History AmericanDad / TropesAToE

** In "One Fish, Two Fish", in order to help Klaus get his U.S. citizenship , Harley decides to have a CitizenshipMarriage with him while transferring her mind into a goldfish body to make it more legit. While in the same fish bowl together, Harley asks Klaus a fish question: "I was napping in the treasure chest yesterday and all of these little pellets fell out of me. Is that normal?" Klaus immediately realized that Haley unknowingly laid eggs because he was milting inside the treasure chest and opened the chest to reveal baby fishes coming out of it.

** In "One Fish, Two Fish", in order to help Klaus get his U.S. citizenship , Harley decides to have a CitizenshipMarriage with him while transferring her mind into a goldfish body to make it more legit. While in the same fish bowl together, Harley asks Klaus a fish question: "I was napping in the treasure chest yesterday and all of these little pellets fell out of me. Is that normal?" Klaus immediately realized that Haley unknowingly laid eggs because [[ADateWithRosiePalms he was milting inside the treasure chest]] and opened the chest to reveal baby fishes coming out of it.

* ADateWithRosiePalms:
** In "A Smith in The Hand", Stan learns how to masturbate. Since he spent his entire life repressing his urges, he soon becomes addicted to it, with much of the episode's humour revolving around his attempts to conceal his habit from the rest of the family.
** After Stan and Francine appoint Roger as Steve's legal guardian (in "A Ward Show"), Roger hugs Stan and notices that he's erect. Rogers tells him to go take care of it, so Stan and Francine begin to leave the attic. Stan tells Francine that he's got it covered.
** In a deleted scene from the episode "The 42-Year-Old Virgin", after Francine immediately shuts down her ReadyForLovemaking scenario (pours out her wine, extinguishes the candles, throws on a frumpy nightgown, and throws the covers over herself) when Stan comes home and tells her he hasn't killed anyone yet, then the viewer hears a vibrator and Francine tells Stan that it's her pencil sharpener[[note]]According to DVD commentary, that scene was hard for everyone to get through, as every man during the table read blushed or was otherwise uncomfortable with the scene and Wendy Schaal, the voice behind Francine, could not read through the dialogue of Francine as she's using the vibrator without getting flustered -- not even during a Comic-Con live reading[[/note]]. The scene doesn't appear on the TV version for [[{{Bowdlerization}} obvious reasons]], but is on the DVD.

* AspectRatioSwitch: Whenever the show switches to the story arc involving Roger's golden turd, black bars appear above and below the screen to give it a cinematic widescreen feel (this was before the show switched to HD). This is played with in the final episode of the arc, in which the scene following [[spoiler:Roger originally leaving the turd and communicating with his future self]] is animated in the 4.3 ratio of the first season before wiping back to the episode's regular 16.9 ratio the next scene.

* BareYourMidriff:
** Hayley's standard outfit.
** Strangely, Snot in the beginning of the series.
** The cheerleaders at Steve's school also play this trope straight.

* ExposedToTheElements: A one-time character in an episode is [[http://americandad.wikia.com/wiki/Lacey a cheerleader]] in the appropriate [[BareYourMidriff outfit]] asking Steve why he stopped rummaging through her trash. Note how the rest of characters are dressed for winter but not her.

'''Steve:''' Well, I'm gonna be an uncle, so it's time to put away my childish things. Things such as [[Franchise/{{LEGO}} Leegos]], [[Franchise/{{Barbie}} Malibu Barbara]], [[Franchise/CareBears Affection Bears]]... plus of course there's the matter of my BoardGames. Slides and Stepstools (TabletopGame/ChutesAndLadders), Connect Three (TabletopGame/ConnectFour), Starving Starving Rhinos (TabletopGame/HungryHungryHippos), Scrapple (TabletopGame/{{Scrabble}}), Guess Whom (TabletopGame/GuessWho), Frontgammon (TabletopGame/{{Backgammon}}), Unincorporated Candy Township (TabletopGame/{{Candyland}}), etc.

'''Steve:''' Well, I'm gonna be an uncle, so it's time to put away my childish things. Things such as [[Franchise/{{LEGO}} Leegos]], [[Franchise/{{Barbie}} Malibu Barbara]], [[Franchise/CareBears Affection Bears]]... plus of course there's the matter of my board games. [[Main/BoardGames Slides and Stepstools (Chutes and Ladders), Connect Three (Connect Four), Starving Starving Rhinos (Hungry Hungry Hippos), Scrapple (Scrabble), Guess Whom (Guess Who), Frontgammon (Backgammon), Unincorporated Candy Township (Candyland)]]...

* AluminumChristmasTrees:
** While it has a seemingly fantastical name, the colossal squid Francine devotes her newly-found free time to finding is [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_squid a real-life cephalopod]].
** Stan gets into an argument with Dick as to whether turkeys can fly. Wild turkeys actually can fly for brief periods.
** Given the nature of the typical ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' Christmas episode, it's understandable that a number of fans were surprised to learn that the Christmas demon Krampus [[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/12/131217-krampus-christmas-santa-devil/ was not a creation of the show]].
** Roger's Ortolan in "In Country...Club" is a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ortolan_Bunting real bird]], and the means of preparing it is correct as well.
** "Black Mystery Month" is correct in stating that George Washington Carver did not actually invent peanut butter.
** "Shell Game" features an organization devoted to illegal egg collection - both poaching the eggs of endangered species and stealing pre-collected eggs from established collections. Which sounds absurd, but [[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/egg-society-denies-aiding-nest-thefts-an-obscure-group-named-after-a-victorian-clergyman-is-accused-1440402.html was a thing in the UK from the 50s to the 90s.]]
** "White Rice" has the titular ShowWithinAShow being cancelled and pulled off the air after just one joke. It sounds silly, but something similar (if not ''quite'' as quickly) happened in the 90's with the broadcast of ''Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos'', which was a one-off special on Creator/NineNetwork pulled off the air in the middle of its first broadcast (and replaced with a ''Series/{{Cheers}}'' re-run) after the owner of the network called and yelled at them to "Get that shit off the air!". (It's worth noting that it did get a full broadcast later on in 2008.)

