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  • Accidentally-Correct Writing:
    • An episode says that George Washington Carver didn't invent peanut butter and that the US government had credited him with the discovery in order to help ease race relations after the The American Civil War. In reality, George Washington Carver actually did not invent peanut butter. Peanut butter actually dates back to the Aztecs and Incas, and the first patent was issued to Marcellus Gilmore Edson in 1884. Carver did invent a lot of peanut products, but his main accomplishment was his environmentalist efforts and creating various techniques to prevent soil depletion.
    • The episode "Spelling Bee My Baby" has Steve and Akiko compete in a spelling bee, only for neither of them to want to win so they keep deliberately misspelling words. By the end Akiko is asked to spell "a" and replies with "seven". While a joke, the numeral 7 is actually sometimes used as a letter to represent the glottal stop, a sound made by closing off the very backmost part of your mouth and can be found before syllables that start with a vowel (though almost nobody is aware they're doing it). Thus, Akiko technically spelled the first part of the word correctly.
  • Acting for Two:
    • Seth MacFarlane voices Stan (along with his body double Bill), Roger, and Greg.
    • Rachael MacFarlane voices Hayley and many incidental and one-shot female characters.
    • Dee Bradley Baker voices Klaus and Rogu, in addition to many incidental minor characters.
    • Nicole Shabtai voices Esther Lonstein and Danuta, being The Other Darrin for both in later seasons.
  • Actor-Inspired Element: There are several episodes where Steve will start singing, sometimes for little reason. In addition to voice acting, Scott Grimes is a professional singer.
  • Adored by the Network:
  • Approval of God: Scott Grimes and Dee Bradley Baker's cover of "Dessert" in the episode "West to Mexico" has been praised by Dawin himself. The singer has left a comment in the clip uploaded on TBS' youtube channel, calling it "the best version" of the song.
  • Awesome, Dear Boy: Avery Bullock is a perverse Cloud Cuckoolander because the writers, all TNG fans, know Patrick Stewart is game for anything and they want to hear ridiculous lines being read out in Jean-Luc Picard's voice.
  • Banned Episode: For a while, it appeared as though Adult Swim refused to rerun "The Mural of the Story" due to the excessively gory face surgery scene (though TBS reran it no problem and it is available on streaming and OnDemand services and despite the fact that Adult Swim had aired series that are much more violent than this). As of 2019, the episode has been reinstated.
  • Banned in China: In France, some episodes were never aired on TV, notably "Pulling Double Booty", "For Whom the Sleigh Bell Tolls" and "School Lies", possibly because the country inexplicably wants to air the show on Sunday morning and the subject matter (which includes incest, drug abuse, and bloody violence) isn't what you would call "appropriate" for that timeslot.
  • Channel Hop: Because of low ratings and Fox's plans to revamp their Sunday night line-up with live-action shows (which eventually failed and later went back to more animated family sitcoms, as seen with its inclusion of Bless the Harts and Duncanville), American Dad moved to TBS in late 2014. Initially, it was going to end its run there by airing a handful of episodes that Fox never did, but was eventually renewed for several additional seasons.
  • Creative Differences: It's believed that this is the reason why Mike Barker left the show shortly after production started on the first TBS season.
  • The Danza: Hayley's on-and-off boyfriend (now husband), Jeff Fischer, voiced by Jeff Fischer. His voice actor even looks like a real-life version of Jeff, making him an Ink-Suit Actor.
  • Descended Creator: Nicole Shabtai (the voice for Mrs. Lonsteinnote  since "Santa, Schmanta" as well as Danuta since "Shark?!") wrote "Mean Francine"note  and "I Am the Jeans: The Gina Lavetti Story"note .
  • Distanced from Current Events:
    • The premiere airing of "Pulling Double Booty" has its ending, in which Hayley flies into an Unstoppable Rage and starts a forest fire, removed due to a series of wildfires that were ravaging Southern California at the time, which led to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declaring a state of emergency.
    • Since 2015, Adult Swim rarely, if ever, reruns "Hurricane!" (the third part of the Seth MacFarlane animated trio crossover where the Brown-Tubbses from The Cleveland Show, the Griffins from Family Guy, and the Smiths from this show all try to weather a hurricane) during the active months of the Atlantic hurricane season, as the episode takes place inside of the storm.
    • In 2020, Adult Swim pulled "Threat Levels" from their rerun rotation, whose beginning is about Stan accidentally bringing home a deadly virus causing the CIA to put the entire family on quarantine (then letting them go when it's discovered the virus wasn't deadly), in the wake of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. However, the episode is still shown on TBS and available on DVD, OnDemand (on TBS), and streaming services. By the end of the year, "Threat Levels" returned to the Adult Swim rerun rotation.
