Pilot (American Dad!)

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American Dad! Episode

"Pilot"

Episode no.:

Prod. code:

1AJN01

Airdate:

February 6, 2005

Writer(s):

Seth MacFarlane, Mike Barker and Matt Weitzman

Director:

Ron Hughart

Guest star(s):

Carmen Electra

Headline:

"Democratic Party Missing:Feared Dead"

American Dad! Season 1 May 1, 2005 – May 14, 2006 List of American Dad! episodes
Episodes: Pilot Threat Levels Stan Knows Best Francine's Flashback Roger Codger Homeland Insecurity Deacon Stan, Jesus Man Bullocks to Stan A Smith In The Hand All About Steve Con Heir Stan of Arabia: Part 1 Stan of Arabia: Part 2 Stannie Get Your Gun Star Trek Not Particularly Desperate Housewife Rough Trade Finances with Wolves It's Good to Be Queen Roger 'n' Me Helping Hands With Friends Like Steve's Tears of a Clooney

"Pilot" episode of the TV animated series American Dad! was the episode that the show's creator, Seth McFarlane used to pitch his original idea to the FOX Network. As such, the official series premiere was in fact the second episode produced, "Threat Levels".

Guest voices include Carmen Electra (as Lisa Silver), Mike Henry(as Jackson), Curtis Armstrong (as Snot), Daisuke Suzuki (as Toshi), Chris Cox (as George W. Bush), Kevin Michael Richardson (as Principal Lewis), André Sogliuzzo (as Mr. Goodwin), Natasha Melnick (as Hilary), Mike Barker (as the Biology Teacher) and Jeff Fischer (as Jeff).

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

In the pilot, Steve is upset about his lack of popularity. He notices that girls seem attracted to guys with dogs, so he asks his parents for one. Stan gets Steve a 19-year-old dog, because it was alive during the Reagan administration. One night, Roger the Alien makes a noise and Stan goes downstairs, thinking it is an intruder ("Osama? Is that you?"). Stan shoots the intruder, only to find out that he just accidentally killed Steve's dog.

They bury the dog, and Stan tries to make up for it by rigging the school election so that Steve becomes the school president. Once elected, Steve uses his attribution as student body president to impress the head cheerleader. He gets drunk with power, but believes that he is succeeding, until she dumps him when he first tries to kiss her. Steve goes crazy and holds the school hostage. Stan sneaks into the school and gets Steve to stop by revealing that he was unpopular in high school as well.

On another front, the audience is introduced to Roger, an alien who saved Stan's life in Area 51. As repayment, Roger lives with the Smiths, but his presence is ignored by the CIA, Stan's employer, and the world. Since Stan fears that the CIA would erase his and Roger's memories if the alien were ever discovered, Roger is forced to live in confinement at the Smith's. Roger is also addicted to sugar, and Francine puts him on a forced diet when his weight causes him to break a chair and the dinner table. In order to get around Francine's strict control of candies in the house, Roger strikes a deal with Hayley to do her homework in exchange for her smuggling sweets to him. It works at first, but on the night before the deadline for one of Hayley's papers (on Henry Kissinger), Roger has too much sugar and passes out without doing the work. He and Hayley are able to come up with an excuse to make her teacher give her an extension on the paper's deadline (they dig up Steve's dead dog and Hayley tells the teacher that she just lost her dog). After this scare, however, Hayley decides to discontinue her agreement with Roger. The alien, noticing Steve's frustration in getting a girl, becomes his adviser for dating, in exchange for "boatloads" of candy. Roger also reveals that every seven hours an ooze shoots out of his body, "like clockwork".

[edit] Cultural references

Steve wears a Shazam! shirt.
When Stan searches his house, he calls out for Osama.
The school Steve goes to is Pearl Bailey High School.
The old algebra teacher is called Mr. Feeney. This may be a reference to the school teacher of the same name in Boy Meets World.
Roger: "We can't all look like those anorexic aliens on the James Cameron movies." Roger is referring to James Cameron's 1986 film "Aliens" or the 1989 film "The Abyss".
The Jack in the Box man is the mascot for the West-Coast based Jack in the Box restaurant chain. Ironically, there were no Jack in the Box restaurants in Virginia when this episode was aired, and as of 2006, there still are no restaurants there. Just as in some episodes of The Simpsons and Family Guy, this shows many nods to Southern California, as many of the writers are based there.

[edit] Notes

Langley Falls Post front page headline (original pilot): "TV Critics Broker Mid-East Peace Deal."
Langley Falls Post front page headline (FOX televised version): "Democratic Party Missing: Feared Dead."
The name of the Pearl Bailey High School newspaper is called the "Pearl Bailey High Bugle."
The UK airing of this episode cuts out the newspaper headline part of the opening theme.
When Klaus looks up Francine's skirt, he says he can see her "Schmutzplätzchen", which means "dirty cookie" or "dirty place" in German. "Plätzchen" is also an often used belittlement for a comfortable, cosy place.
In a cut scene to a couple in Iraq, the woman is shown wearing a full length Afghan burqa, a piece of clothing which has never been widespread in the country. In addition to this, after the man tells her to "put some clothes on" and she covers her eyes, he asks her for a beer. Drinking alcohol is prohibited in countries where the Islamic faith is practiced (and in the Islamic faith in general).
In the cutaway where God calls George W. Bush, there's a Rubik's cube on his desk with two of the center pieces on it the same color, which is impossible because only the outer pieces of a Rubik's cube can change position.
Chocodiles, the snack Francine buys for Roger, have not been sold since the 1990s on the East Coast (the Smiths live in Virginia--an East Coast state). They can currently only be found on the West Coast of the US.
Klaus' human body is shown as competing in the 1986 Winter Olympic Games. There were no Winter Olympics that year; the closest games were in 1984 in Sarajevo or 1988 in Calgary.

[edit] Changes from the online pilot

The voice of Steve was changed.
Some of the dialogue in the opening scene was different.
In the original pilot, Steve wore a red shirt with an orange lightning bolt with short blue shorts and high white socks.
Originally, the Jack in the Box Man was the Creature from the Black Lagoon.
A scene where Stan explains to Steve that, in college, he was called "The Penis" was cut (this appears as a deleted scene in the special features section of the American Dad Vol. 1 DVD).
Advertised as a "series preview" on FOX.
The original broadcast of this episode on FOX scored a 10.8/20 rating, bringing the total viewers for the episode to 15.1 million.
Adult Swim airdate: February 13, 2005.
The original broadcast of this episode on Adult Swim received a total of 743,000 viewers among adults 18-34.
A preview of the episode aired during the Super Bowl XXXIX Pregame Show. That preview was in 16:9 widescreen, while the actual episode was not.
Was originally supposed to air February 6, 2005 at 10:30 p.m. ET on FOX, but was pulled back to 11:15 p.m. ET due to the Super Bowl. It aired 15 minutes late in all other time zones as well, as the Super Bowl is a live event.
Because the episode debuted after 11 p.m. EST, it was not counted in the primetime rankings for the week.
The episode was released on a bonus DVD included with the Family Guy Volume Two Fully Loaded! set.
A preview of this episode, which includes the breakfast scene and when Stan brings home the dog, can also be found on the Family Guy Freakin' Sweet Collection DVD.