%%* DinerBrawl: Stan vs. Bullock.

* TheDollEpisode: The B-story of "Stan's Food Restaurant". Steve dates a girl who owns a doll she believes to be a living person. Naturally, this [[DidNotGetTheGirl interferes with all of Steve's attempts to score with her]].

* CursedWithAwesome: Reginald being transformed into a Koala [[note]]"transformed" used loosely, as it was a brainswap, rather than a ForcefulTransformation[[/note]] made his life a million times better, as he has a high paying job, is a badass secret agent, and is freaking adorable. (As opposed to before where he was a skill-less homeless bum who would have probably starved to death) Klaus is the opposite, as he is almost completely immobile, being stuck inside a cramped little bowl 24/7.

* CursedWithAwesome: Reginald being transformed into a Koala [[note]]"transformed" used loosely, as it was a brainswap, rather than a BalefulPolymorph[[/note]] made his life a million times better, as he has a high paying job, is a badass secret agent, and is freaking adorable. (As opposed to before where he was a skill-less homeless bum who would have probably starved to death) Klaus is the opposite, as he is almost completely immobile, being stuck inside a cramped little bowl 24/7.

** The pilot episode relied heavily on ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'''s trademarked cutaway humor, which woul be dropped very quickly. Also, Stan was much more overt in his paranoia towards Hayley, such as subjecting her to a full body pat-down when she enters the house, and Roger's "clockwork" discharge of protoplasm was rarely mentioned again.

** The intro sequence was different for the first three seasons and features severe CharacterizationMarchesOn. In the original intro, Stan hugs Francine, Steve, Hayley and Roger in the kitchen, gets the newspaper in a CouchGag that was later phased out, flips over to his car and waves goodbye to his family (with Roger staying inside the house) before driving to the CIA alone with no problems and presenting the American flag. From Season 4 onwards, Stan is noticabely skinnier when he jumps out of bed, greets Hayley, Steve and Francine in the living room (Hayley puts a peace sign on his back, Steve gives him his suitcase, and Francine removes the peace sign) before Klaus throws him his keys, the flipping and waving are removed, and Roger chimes in with the theme song during Stan's drive to the CIA (with Steve's friends and Bullock also appearing in the background while Stan drives), before Stan crashes into the CIA's flagpole and salutes the American flag.

* AbsenteeActor:
** Hayley has been absent in "Flirting with Disaster", "A Ward Show", "The Wrestler", "The Full Cognitive Redaction of Avery Bullock by the Coward Stan Smith" and "Introducing the Naughty Stewardesses" for no explained reason.
** Klaus didn't appear in the episodes "G-String Circus", "The Full Cognitive Redaction of Avery Bullock by the Coward Stan Smith" and "Manhattan Magical Mystery Tour".

** Hayley uses "Punch in the face!" on [[spoiler:Klaus]] towards the end of "Da Flippity Flop".

** Stan name-drops this trope in S1 Ep04, "Francine's Flashback", when Francine, suffering from LaserGuidedAmnesia, thinks she's back in college and steals Jeff away from Hayley, resulting in this exchange.

* DoesThatSoundLikeFunToYou: In S1 Ep13, "Stan of Arabia Part 2", while in Saudi Arabia, Hayley is chased by the [[CulturePolice Saudi police of vice and virtue]] for being in public unaccompanied by a man. She's saved by a man named Kazim, who pretends to be her brother and tells her about getting stoned. Hayley thinks he's talking about [[StonersAreFunny marijuana]], resulting in this exchange.

'''Kazim:'''You would like to be buried up to your neck and have a crowd of angry men throw rocks at your head?

** In "An apocalypse to remember," Steve gets addicted to poisonous berries and has hallucinations at the end of the episode, resulting in a colorful distorted picture.

* ArtisticLicenseMilitary: Stan is a CIA operative and regularly reminds friends, neighbors, and even random people of that fact. In real life, that would be a major no-no. Real life CIA personnel aren't allowed to tell others what they do; the only people aware of what they do (besides their coworkers) is their family and even they're in the dark sometimes. This is rectified in "Permanent Record Wrecker", where Stan loses his job at the CIA. Upon telling a man who's interviewing him, and a random man in the grocery store he later works at about his former job, both are shot in the head by a sniper who apparently follows Stan around.

* EverythingsBetterWithMonkeys: A man assumes Stan's "funny story" about losing his passport involves one, since monkeys are funny.

** Hayley has been absent in "Flirting with Disaster", "A Ward Show", "The Wrestler", "The Full Congnitive Redaction of Avery Bullock by the Coward Stan Smith" and "Introducing the Naughty Stewardesses" for no explained reason.
** Klaus didn't appear in the episodes "G-String Circus", "The Full Congnitive Redaction of Avery Bullock by the Coward Stan Smith" and "Manhattan Magical Mystery Tour".