  • Fan Community Nickname: American Dad! fans often refer to themselves as "Dadders".
  • Incestuous Casting: Hayley dates Stan's body double Bill. They are of course voiced by Seth and Rachael MacFarlane, who are siblings.
  • Inspiration for the Work: Seth MacFarlane came up with the series when he and fellow Family Guy writer Mike Barker were frustrated following the results of the 2000 election and, rather than complain on end, vented their feelings into something funny. Ironically, the show actually moved away from political humor as time went on.
  • Marathon Running: To celebrate the series' 15th anniversary, TBS did a marathon in April 2020, featuring fifteen creator favorite episodes.
  • The Other Darrin:
    • Reginald Koala's voice for his first two appearances in "Family Affair" and "Wife Insurance" was done by Donald Fullilove of Back to the Future fame. Starting with "The Return of the Bling" and ending at "Gorillas in the Mist"note , Erik Durbin (who writes for the show) voices him.
    • Lisa Silver, a minor character who mostly appears as a background character, was initially voice by Carmen Electra in the pilot episode before being replaced by Elizabeth Banks, who voice her from 1600 Candles onwards.
    • Duper was voiced by Phil Lewis in most of his appearances. Dee Bradley Baker voices him in "The Kidney Stays in the Picture."
    • Akiko (Toshi's sister) was voiced by Grey Delisle until "Best Little Horror House in Langley Falls", where she was replaced by Grace Park.
    • Coach Keegan was voiced by Dee Bradley Baker in "The Wrestler" and "Naked to the Limit, One More Time". But in "Introducing the Naughty Stewardesses", he's voiced by Kyle Chandler.
    • Nicholas Dawson (Francine's birth father) was voiced by Jeff Perry in "Big Trouble in Little Langley". In "Family Plan", he's voiced by an unknown voice actor.
    • For his first three appearances, Turlington the detective was voiced by Forest Whitaker. When he reappeared in Season 14's "My Purity Ball and Chain" (which was more than 9 years since his last speaking appearance in Season 4's "Live and Let Fry"), he was voiced by Corey Robinson.
    • In "Faking Bad", Hayley's friend Danuta was voiced by Anne Gregory. When she reappeared in "Shark?!", she was voiced by show writer Nicole Shabtai.
    • Dick was voiced by Stephen Root until "Four Little Words". David Koechner took over the role beginning with "Office Spaceman".
  • Out of Holiday Episode:
    • Parodied in the episode "Gift Me Liberty", aired on June 13, 2016. It begins much like a Christmas Episode but the rest of the episode takes place after Christmas and ends during Christmas again. Lampshaded by Roger when he breaks the fourth wall at the end:
      Roger: Merry Christmas from our family to yours! Wait a minute, is this our Christmas episode? What month is this?
    • The Season 14 premiere, "Father's Daze", is treated as a Father's Day episode but the episode aired on November 7, 2016. Within the episode, Stan keeps erasing his family's memories every day until they give him the perfect Father's Day and he's been doing this for six months.
      Stan: You know what, guys, this is easily one of my favorite Father's Days. And Christmases. Did you guys know it was Christmas?
    • [adult swim] and TBS almost never skip the holiday episodes in their rerun rotations meaning you can see them even when the holiday is nowhere close to the airing.
  • Playing Against Type
    • The entire joke of Avery Bullock's character is hearing some of the most bizarre, juvenile things coming out of Patrick Stewart's voice.note 
    • Inversely, while Principal Lewis is prone to saying plenty of outlandish things, he's an otherwise level-headed Reasonable Authority Figure, a far cry from Kevin Michael Richardson's typical hammy or villainous roles. If anything, he's closer to the Deadpan Snarker characters like Rosie Roosevelt or Maurice that he'd later be known for.
    • David Koechner, known for playing jerks and scumbags, as Dick, the office Butt-Monkey.
  • Production Lead Time: This is the reason for the series shift from topical political satire and more to an over-the-top apolitical Farce. The show runners stated it could take an episode up to two years from being written to being broadcast, hence why the show needs to be written in a more timeless manner.
    • The showrunners cited a joke made early on in the show's run about White House counsel Harriet Miers that was so outdated by the time it actually aired that they forgot who she was and had to look it up online.
    • The B-Plot of "Stan Fixes a Shingle" has Hayley, Jeff and Roger go on a quest to return Gallagher's mallet before his next show. Gallagher died on November 11, 2022, whereas the episode aired on May 22, 2023. He would have been alive during most of the episode's production period and his death likely occurred too late in production to change it. Though this is possibly lampshaded within the episode itself when one of the characters asks "Isn't Gallagher dead?" and at the end of the episode Gallagher is killed when Jeff runs him over.
