in their living room.

In a separate storyline, Roger the alien tries to prove that he is sexually harassable.  So he invents two new characters (Laura Vanderbooben and Luke Fondleberg) to make that happen.

Will Stan find Ollie’s gold?  Will Roger win a cash settlement?  It doesn’t matter because that Ollie North song is so damn catchy!

5/5 stars

TV REVIEW: American Dad – “Jeff and the Dank Ass Weed Factory” (featuring Snoop Dogg)

AMERICAN DAD – “Jeff and the Dank Ass Weed Factory” (Episode 5, season 14)

With a title like “Jeff and the Dank Ass Weed Factory” , you should know what to expect automatically.  That’s right — this time, American Dad spoofed the Roald Dahl children’s classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and made it totally not for children!

Tommie Tokes (Snoop Dogg) has opened his weed factory to the pubic for the first time!  All you (and a guest) have to do is discover a golden blunt wrap, only four in the world!  But the C.I.A. want in as well.  Director Bullock needs to get his hands on the “Everlasting Edible” in the never-ending war on drugs. Stan Smith is dispatched, the perfect agent for the job.  Stan is notoriously anti-drug.

“Why did the pothead cross the road?  He doesn’t remember!”

Meanwhile his stoner son-in-law Jeff is down in the dumps because Stan considers him a lazy and stupid pothead.  He’d sure like to find one of the golden wraps and take a tour of the fabulous weed factory.  Stores are sold out everywhere, and one by one, the news announces the names of the winners.  First is “Pube Face”, then Larry the Steely Dan fan, and Angie who smokes before every meal.

Jeff almost lights and smokes his own golden blunt wrap before the family stops him!  He is the fourth winner!  And the perfect pawn that Stan needs to get inside the factory and steal the Everlasting Edible.

At the gates of the weed factory, Tommie Tokes suddenly appears!  It’s basically Snoop Dogg dressed as Gene Wilder, because let’s face it, if you needed someone to play a character named Tommie Tokes, Snoop is already that character in real life.  First room on the tour:  the edibles!  As in the original source material, one by one the winners are eliminated.  Pube Face thinks a normal office desk and stapler are edibles, and dies.  And like in the source material, little colourful dwarves appear to sing whenever someone dies.  It’s the Snoopa Loompas!  “Don’t be dumb, and use your eyes, you can’t make weed into office supplies.”

Into the next room, Tommie Tokes unveils a machine that can scan your mind and produce your own personal ideal strain of weed.  Angie wants to try it, but Tommie noticed that Stan didn’t eat anything in the edibles room.  He orders Stan into the scanner.  “If you don’t, I’m gonna think you a Narc.”  Not wanting to blow his cover, Stan is scanned.  His ideal strain?  “C-High-A”.  Angie, however, is not so lucky and gets zapped when she rushes in before the scanner is recharged.  Finally Larry the Steely Dan fan has his face blown off by Tokes’ insane sound system.  Larry, at least, died how he wanted.  But Jeff and Stan have wandered off on their own…one of them with ulterior motives!

“Why did I even have this dumb factory tour?” asks Tokes.  “I had very little to gain from a business perspective!”

Will Stan steal the Everlasting Edible, or will he get too stoned first?

There was no B-story this time, so not much Roger or anyone else.  The best episodes usually involve Roger and his personas.  “The Dank Ass Weed Factory” isn’t a top ten or top twenty episode, but Snoop fans or connoisseurs of weed humour need to check it out.

3.5/5 stars

TV REVIEW: American Dad – “Rabbit Ears”

AMERICAN DAD – “Rabbit Ears” (Episode 4, season 14)

It has been an exciting week for American Dad fans, as they devoured one of the weirdest episodes of the entire series, “Rabbit Ears”.  This is a series that did an entire episode in the form of a stage play.  Another was styled like an indi film and featured Zooey Dechanel as an overtly stated “manic pixie dream girl”.  This time, American Dad took off for The Outer Limits and ended up in the Twilight Zone.

There is no hint of the episode’s bizarre setting in the standard opening.  Stan, always up to something stupid, goes garbage picking on “big items” week, when people throw out large appliances.  He brings home a mattress infested with bed bugs and a giant, ancient television.  The Smith family are not amused, especially when Roger steals their attention as his latest persona:  a non-verbal newborn baby.  Then it gets weirder.

Sequestered in the basement with his mattress and television set, Stan sets up the antenna and gets nothing but static.  Then suddenly, Stan is woken from his slumber by the sweet sound of jazz, as a show finally comes in: “Nighthawks Hideaway”.

“Nighthawks Hideaway” intro with Alistair Covax

“Weclome Nighthawks, we’ve been expecting you.  The hour is late but the party is just getting started.  I’m Alistair Covax, your host for a sophistical little soirée with jazz, stimulating conversation, beautiful ladies…and more jazz.”

“What IS this show?” asks Stan.  It’s in black and white and clearly from the 1960s.

