At first glance, Seth MacFarlane’s American Dad looks a carbon copy of his other show Family Guy, what with the same animation team, the same disjointed family dynamics, the same in-your-face presentation of the father, Stan Smith, and the relationship between Roger the Alien and Klaus the Fish working in much the same way as Stewie and Brian Griffin. So yes, in many ways Family Guy and American Dad are similar, you might even argue that it’s Family Guy in fancy dress, but I believe that American Dad will eventually reveal itself as a superior cartoon to its predecessor.
Sure, the humour is once again a mixture of insightful witticisms, biting satire and odd bursts into toilet humour but, rather than the chaos of Family Guy where the plot seems to revolve around the jokes, here the opposite is true. The flashbacks are almost totally absent and instead each episode features a structure and character development that is normally missing from the first show. Okay some of the episodes fall a bit flat but nevertheless, there are considerably more hits than there are misses, and when it’s good, it’s brilliant.
What’s more, American Dad is considerably more politically-orientated, and concerns everything you could conceive about the USA’s current state of fear mongering and distrust, placing it beneath a microscope and parodying it mercilessly. Stan Smith is a coarse depiction of all that paranoia rolled into one and some of his outbursts and overreactions are hilarious.
Only time will tell if American Dad can outlive the shadow of its far more successful big brother, but like the relationship between Futurama and The Simpsons beforehand, it’s often a far funnier and considerably more focused show that deserves a wider audience.
With nearly eight full seasons under its belt, American Dad will keep you laughing until Family Guy is a hazy distant memory of the past.