  • Real-Life Relative: Hayley is voiced by Seth MacFarlane's sister Rachael.
  • Recycled Script:
    • The overall plot for Season 14's "My Purity Ball and Chain" is the exact same one from Season 1's "A Smith in the Hand" (Stan being afraid to give Steve "the talk", despite already giving it to him in the aforementioned), but also rips off "Cleveland Jr. Cherry Bomb" from The Cleveland Show.
    • The episode "No Weddings and a Funeral" follows the exact same premise as the Family Guy episode "Seahorse Seashell Party": The Butt-Monkey grows tired from the constant mistreatment and lashes out at the rest of the cast, but realizes that the family is unable to function without a lightning rod to vent out their frustrations and ultimately decides to accept the abuse in order to keep the household from falling apart.
  • Same Voice Their Entire Life: Whenever there's a flashback to Stan's childhood, the character is still voiced by Seth MacFarlane, albeit in a falsetto voice.
  • Schedule Slip:
    • "The Magnificent Steven" was originally scheduled for April 22, 2007. However, six days prior, the shootings at Virginia Tech happened, and the episode was delayed until May 13.
    • "The Vacation Goo" was scheduled for April 29, 2007, but was replaced with "When a Stan Loves a Woman". This was due to a scene where the family walks into the living room (after being tricked into taking a virtual reality trip in the vacation goo) to find Stan watching a Georgetown game on TV and wearing Georgetown gear. According to the DVD commentary, Stan was originally going to wear Virginia Tech gear and be a Virginia Tech fan, but then the aforementioned Virginia Tech shootings happened, so they had to change it to a less controversial school at the time. The former ultimately premiered on September 30.
    • "Hurricane!" was originally supposed to air on May 1, 2011. However, it along with the other two episodes in the "Night of the Hurricane!" event were pulled in light of the 2011 super outbreak of tornadoes that occurred in the southern US between April 25th and the 28th. The episode (along with the other two episodes in the "Night of the Hurricane!" event from The Cleveland Show and Family Guy) ultimately premiered five months and a day later on October 2nd.
    • The Christmas episode "Minstrel Krampus" that was scheduled to air on December 16th, 2012 was pulled following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. It would be almost a year later before it finally premiered on December 15th, 2013.
    • The final two episodes of Season 15, "Downtown" and "Cheek to Cheek: A Stripper's Story", were originally scheduled for September 2 and 9, 2019 respectively. However, those episodes were moved to season 16 (though on Wikipedia, they're listed as the last two episodes of season 15, not season 16 episodes).
    • "Roger Needs Dick" was supposed to air on June 1, 2020, but was replaced with "One Fish, Two Fish"note . However, "Roger Needs Dick" was released on OnDemand on June 2, and ended up airing two months later on August 3.
    • "Plot Heavy" was originally scheduled for July 5, 2021, but was replaced with "Lumberjerk" at the last minute. However, the former was released on OnDemand on July 6th, and ended up airing one month later on August 2nd.
  • Screwed by the Network: When Bob's Burgers became a hit, Fox started to focus more on that show (and, of course, their long-running mainstays The Simpsons and Family Guy) and less on American Dad, which eventually led to it being canceled on FOX and revived on TBS.
    • After reruns of its sister series Family Guy left the network, TBS no longer reruns American Dad! on a regular basis, usually only airing it on early weekend mornings or in random late night slots after sports.
    • In 2022, Warner Bros. Discovery tried to cancel the show by trying to reverse a renewal decision that happened a year earlier, fortunately they were unable to.
  • Troubled Production: The writers had trouble coming up with an ending for Season 3's "Dope & Faith" and only came up with the ending where Stan's new atheist friend becomes a Satanist out of desperation for better ideas.
  • Un-Canceled: The show ended its run on Fox due to low ratings, inconsistent scheduling, and plans to revamp the Sunday night line-up. TBS picked up the show and started airing new episodes in fall of 2014, making this the second Seth MacFarlane show to get canceled and revived (after Family Guy), and the second animated series after Futurama to get canceled by Fox and revived on another network (Family Guy does air in reruns on cable, first on Adult Swim and TBS, and now on FXX and Freeform, but it's still on Fox).
  • What Could Have Been: Has its own page.
  • Working Title:
    • "Shipley's Believe It or Not"note  became "Dope & Faith". Press releases have also given the title as "Hogwarts".
    • "Dementor"note became "The Full Cognitive Redaction of Avery Bullock by the Coward Stan Smith"
    • "The Legend of Zelda Rubinstein"note  became "Poltergasm"
    • "Piece of Cake" became "Independent Movie"note 
    • "Personas Gone Matta"note  became "Persona Assistant"
    • "Twindecent Proposal"note became "Twininagans"

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