“Charlie, play some of those notes you know I like,” says Alistair to the jazz pianist.

Nothing on Google.  No record of the host Alistair Covax (Star Trek‘s Chris Pine) either.  Even TV Guide magazine says the show does never existed…but they know of a support group for people who claim to have seen Nighthawks Hideaway!  A show that does not exist…but multiple people have seen it.  Shades of Shazam/Kazaam!

Investigating the support group, Stan finds only one other attendee:  neighbour Al Tuttle (Richard Kind).

“There used to be more people, but one by one, they stopped coming,” explains Tuttle.

But what about the show?  “There’s only one episode!  And it re-runs over and over and over on channel 36!”

It’s even stranger than that.  “There’s only one episode…but it changes!  Little…differences in the show!  I keep track of them!”

That night, Stan notices something different on Nighthawks Hideaway.  Tuttle is in the show!  Not believeing his eyes, he knows further investigation is required.  Tuttle’s house is empty, but Stan finds his TV and notebook.  Here, Tuttle tracked differences from night to night.  The last page has the ominous note “I MUST GO IN.”

Stan studies the book and tracks the changes, night after night, in the basement on the old TV and finally discovers what happened to Al Tuttle.  And that’s when things get really Twilight Zone, and to go further would get into spoiler territory.

This episode “Rabbit Ears” was a truly fresh spin on a classic science fiction / horror theme.  Perhaps this style of storytelling is coming back into vogue.  There is a rebooted Twilight Zone now, hosted by Jordan Peele.  Regardless of trends, American Dad are still the masters of a specific type of surreal animated comedy.  The show is its own genre now, and “Rabbit Ears” is a clear indicator that its potential remains wide open.  Keep ’em coming.

5/5 stars

 

 

VHS Archives #72: The Best of Don Williams (1985)

Do you love TV ads for old records? Do you enjoy country crooners? Check out this TV spot for The Best of Don Williams!  (“The gentle giant!”)  In stores now!

 

The video tape is actually my dad’s.  The Don Williams ad was recorded when he was taping The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) starring Errol Flynn.  (Also on this tape:  Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935) and Last of the Mohicans (1936).)  Finding the Don Williams ad was pure chance.  The reason I have this VHS tape is very special.  When my Grampa Ladano died, we found an old 8mm film in his house.  We converted it to VHS around 1984, at a video store in Stanley Park Mall.  It’s an old film from 1946 and it has my dad, grandfather and grandmother on it.  I never met my grandmother – she died when my dad was a little boy.  So the video tape itself is very special and now my Grampa is digital forever.

TV REVIEW: American Dad – “Persona Assistant”

AMERICAN DAD – “Persona Assistant” (Episode 16, season 13)

For fans of Roger the alien, the13th season of American Dad really delivered this time.  It was a special episode:  #250 of the long-running animated series.  The best episodes usually focus on Roger and his many personas.  This instalment was one of them.

We get a glimpse of Roger’s daily life.  He’s busy for an alien.  He has so many personas to live, and only 24 hours in a day.  The workload must be getting to him.  He’s feeling sickly and has a strange lump growing on his ample forehead.

Roger is resistant but the Smith family take him to see Dr. Kalgary, the show’s resident master of the dark sciences.  Kalgary removes the lump, a large tumour, and Roger is sent for rest and rehabilitation.  Taking a jar with his tumour sealed inside, Roger goes on vacation.  So who will handle all his personas while he’s away?

Stan steps up for the recovering Roger, only to find that living the lives of his all personas is hard work!  Of course he mucks it all up.  To his shock, Roger’s personas were so important that their absences causes the city to descend into chaos and anarchy.  When Roger finally returns, he is not alone.  It turns out that his species have a way of handling stress.  That tumour was not a tumour at all, but a little homunculus named Rogu!*  With Rogu’s help, Roger can fix the damage that Stan has done.  But not before the return of one of American Dad’s most requested personas:  Ricky Spanish!  The most hated man in town!  Only Rogu can stop him.

When I saw Rogu, I had tears in my eyes from laughing so hard.  The same thing happened the next day when I watched again.  For whatever reason, Rogu has tickled my funnybone in a serious way.  Roger has, over time, become almost a normal character.  There’s little he can do that surprises you anymore.  Rogu?  That’s a whole new ballgame.  The show can get even weirder now.  (Rogu is absolutely certain to return, considering an upcoming episode is called “The Hand that Rocks the Rogu“.)

In the second storyline, Steve’s joined the jazz club at school.  Playing on the old stereotype of drugged out jazzbos, Steve takes performance enhancing drugs to take his scat singing to the next level!  The finals are coming, and Steve brings his scatting to the extreme.  Only morphine can stop him.

Fuck yeah, American Dad.  I thought maybe the best years were behind.  Apparently not.  Carry on!

5/5 Rogus

 

* Not “Grogu”