In case you did not know, American Dad! is an American animated sitcom created by Seth MacFarlane, Mike Barker, and Matt Weitzman. There’s probably a lot that you don’t know about the show, but today my aim is to change that.
Here are 28 Interesting Facts You Might Not Know About American Dad!
1. The show was first aired on the Fox Network in the USA on the 6th of February 2005.
2. As of the 16th January 2023, 19 seasons (344 episodes) of American Dad! have been broadcasted on television.
3. The first episode was aired after the Superbowl and had an estimated 15.1 million viewers (less than Family Guy had when it also premiered after a Superbowl).
4. Klaus was originally supposed to be French. His name was supposed to be Francois. When Dee Bradley Baker (the person who voices Klaus) auditioned, he admitted that his French was not very good, but he spoke German very well. The producers loved his performance enough to change the identity of the character.
5. Jeff Fischer is actually voiced by a guy named Jeff Fischer. Fischer has various credits for voicing characters on video games (like Call Of Duty: WWII) and movies (like The Angry Birds Movie 2).
6. Steve’s Friend Snot is originally based on the Character Booger from Revenge of The Nerds. He is actually voiced by the person who played Booger, Curtis Armstrong.
7. Scott Grimes, the voice of Steve, actually developed a hernia during an extended recording session for American Dad!.
8. Stan’s boss, Avery Bullock, is legitimately voiced by Sir Patrick Stewart and not a sound-alike.
9. When American Dad! switched from the Fox Network to TBS in 2014, the writers gained a little more freedom in their vulgarity.
10. The Smiths’ living room was modelled after Ray Romano’s living room in Everybody Loves Raymond.
11. The season four openings changed from different newspaper headlines, to Roger in a new disguise at the end.
12. Steve’s middle name is “Anita” and Hayle’s middle name is “Dreamsmasher”.
13. Seth MacFarlane, who voices Stan, is actually two years younger than Scott Grimes (who voices Stan’s son, Steve).
14. The Japanese pop song in season five, episode twelve, “May the Best Stan Win”, is “Monochrome Effect” by Perfume.
15. Early episodes had Roger gradually learn to use disguises to go out into the world; but in later seasons we see that he had actually been using disguises for decades before he met the Smiths.
16. The Credits of American Dad! end with a Security Guard from Fuzzy Door Productions waving and saying “Bye, have a beautiful time!”
17, The team at American Dad! works well in advance having countless episodes finished before they are ready to air. It has been estimated that anywhere from 20 to 40 episodes are left unaired and just need some last minute touch-ups before they get broadcasted.
This means that the writers have to make sure that their writing is timeless because it could air two years after it was created. At times, there will be some contemporary issues that the writers keep in because they are so funny. They just have to hope the issue is still relevant when it airs.
18. There have been many crossovers with Family Guy and The Cleveland Show.
19. Francine (Stan’s wife) is the adoptive daughter of the Chinese family, the Lings. Her real parents abandoned her to get First Class plane tickets.
20. Hayley was brainwashed by the CIA to be a sleeper agent for a father-daughter team with Stan. She turned on Stan (her handler) and shot him.
21. Roger came from Area 51, where he was rescued by Stan. He has lived in the family’s attic for four years.
22. Roger nearly died when he was too nice. His species thrive on rude comments.
23. The show was meant to be a replacement for Family Guy. Family Guy had been off the air for a few years when the Smiths were conceived, with Fox hoping it would appease the fans angry at the first show’s cancellation. Why the network chose to give someone with a failed show another chance is not known, but ultimately it didn’t matter; Family Guy returned just as American Dad! started.
24. Back in Season 9, Fox made a massive deal about American Dad‘s 150th episode, claiming it was “Lost In Space”, which sees Jeff bargain for his freedom with slavers from Roger’s species. The thing is, this is actually the 151st; the real 150th, “The Full Cognitive Redaction of Avery Bullock by the Coward Stan Smith”, aired a week earlier.
25. Roger’s voice, in pretty much every way (just listen to the end-of-sentence inflection) is an impression of Paul Lynde. Lynde is best known for playing Uncle Arthur in Bewitched.
26. American Dad! has a season misnumbering fiasco. The first season of the show was only seven episodes long, but sometimes these are lumped in with the sixteen episodes of the conventional Season 2 as one group as they were all part of one production run. This obviously throws off the numbering of other seasons when described on TV and on DVD, making it rather tricky to keep track of what episodes you have and haven’t seen. This has only been complicated by the TBS revival; the first three episodes of Season 11 aired on Fox and the rest are airing on the new channel.
27. Klaus is known to have strong emotions and is often seen having dramatic outbursts, whether it’s anger, sadness, or even joy. His over-the-top reactions add an extra layer of humor to his character.
28. Steve Smith was initially voiced by Ricky Blitt and was designed as geeky and physically gawky. Halfway through production of the first season, Scott Grimes replaced Blitt and Steve’s design was made to be more physically attractive, so he would be less comparable to Neil Goldman from Family Guy.
Well, there you have it, 28 Interesting Facts you didn’t know about American Dad! If I left out something important, feel free to comment below.
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