The American Dad After School Special
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| “The American Dad After School Special” | |
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| American Dad! episode | |
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| Episode no. | Season 2 Episode 2 |
| Written by | Dan Vebber |
| Directed by | Pam Cooke |
| Production no. | 2AJN05 |
| Original airdate | September 17, 2006 |
| Newspaper Headline | "Jewish Gynecologist develops Pap Schmear" |
| Season 2 episodes | |
| American Dad - Season 2 September 10, 2006 – May 20, 2007 |
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| ← Season 1 | Season 3 → |
| List of American Dad! episodes | |
"The American Dad After School Special" is the second episode of the second season of the animated series American Dad!, which aired on September 17, 2006 on FOX. It aired on September 22 , 2006 in the U.l and had 2.95 million viewers , making it 1st in its timeslot and 31st for the week.
[edit] Plot
In this episode, Steve, while attempting to escape from gym class, finds a hideout used by a gothic, plus-size girl named Debbie whom he finds fascinating, and develops a crush on. When Steve tells Stan the latter, he is delighted, and helps Steve to build up the courage to ask her out by using a collar that will kill him within twenty-four hours if he doesn't. However, Stan messes up the device to kill him in twenty-four minutes. Eventually, Steve asks her out, but when Stan sees Debbie for the first time, he's appalled by the fact that she's fat. Francine and Hayley berate him for this, pointing out that he himself is somewhat overweight (though his suit hides it). When Stan realizes they're right, he goes on a crazy exercise program, and gains an unhealthy obsession with his weight. He even gets a verbally abusive personal trainer named Zack.
Steve dates Debbie, not realizing that Roger is in love with her and is watching them when the two are kissing. Meanwhile, Stan is surprised that the more he exercises and the less he eats, the fatter and fatter he gets, and suspects that Francine and Haley are tampering with his vegetables to make him fatter; which turns out to be true. He eventually is suspended from the CIA for his "weight problem" when he passes out during a physical after only taking two steps. What he doesn't realize about his "weight problem" is that he's actually become horrendously thin---his anorexia has developed to the point he sees himself as getting fatter and fatter, though he's actually become a walking skeleton, as well as hallucinating Zack. (Francine and Hayley's tampering with his food was an unsuccessful attempt to stop it.)
The Smith family forces Stan into an anorexia support group (where he's mistaken for an anorexic teenage girl), and while he seems to be eating more, he has actually learned from a girl in the group how to fake eating without actually doing it; and Steve, for his part in helping his father, dumps Debbie, feeling she is the source of Stan's problem. Stan then tries to set Steve up with the anorexic girl, Veronica, he has befriended; and, coincidentally, Roger tricks Debbie to meeting him at the same restaurant at the same time (luring her there by pretending to be part of an Anne Rice fan club), but Debbie doesn't buy it. When Francine and Hayley bust into the restaurant to confront Stan, having found out that Stan is cheating on his diet, Steve becomes very upset, saying that he dumped Debbie, the "best thing that ever happened to [him]", for him. She hears this and they get back together, as Stan overcomes his anorexia, with Zack fading into oblivion as Stan takes a bite out of food.
[edit] Cultural references
- Roger is hiding among the toy bears like ET.
- The collar which will detonate if Steve fails to ask the girl out within twenty four minutes is a reference to Battle Royale, where the children wore collars that would detonate if they failed to kill each other within a certain time frame.
- Roger was on a date with Debbie, while claiming to be Lestat from "Interview with a Vampire" - dressed in 18th century apparel, and speaking with a French accent.
- Steve mentions when he is breaking up with Debbie over the phone, it is not because of Stan. Steve says the Ghostbusters' box set is out and the new Doom game is coming out (despite the absence of real-world news of another Doom installment).
- Francine's discovery of the pool full of food is played in a way that parallels the movie "Poltergeist", where the female protagonist finds herself into the hole dug for the pool filled with rain-water and bodies and coffins start popping out. Francine even repeats -more or less- one of phrases of that movie, saying that Stan had been "just moving" the food. In Poltergeist, the father says the same to the architect of the house, blaming him for "just moving" the tombstones but not the bodies from the site where their house was constructed.
- Steve's exclamation of "Good news, everyone!" is well-known for being the catch phrase of Professor Hubert Farnsworth of Futurama, another hit ex-Fox show.
- Hayley mentions that "large" women support the economy by buying Garfield books and Häagen-Dazs.
- The song that Stan does his workout to is "Lets Hear It For The Boy" by Deniece Williams.
- On the DVD, Stan hides food in his pants and drops them like the prisoners in The Great Escape, or The Shawshank Redemption.
- The coach and student who chase after Steve at the start of the episode are the ones who Steve delievers a pizza to in "It's Good To Be Queen"
| Preceded by “Camp Refoogee” |
American Dad! episodes | Followed by “Failure is not a Factory-Installed Option” |
