Dungeons and Wagons
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| American Dad! Episode |
| "Dungeons and Wagons" | |||
 |
|||
| Episode no.: | 28 | ||
| Prod. code: | 2AJN08 | ||
| Airdate: | November 12, 2006 | ||
| Writer(s): | |||
| Director: | |||
| Guest star(s): | |||
| Headline: | Dems Take House, Republicans Get Record Collection | ||
|
|||
"Dungeons and Wagons" is a second season episode of the animated series American Dad!. The title is a reference to Dungeons & Dragons.
[edit] Plot summary
Stan and Francine always go out on Fridays to same exact place and have the same routine, and Francine is bored. Francine tells Stan she's looking for excitement in their marriage, so Stan gets in the driver's seat and becomes involved in drag racing to spice things up. Francine loses a $50,000 bet on a race, and when she can't come up with the money she is kidnapped and held hostage. Stan and Roger must try to get the money to get her back. Roger decides the quickest way to their goal is to rob convenience stores, which Stan reluctantly goes along with. However, he has a change of heart at the second store and leaves the car so he can do things "his way." He goes into a phone booth, leaving his post as getaway driver and resulting in Roger getting caught and beaten by the irate store owners.
Stan later meets Francine and the kidnappers. He hands over a suitcase and opens it to reveal phone books on top of a thin layer of money. Stan realizes he opened the suitcase upside down revealing the phone books. His plan a failure, Stan simply grabs Francine and tries to escape, with the kidnappers in hot pursuit. They escape after Roger lightens the car by removing parts of it and throwing them (and finally, when there are no more car parts to throw, his beloved Rod Stewart record collection) at the cars of the kidnappers, driving them off the road. After getting away, Francine and Stan decide that they'd like something more exciting than dinner at the same restaurant every Friday night but less exciting than what they'd just been through. They decide that having sex right there on the sidewalk would fit that description, and do so.
Meanwhile, Hayley breaks up with her boyfriend, Jeff, who is emotionally crushed until he joins Steves world of online gaming. When Hayley finds out, she tries to sabotage their fun. At Klaus's suggestion, she kills Steve's amazing character (by saying his name Agathor backwards). However this crushes Steve and destroys his standing among his friends. She realizes how much it meant to him, and so she and Jeff try to resurrect Agathor. They must get an amulet that restores life. However to do so they have to fight a monster together. They kill it and then give Agathor the amulet. Steve is happy to be alive again and goes to take revenge on his friends. However one of them just says Agathor backwards again, killing Agathor again.
[edit] Cultural References
- Steve and his friends (and later, Jeff and Haley) are playing an MMORPG in the vein of Everquest or World of Warcraft. As this episode aired shortly after the South Park episode "Make Love, Not Warcraft" there are sure to be comparisons. However, as it takes approx. 9 months for a show like American Dad to be made and only a few weeks or days for South Park to be made, its most likely that this episode may have come up with the idea first.
- Haley kills the monster in the same manner that Chief Brody killed the shark in the first Jaws movie. Except for the final word, she also uses the same line he did before she fires into its mouth: "Smile, you son of a bitch."
- Steve's in-game character can be defeated by saying his name backwards, similar to the Superman character Mr. Mxyzptlk (the notable difference being that Agathor dies whenever anybody says his name backwards, while Mxyzptlk must actually be tricked into saying it himself).
- Stan finds Francine watching 2 Fast 2 Furious and concludes that she already saw the first film, as it's the only way for her to "understand the highly cerebral storyline".
- Roger references the ending of Batman Begins.
- The montage with Stan winning race after race and Francine posing on his car are based on the video for Whitesnake's single "Here I Go Again", in which Tawny Kitaen poses in the same manner. The song also plays during this sequence.
- The song that plays when Roger and Stan are in the attic is Toto's "I Won't Hold You Back".
[edit] Notes
- When not online, Steve and his friends stay in character at least part of the time and engage in LARP.
- The first act of this episode was shown at the 2006 Comic-Con during the Family Guy/American Dad panel.
| Preceded by: "Lincoln Lover" |
American Dad! Episodes | Followed by: "Iced, Iced Babies" |
